Fortec Mercury II - I LOVE IT!

[Woofle]

"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

I agree. It's going to a little 19" LCD TV in the bedroom, so I'm not so picky about image quality until there are more HDTV signals.

But -- don't want to miss some of that RTN sugar running in the middle of the night.

90 cm Fortec Star dish
0.2 dB NF Techsat Tracker II standard LNBF (all red and stuff!)
Fortec Star Mercury II
Sadoun/Digipower SG2100 motor

Soon to be 6-8' C-band dish?

 

[colbec]

Agreed. This is a very fine machine and very good value for money at $65 + shipping CDN at Transat Electronics in Toronto.

I figure there must be a hacker premium built into the price of Coolsats since the Merc II offers comparable quality from my experience so far and some additional features such as audible tone for dish peaking and set top box buttons to manage menus at half the price of a Coolsat.

I see the Merc II has a rated max power requirement of 30W compared to my Coolsat at 20W. Would this mean that the latter would be a better choice in a power critical context, say in a photoelectric powered cottage?

 

[thisBUDsforyou]

some additional features such as audible tone for dish peaking

It does? I'll have to try that. The crappy TV I have outside for dish pointing has an annoying habit of putting out a lot of white noise when turned on without a signal so the first thing I've done is turn the volume all the way down. So if you're on the antenna setup menu and have a strong transponder selected it gives you a tone as well as the signal strength and quality meters?

 

[brentb636]

Yes, but you can turn it on /off in the options menu.

 

[thisBUDsforyou]

How do you get the options menu? I like the Merc II but the manual doesn't explain a lot of things.

 

[brentb636]

MENU > Right arrow > OTHERS

 

[thisBUDsforyou]

Thanks!

 

[brentb636]

How do you get the options menu? I like the Merc II but the manual doesn't explain a lot of things.

I , too, love the Merc ( if only it had HD and 4:2:2 ) , but it's manual is no worse than any other. ALL the manuals are written by "Martians" who never used a motorized system.
Nothing to do but go exploring, and push the buttons, see what they do !