Larger dish

[dledeaux]

I ran across this on the yahoo groups and thought I would share here.

The dish was mentioned in a thread a few days ago. Some customers are replacing their 18" dish with the Winegard DS-2078 30" dish. The cost is $30 + $10-$15 shipping. Stark Electronics also has the 24" DS-4062 version for $29 + $12 shipping. Both can use the LNB from the VOOM dish.

http://www.spectravox.com/ds2078.html
http://www.starkelectronic.com/winp4.htm

 

[Sean Mota]

See this also,

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=9993

It looks like V* will be moving in that direction as well.

 

[K4LK]

I ran across this on the yahoo groups and thought I would share here.

The dish was mentioned in a thread a few days ago. Some customers are replacing their 18" dish with the Winegard DS-2078 30" dish. The cost is $30 + $10-$15 shipping. Stark Electronics also has the 24" DS-4062 version for $29 + $12 shipping. Both can use the LNB from the VOOM dish.

http://www.spectravox.com/ds2078.html
http://www.starkelectronic.com/winp4.htm

Because the box is so large, UPS charges for 70 lbs. Both of these companies quoted me $40 shipping for UPS Ground and $85 :shocked for UPS Blue to Tampa Bay.

 

[Vlad D]

See this also,

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=9993

It looks like V* will be moving in that direction as well.

Will Voom be providing the upgraded dish to their current customers or only new ones?

 

[Gr8Reb8]

Wilt Hildenbrand from Voom responded to that post with this statement:

"That's not even close to true--where does this come from.
The system was/is designed, other than some heavy rain areas, for good performance with a peaked 18' dish.
Let's not make up "facts" here.
Thanks,
Wilt"


For me though, I'm pleased with the performance of the 30" dish. I had no outages yesterday when most other posts here and elsewhere were describing outages. Also, reading of the problems with the receivers and encoders, one might want to question the design and architecture as well. Combine a good idea (lots of HD) with marketing (why no instructions on how to change output mode, or why have the menu option of pillar/strech instead of 16x9 or 4x3) and cable company mentality (let's not include scanning of local channels, duhh), and this is what you get, VOOM....

 

[Sean Mota]

For me though, I'm pleased with the performance of the 30" dish. I had no outages yesterday when most other posts here and elsewhere were describing outages.

So yesterday, you did not experience pixelation on channels and video drop and signal satellite quality going down hill to the point that most programs were not watchable. Just wondering?

 

[Gr8Reb8]

So yesterday, you did not experience pixelation on channels and video drop and signal satellite quality going down hill to the point that most programs were not watchable. Just wondering?

I was not even aware of the problems until I read the messages here and elsewhere.

 

[Sean Mota]

I was not even aware of the problems until I read the messages here and elsewhere.

That's excellent. Maybe I shoul consider this 30" dish. I believe if VOOM goes that direction, they will replace everyone free of charge.

 

[madpoet]

On the 30" dish... what do you have to replace to get it working? Just the dish itself, or the whole arm unit?

 

[Gr8Reb8]

On the 30" dish... what do you have to replace to get it working? Just the dish itself, or the whole arm unit?

This is the 30 minute procedure that I did myself:

1. Disconnect power to Voom receiver.
2. Remove LNB from 18" dish (easy to do with phillips screwdriver and wrench)
3. Disconnect coax from LNB (easy with small wrench)
4. I stood under/behind dish/arm and made note of where the arm was pointing to on the horizon (this makes it easier to find satellite later).
5. Unscrewed the two bolts that holds the dish to the mount. Lifted dish off mount.
6. Assembled new dish with included arm and rear assembly indoors where it was warm.
7. Brought new dish and installed it on original mount/pole.
8. Threaded coax up through arm and connected to original LNB (used left connector)
9. Bolted LNB to arm (the included RCA style arm is fully compatible with Voom)
10. Pointed arm of dish to same spot on horizon found in step 4.
11. Turned on Voom receiver, connected and brought small portable TV close to dish to help align.
12. Selected "align dish" option from menu to bring up signal meter and sound.
13. Found satellite within a minute and fine tuned within 5 minutes.


Some things to be aware of:
1. If your dish is mounted on your roof, be aware of the fact that this dish is much larger and therefore will catch a lot more wind. Your current mount might not be fastened securily enough for a 30" dish and tear off in strong wind.
2. The 30" dish is a lot heavier than the 18" dish.
3. The arm included with the 30" dish is a few inches longer than the one on the 18" dish. Make sure the coax cable has enough slack to reach the end.
4. The price of the 30" dish is about $30-$40 and shipping is $30-$40. The satisfaction that you did a better job than the "pro", priceless.
5. Even the larger dish does not guarantee that you will never loose the picture. It also does not solve the receiver problems we all read about.

 

[madpoet]

Thanks for the detailed post. I'm going to wait and see how effective the standard dish is before I decide whether to buy a bigger model. But it's good to know what my options are.

 

[Vlad D]

let's not include scanning of local channels, duhh

Is this a hardware (Motorola) or software (Voom) limitation? If software, can it be added with a software upgrade?

 

[Videofx]

Scanning

Is this a hardware (Motorola) or software (Voom) limitation? If software, can it be added with a software upgrade?

Scanning should be implemented either in the next software download in the next 10-14 days or the download that will come after this

Bill

 

[Ken F]

Scanning should be implemented either in the next software download in the next 10-14 days or the download that will come after this

The software release coming next week won't have the scanning feature. Scanning is said to be coming in the software release after that, i.e. 3-5 weeks.

 

[Al O]

I have had a 36" dish since Dec. yesterday was first time I notice a few picture freeze ups. Here in central Florida I had rain and heavy clouds plus the Voom problems, the signal power stay the same high 60's.But the signal quality went from the middle 80's to low 30's. Last night they were in the low 70's, today they are down into the 50's to low 60's. It's a clear day, my E* 6000 receiver 61.5 signal is a full 125. Voom should give a dish upgrade for a small fee.

 

[pmalve]

Installed 30" dish today

I installed 30" dish today after getting fed up losing signal in light rain storm Friday. With 18" dish I could only get a signal quality reading in the high 30's low 40's. Tuning bar was always yellow. Installed 30" dish, signal quality reading now 77, signal power is 65. Also tuning bar when I aligned dish is green now. I think they know they are using borderline signals saying it is good enough. I will post after a couple of days if i still get pixelations. Weather is supposed to be clear here all week so I won't be able to see if it is better in the rain but I think it has to be.

 

[K4LK]

Excellent. I ordered my dish Friday and should be here mid-week.

Dana

 

[pmalve]

Had tv on for about 3 hours now and not one pixelation. Still old software so I know the dish made major improvement. Best 40 dollars I could of spent. Went and picked up dish so I didn't have to pay 40 dollar shipping. Took me about 40 minutes from start to finish to change dish. That includes trip to hardware store because I was missing a cariage bolt. Hopefully with this and the software update I'll have a fairly stable setup now. Just need ESPN now.

 

[mike123abc]

Voom is pushing the edge with their satellite. It is the newest and very high powered, so they cut down the error correction to allow more bandwidth. Sounds like going to a bigger dish would be easy for them to do without causing too much pain as a standard. After all both Dish/Direct use larger dishes since they point to more satellites, why not just use a bigger dish like 24" as a standard?

 

[dledeaux]

so they cut down the error correction to allow more bandwidth.

How does error correction work on a unidirectional stream? Only thing I could see would be sending down some crc/parity information with each frame and the STB would check the frame it received and try and correct things within the scope of that frame. It seems like that would require some major bandwidth overhead though.