c-band upgrade

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car

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Feb 3, 2005
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Hey. Been looking for a web site for some help on upgrading c band, I have a 7.5 dish and just installed a c/ku band feed horn, and am in the process of getting a digital receiver, have a houston 5 now. Was wanting to know if a sidecar would be ok, or go ahead and buy new receiver for analog/digital would be better? I've had this system since 1993 but the outdoor channel is gone, glad to see speedchannel is back, alot of head scratching over what to do keep big dish or go small. Also having a time getting ku band in with pictures, dont have references to what is out there looking in the dark for what might not be there. Thanks
 
car said:
Hey. Been looking for a web site for some help on upgrading c band, I have a 7.5 dish and just installed a c/ku band feed horn, and am in the process of getting a digital receiver, have a houston 5 now. Was wanting to know if a sidecar would be ok, or go ahead and buy new receiver for analog/digital would be better? I've had this system since 1993 but the outdoor channel is gone, glad to see speedchannel is back, alot of head scratching over what to do keep big dish or go small. Also having a time getting ku band in with pictures, dont have references to what is out there looking in the dark for what might not be there. Thanks

I would get a 922 instead of a sidecar because the sidecar is no longer being made and the 922 is less hassle to use, I would also look around where you live and see if you can find a 10 ft. dish that is no longer being used, I have received two dishes for free because so many people just want to get rid of them. I would also get a Blind scan mpeg2 fta receiver for even more channels
and feeds.
 
car said:
Hey. Been looking for a web site for some help on upgrading c band, I have a 7.5 dish and just installed a c/ku band feed horn, and am in the process of getting a digital receiver, have a houston 5 now. Was wanting to know if a sidecar would be ok, or go ahead and buy new receiver for analog/digital would be better? I've had this system since 1993 but the outdoor channel is gone, glad to see speedchannel is back, alot of head scratching over what to do keep big dish or go small. Also having a time getting ku band in with pictures, dont have references to what is out there looking in the dark for what might not be there. Thanks

Like said here a bigger dish would be good, 7.5' is to small, 8.5' is the smallest for the 2 deg spacing, 10' is great, the 905 is good but a bit of a hassle to use, your best bet would be to grab the 922 while its on sale.

www.skyvision.com
http://www.callnps.com/
I think this guy will do the NPS deal at a lower price:
http://www.satvsys.com/

When at this site click 922 on the left and a screen will pop up and will show you the differences of all the 4ds:
http://www.bigdish.info/
 
Outdoor channel (as of the night before last) is being broadcast on c-band g-10, DVB FTA. You need to have a FTA DVB receiver to pick this up.
trans 4180
Polarity H
sym rate 29270
Video PID 5001 Audio PID 1160 (Outdoor Channel East)
Video PID 5002 Audio PID 1260 (Outdoor Channel West)
I dont know how long this will last tho, as The Outdoor Channels website says they will be going to Powervue encryption :(
 
"C" band is down to about 300,000 subscribers nationwide almost no equipment is being produced to continue support. How much money do you want to sink into a dying product? You can get free DBS systems for upto 4 rooms with similar programming costs. FTA is the only advantage left to the big dish if you enjoy hunting for the feeds.
 
boba said:
"C" band is down to about 300,000 subscribers nationwide almost no equipment is being produced to continue support. How much money do you want to sink into a dying product? You can get free DBS systems for upto 4 rooms with similar programming costs. FTA is the only advantage left to the big dish if you enjoy hunting for the feeds.

What have you been smoking? please leave your pizza dish posts in the proper forum, Pizza programming is far to pricey for me and many others, the quality is very bad on a big screen and me personally I like to watch tv when it is raining hard outside :) with big dish you have freedom of choice a la carte programming and again very high quality feeds. Oh I nearly forgot all the wildfeeds and free channels, and if a dvb is added the programming just is to much :) I paid $230.96 for the whole year of every channel I want, I got to shop around and got to save $50.00 this same programming with pizza would cost me $79 a month now you do the math...
 
i agree with you tdi, i was able to get just the subscription channels i wanted for 7.00 a month, or 84.00 a year, compare that to the 600.00 per year i spent on my pizza dish sub. plus i have a DVB FTA box, so i get more programming than i know what to do with, most of it FREE :)
 
Thanks for info. Just got off phone with pizza dish guy. Boy! Do they know what they are talking about, I sure didn't think so. All those unwanted channels for just a few that I want to watch. Only thing big about the conversation was the price of programming $$$!!! Almost, double what I pay now. Ok I got lost in what a dvb is help explain. Also WIFE says nota to bigger dish. "But Honey" didnt work, any more suggestions on how to pick up without bigger dish. Thanks again, Oh yea she did say no way to little pizza dish so there is still hope!
 
There is some programming you can pick up on dishes the size of a PrimeStar dish but it will be less programming than on the bigger dishes.
 
car said:
Thanks for info. Just got off phone with pizza dish guy. Boy! Do they know what they are talking about, I sure didn't think so. All those unwanted channels for just a few that I want to watch. Only thing big about the conversation was the price of programming $$$!!! Almost, double what I pay now. Ok I got lost in what a dvb is help explain. Also WIFE says nota to bigger dish. "But Honey" didnt work, any more suggestions on how to pick up without bigger dish. Thanks again, Oh yea she did say no way to little pizza dish so there is still hope!

Well you can use your 7.5 I no many guys that still use them, you will need to get in alined well though if you get the 4d, if you are not good at doing it yourself, I hope there is a dealer that will help, I mean grab a 4d pop it in see how it is, you should get 90% of the channels, but if there are some that are not coming in to good or have a weak quality, then maybe you can tell wifey that you can get a free dish if you look around a 10' and see what she says :) you will be happy with the 4dtv trust me :)

A dvb box is for channels that are in the clear, like C-band was a few years ago, there are many free feeds up there, and with a 4dtv and a DVB unit slaved you will have the best of both worlds. I have both and with them get many channels free that you can't get on pizza dish or you would need to pay on pizza.
 
What type of receiver's for dvb would be worth purchasing? Like mentioned in original post, have had unit since "93" and am gettin anxious to see what is out there. List of receivers, parts, lnbs,feedhorn,have been searching web pages.But would like to know what works,not wanting to go through trial@errra
 
With the new high power satellites and the 2 degree spacing find a 10 foot dish or you could have problems.
 
car said:
What type of receiver's for dvb would be worth purchasing? Like mentioned in original post, have had unit since "93" and am gettin anxious to see what is out there. List of receivers, parts, lnbs,feedhorn,have been searching web pages.But would like to know what works,not wanting to go through trial@errra

Well first off having a bud without 4dtv is like having a car without wheels you ain't going nowhere, the 922 is on sale now and it would be the best thing to get for now, a ADL or chapparel dual band feed is a must, I would go with Norsat Lnbs, like the 8515 and 4506a, a Pansat 2500a is a good low cost dvb unit to add to that. You will need to get a bigger dish though, for the c-band feeds, not saying you will not get nothing but it would be best thing to do.

Also you will need the right splitters and all to slave the dvb to a 4dtv or a olded IRD, so it would be good to tell the person who you will get it from that it will be slaved.
 
A 7.5 will work fine for C-band, I have one setup and I can get all the 4DTV channels even the HBO's and Cinemax's on G1 which most people can't get.

I have had two 7.5 footers up and even a 6 footer and all have gotten 4DTV channels just had some problems with HBO and Max on the one5 and the 6 footer which I had up before.

In some places you may have a little problems with a 7.5 that you wouldn't with a 10 footer. I use to live in Eastern Washington State and my 6 footer there worked great on Analog they didn't have 4DTV when I had it up there.

I have also seen 7.5's there that worked great. Now I live in New Mexico and my 6 footer worked great here and worked good on 95% of the 4DTV digital Channels.

I got my 7.5 footer I got up now from a Shop where they used it for holding Scrap Metal. Just smoothed out the screens and put the screen back where the metal caused holes.

So my Point here is, don't listen to everyone that says you need a 10 footer. If you got a great picture on your Analog with the HTS 5 then you should get one with a 4DTV.

I would test it on your 7.5 Footer first then if you really got problems getting a good picture on the 4DTV. Then get a bigger dish, but the ones I think you will have problems with if any will be the HBO's and MAX's.

:D
 
I also have a 7.5 foot dish and have no problems with reception. The digital channels come in great, including HBO/Cinemax. And that's with a 10+ year old LNB of which I have no idea what brand it is.

Trust me, try your dish first...it'll probably work just fine.
 
cat-5e

yes i used fresh connectors (rca plugs for audio and 4 pin din for s-video) soldered twisted pairs directly into connectors observing polarity on each pair.
worked great for me, don't know what happens in areas of high level rfi and emi, but it seemed fine.
 
4dtv on 7.5 foot dish

I have read some posts on the c-band forum regarding 4dtv with a 7.5 foot dish. there are mixed reviews from several forum users on the performance issues of 7.5 foot dishes.

I have a SAMI 7.5' dish with an asc-421 lnbf (13 degree). The dish tracks the arc very well and i get strong signals from amc-6 to amc-7. I use the dish for analog in the clear c-band and free to air dvb c-band with a fortec ultra slaved to the analog orb-7500.

I get very good performance on mpeg-2 channels and even get strong signals on Galaxy 1 although they are scrambled, the signal quality is quite strong and consistant.

I want to order hbo/cinemax from nps when i get a dsr-922. I have read these feeds are very weak and people have problems with them that do not have a 10 foot dish.

Is the strong dvb signals any comparison to what i can expect from 4dtv?
 
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