Does anyone have a motorized dish?

[Richard Tyler]

I'm new to this FTA satellites.

Does anyone have a motorized satellite dish? Is this dish the solution for getting multiple FTA satellites?

How does a motorized dish work? Does a motorized dish automatically move around to pick up all the satellites for you, or do you need to first climb on the roof and manually move to each available satellite at a certain position, and then, this dish will store in memory the location of that satellite and move to it later on?

 

[Tron]

Many (if not most) here have motorized setups on at least one dish. These motors are small and their movement is controlled by the FTA reciever via a protocol called DiSEqC (Digital Satellite Equipment Control). The voltage and commands for the motor movement are sent through the same coax cable as the signal travels down from the dish. Once you install and setup your motor properly, you don't have to touch it again (unless, of course, something messes up your settings). So you don't have to keep climbing up on your roof.

The motor attaches to a standard J-pole mount or to a larger 2-3" pole. The alignment process during installation involves setting the motor at '0' (which its usually shipped set to), pointing the motor to true south (compass south minus magnetic deviation), and motoring the dish to the satellite closest to your longitude (in my case, I'm in New Orleans at 90 degrees west, so my true south satellite is 91w (Nimiq 1/3, Galaxy 11).

If your receiver has USALS (Universal Satellite Location System), setting up your motor is relatively easy. There's more to it than this, you also have to set the elevation of the motor (with the SG-2100 motor this setting can be found by your latitude, in my case 30 degrees north) and the elevation of your dish mounted on the motor (there's a table in the instructions to help you on this one).

Again, this is simplified, but basically how the DiSEqC motors work...

 

[PSB]

Here is even more info on the subject......

http://www.usals.info/inglese/home.htm

 

[Richard Tyler]

So if I get a motorized dish and a CoolSat 4000 Pro, will I get all the FTA satellites available out there and thousands of FTA channels? My friend uses his DirecTV dish, and because it only points to 1 position, he can only get 1 satellite.

 

[PSB]

YES, there are LOADS of FTA channels to be had with a motorized system with at least a 30" dish and KU LNBF!

And the neat thing about it is one RG6 cable is all thats needed from the receiver to the motor then on to the LNBF.

Maybe not thousands of FTA channels, more like HUNDREDS

 

[CharredPC]

So if I get a motorized dish and a CoolSat 4000 Pro, will I get all the FTA satellites available out there and thousands of FTA channels? My friend uses his DirecTV dish, and because it only points to 1 position, he can only get 1 satellite.

Yes! ... though which satellites/channels would be determined by your LOS (line of sight) and location. Those east-coast folks enjoy Hispasat goodness, while me over here near the west coast enjoy PAS9

Oh, and trees are evil.

 

[Tron]

Oh, and trees are evil.

...and chainsaws are our friends