Just wanted to post my experience this weekend. The system consists of a
Patriot 85-E dish, Extreme II lnb,
Motek SG2100 motor and Traxis DBS3500.
I decided to mount it on the roof directly through the shingles to the
rafter. The mount that shipped with the dish would not work for this so
I sourced a used mount locally and used it. It is not as large as the
other so I will look to replace it soon. The only thing that gave me any
amount of confusion/ problem was the single lnb bracket that came with
the dish. I could not get it to work with the extreme II lnb. It just
did not fit correctly no matter how I rotated it. I actually spent more
time with this part than aiming the dish. I just used the multi lnb
bracket that also came with the dish and positioned it at zero.
Another small bit of confusion was with setting the polarity of the LNB.
From reading the info on the DMS website it appears to just make sure
the mark on the LNB points up. This is what I did and it seems to work
fine.
I have a small amount of experience aiming dbs dishes and one fixed KU
dish but this was my first attempt at a motorized unit. I decided to
give a go at installing with the motor rather than first trying without.
I had no problems at all and managed to find IA5 (true south) on my
first try. I was able to track the arc and receive everything from IA-6
/ 93W to IA-7 / 129w with no problems using the USALS in the antenna
setup. (there is a tree blocking the view any further to the east, thats
a future project) I am still a slight bit off, however as some off the
weaker transponders had/have low quality om G10 even after I improved it
with a small amount of tweaking. I have temporarily compensated by using
DiSEqC1.2 on G10 and storing the position after moving/ bumping two
clicks to the east. Does a single press of the button equal a full
degree movement of the motor?I now get everything on G10 with DiSEqC1.2
and all the other sats/ active TP's in my view by sticking with USALS.
The whole process of aiming a motorized dish was nowhere near as hard as
a lot of threads here would indicate. A small amount of research made it
fairly simple.
I really like the Traxis 3500 it is very easy to use and setup.
The only issue I am having with it is that the digital outputs on it seem
to only output PCM. The channels that have ac-3 output have no sound.
I have a nice HarmanKardon receiver that I am using for other components
(HDTV receiver, DVD player, etc) and I know it decodes properly. I
saw there is a newer looking firmware on the DMS site. I may try to
flash the receiver and see if it helps but the release notes for it do not
say anything ac-3 related and I don't want to chance losing the
channel list in the receiver . The only other feature I could ask for on
this receiver would be a S-Video and/or Component output, but the
picture quality is good as is.
Some of my quality readings are below. If anyone that has this receiver would
care to comment on the readings I would be thankfull for some comparisons!
I don't know if having the channels names here is ok so I left most of them off
I am at 96.66W long and 32.96N lat
IA6 TP 12076 quality 73%
G3CU 11780 67 - 71%
IA5 11966 RT 71-74 %
AMC4 11705 80-82%
AMC1 12100 60-70 % usually around 63%
AMC15 11840 test card 72%
SatMex5 12061 68-72%
G10R 11720 49- 58% constantly flucuates never lose video
G10R 11805 UWTV 77%
PAC1 11720 72%
IA7 11987 Star TV 72%
I have attached a couple of pictures hope that is within the guidelines for this post.
Patriot 85-E dish, Extreme II lnb,
Motek SG2100 motor and Traxis DBS3500.
I decided to mount it on the roof directly through the shingles to the
rafter. The mount that shipped with the dish would not work for this so
I sourced a used mount locally and used it. It is not as large as the
other so I will look to replace it soon. The only thing that gave me any
amount of confusion/ problem was the single lnb bracket that came with
the dish. I could not get it to work with the extreme II lnb. It just
did not fit correctly no matter how I rotated it. I actually spent more
time with this part than aiming the dish. I just used the multi lnb
bracket that also came with the dish and positioned it at zero.
Another small bit of confusion was with setting the polarity of the LNB.
From reading the info on the DMS website it appears to just make sure
the mark on the LNB points up. This is what I did and it seems to work
fine.
I have a small amount of experience aiming dbs dishes and one fixed KU
dish but this was my first attempt at a motorized unit. I decided to
give a go at installing with the motor rather than first trying without.
I had no problems at all and managed to find IA5 (true south) on my
first try. I was able to track the arc and receive everything from IA-6
/ 93W to IA-7 / 129w with no problems using the USALS in the antenna
setup. (there is a tree blocking the view any further to the east, thats
a future project) I am still a slight bit off, however as some off the
weaker transponders had/have low quality om G10 even after I improved it
with a small amount of tweaking. I have temporarily compensated by using
DiSEqC1.2 on G10 and storing the position after moving/ bumping two
clicks to the east. Does a single press of the button equal a full
degree movement of the motor?I now get everything on G10 with DiSEqC1.2
and all the other sats/ active TP's in my view by sticking with USALS.
The whole process of aiming a motorized dish was nowhere near as hard as
a lot of threads here would indicate. A small amount of research made it
fairly simple.
I really like the Traxis 3500 it is very easy to use and setup.
The only issue I am having with it is that the digital outputs on it seem
to only output PCM. The channels that have ac-3 output have no sound.
I have a nice HarmanKardon receiver that I am using for other components
(HDTV receiver, DVD player, etc) and I know it decodes properly. I
saw there is a newer looking firmware on the DMS site. I may try to
flash the receiver and see if it helps but the release notes for it do not
say anything ac-3 related and I don't want to chance losing the
channel list in the receiver . The only other feature I could ask for on
this receiver would be a S-Video and/or Component output, but the
picture quality is good as is.
Some of my quality readings are below. If anyone that has this receiver would
care to comment on the readings I would be thankfull for some comparisons!
I don't know if having the channels names here is ok so I left most of them off
I am at 96.66W long and 32.96N lat
IA6 TP 12076 quality 73%
G3CU 11780 67 - 71%
IA5 11966 RT 71-74 %
AMC4 11705 80-82%
AMC1 12100 60-70 % usually around 63%
AMC15 11840 test card 72%
SatMex5 12061 68-72%
G10R 11720 49- 58% constantly flucuates never lose video
G10R 11805 UWTV 77%
PAC1 11720 72%
IA7 11987 Star TV 72%
I have attached a couple of pictures hope that is within the guidelines for this post.
