Fortec Mercury II - I LOVE IT!

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iafirebuff

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Feb 10, 2006
4,394
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Waterloo, Iowa
I just got my new Mercury II hooked up and running - WOW! THis is an awesome receiver! FAST scans - great menus and a b ack up feature. WOO HOO!
 
If the Mercury II is not set to GMT (time set to transponder encoder time), the unit locks to the AC power for reference. If the standby power (front panel) is cycled, the unit resets to the nearest :00 when coming out of standby mode.

The inverter and generator will usually not provide proper reference frequency. This is why computers will often not work with inverters or generators.
 
Sounds like the known problem with 12152 H tp. The latest firmware , v1.53 , available at Fortecstar.com will clear that up. This has been reported in several threads, there's been a change on the transponder, apparently.
:)
 
I can also confirm the v1.53 firmware does NOT have any problem scanning any transponder on G25. Upgrade and the problem should clear up.

[One thing you will notice upon upgrading from 1.06 to 1.53 is that the signal quality scale has changed and will read lower than before. But this is just a cosmetic scaling change: it's just as sensitive as before. But now a Signal Quality rating of around 28 is the threshold between a usable signal and artifact city(tm). Before I think it required a reading of closer to 50, but my memory isn't too clear on the exact threshold level reported by 1.06.)

Last night I did detailed sync blind scans (6 Mhz) steps on the following birds with absolutely no problems from my Merc II:

Galaxy 27
Galaxy 10R
SatMex 5
SatMex 6 (Mexican satellite, Chinese programming!)
Anik F1R
AMC 1
AMC 4
Galaxy 25 (The Big Kahuna)
Galaxy 3C
Galaxy 26
Galaxy 28
AMC 3
AMC 5
Galaxy 17
AMC 6
Intelsat 9

Absolutely no glitches.

Picked up a total of : 301 FTA TV and 164 FTA radio channels.

I still like this receiver a lot. I wouldn't hesitate a second to buy another for a second TV set. Except now I want PVR on the next unit. Oh well :)
 
Brian, not wanting to derail the thread, but will the clock update if I leave it on UTC/GMT all the time? (Will it stay GMT without power?) I realize when I first power up again, the time will be off, but so far I only seen to get "--:--" for the time. Does it update like the VCR when it has power on but is in standby, or should it update while I am watching. (Right now I am on the road and my tripod does not yet work right so I am not getting to watch. More mods when I get back to the property.)
 
I just found a cool feature - with the Merc II you can select which satellites you want it to scan and it will go from satellite to satellite and scan each one! So, now I can tell it to scan the arc before I go to work and when I come home they will be all scanned in :)
 
Nice job. Do you use favorite lists to organize your channels?

Yes, but only incrementally rather than systematically. There's so much stuff to explore. I've found interesting music and cartoons on G25, and even though I cannot understand the language spoken, they've migrated into one of the favorites to scan for nifty video and other content. I recall catching "Law and Order" in English with Arabic subtitles, which was kind of fun to watch. :)
 
I just found a cool feature - with the Merc II you can select which satellites you want it to scan and it will go from satellite to satellite and scan each one! So, now I can tell it to scan the arc before I go to work and when I come home they will be all scanned in :)

I assume you mean "Auto Scan"?

If so, it's great. One thing that's a little disappointing on that feature. It only scans transponders that are programmed in, rather than blind-scanning for transponders.

But you can enter all the transponders. Haven't tried Fortec's channel editor, but I'm inclined to try that. :)

Or have you found another feature?
 
menu->autoscan

select the satellites youd like, then press the p.scan button. now it will move the motor to each satellite selected, then blindscan the satellite, moving onto the next when done.
 
"I still like this receiver a lot. I wouldn't hesitate a second to buy another for a second TV set. Except now I want PVR on the next unit. Oh well "

AND HD and 4:2:2 . Make a REAL wishlist for Pete's sake ! :)

Brent
 
menu->autoscan

select the satellites youd like, then press the p.scan button. now it will move the motor to each satellite selected, then blindscan the satellite, moving onto the next when done.

Thanks. Duh, I missed that. :)

I tried it and it worked. But.... it picked up scrambled channels as well as FTA. Any idea how to prevent picking up the scrambled stuff to have to delete later? With channel editor, it's not a huge deal to delete on PC, but would be even better if only FTA went into memory. :)

At any rate, that is an AWESOME feature. I did my blind scan manually, one-sat-at-a-time, over a few nights.


Thanks for pointing out how this works for power scan. :)
 
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