Sort of Installed Tonight

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 18, 2019

As you may have heard, we will soon be offering Orby Hardware for sale as a way to raise funds for SatelliteGuys. It is our goal to make SatelliteGuys the #1 source for Orby help and hardware.

I got home from work yesterday and was surprised by an Orby DVR at my back door left by UPS.

I don't have an Orby Dish, but do have a motorized FTA dish, so I moved it over to 116.8. I used a Dr Sat Meter and it showed that I had a small signal of about 10. So I went out and worked on the dish and that was about as high I could get it. I was afraid there was something wrong with the dish.

Just for giggles I decided to hook up the receiver to the FTA DISH. And Was shocked to see I had a Good Signal of 99 Signal Quality and 82 signal strength.

I went through the setup and all went good, and since I dont have the proper hardware I didn't expect it to find any locals, and of course it didn't.

After setup I was easily able to program the remote to control my TV.

I did not activate it, but did go through the guide and it appears that the channel lineup has expanded greatly since I first looked at Orby TV. About the only channel missing I watch is USA Network.

I was surprised though, the product is more polished then I expected.

I did not hook it up to ethernet yet, not sure if that is needed or if it even does anything.

I am looking forward to getting it activated and taking a look at what may be one of America's Best Values in Pay TV.

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Scott Greczkowski · Sep 18, 2019

Not sure why the pics are not showing... I will try to fix that in the morning.

KE4EST · Sep 18, 2019

Don't need Ethernet at this time.

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 19, 2019

Here are the pics.

bobvick · Sep 19, 2019

Too bad it doesn’t have Fox News or any of the ‘Disney’ Fox Channels. I would consider it as I only occasionally watch linear TV anymore. Usually Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.

truckracer · Sep 20, 2019

bobvick said:
Too bad it doesn’t have Fox News or any of the ‘Disney’ Fox Channels. I would consider it as I only occasionally watch linear TV anymore. Usually Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.

I fond Newsmax about as good as fox.

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Scott Greczkowski · Sep 20, 2019

Got home tonight and was greeted by a huge box by my back door.

it was a huge dish from Orby.

I opened it up and came with everything but a long spook of coax for the install. Even came with a Bluetooth satellite meter!

The OTA antenna was also included in the box but one thing missing is any kind of documentation on how to put this thing together.

A little paper saying get install instructions at the Orby website would have been nice. But I will figure it out if I don’t find it.

primestar31 · Sep 20, 2019

Here it is Scott: Self-Installation Page

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 20, 2019

Yup found the PDF right after I posted. https://orbytv.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Orby-TV-Self-Installation-Guide-20190605.pdf

Got the dish put together in about 20 minutes. No real issues at all. I did notice that the outside edge of the dish was bent, the box showed no sign of damage on the outside, and that edge was a little scratched up on the inside (I will post pics below in a few). But does not seem to affect the shape of the dish at all.

About the only thing I couldn't figure out in the manual is it wants to know if my local channels are Horizontal or Vertical. It told me to go to AntennaWeb.ORG and check there but did not find a place which tells me that info. Since I am only 8 miles from the antenna with direct line of sight, I will place it like I believe it should be placed and it should work fine.

I got a busy weekend so not sure if I will get to put the dish up outside or not. My wife is not too excited about the idea of me attaching another dish to the outside of the house, so I am trying to figure out a place to put it still.

Pics are going to be in the next post below.

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 20, 2019

ok here are the pics
.

primestar31 · Sep 20, 2019

Tv stations are nearly ALL using horizontal polarization for transmission. Some maybe both. That may change in the future, but is true for now.

KE4EST · Sep 20, 2019

TV signals in the US are predominantly transmitted with a horizontal polarization, with a few here and there being circular.....so yeah, go horizontal.

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 21, 2019

That was the must confusing part of the entire install. Which means it was easy.

I ordered a pole adapter to con very from Dish Network sized pole to the Orby size as the mount is already out there. This way I don’t need to drill into the house for the Orby dish. Amazon will be here tomorrow with it.

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dishdude · Sep 21, 2019

I'm curious about the little meter they included. Does that come with the standard self install kit or did they send that because you're a VIP? Either way, would love to see a review of it!

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 21, 2019

Not sure if the meter normally comes with it or not, but you can order it from their site for $20.

I played with it last night and it’s cool. You need to plug it into USB power and then it communicates with the app on your phone over Bluetooth.

It worked well in my tests (which were not by any means extensive) and I couldn’t figure how it was powering the LNB from a simple 5 volt USB power supply.

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KE4EST · Sep 21, 2019

Scott Greczkowski said:
I couldn’t figure how it was powering the LNB from a simple 5 volt USB power supply

It has a built in boost converter.

sty6 · Sep 22, 2019

That meter does really look sweet and for $20 it's a good bargain. Glad to see SatelliteGuys soon offering hardware for sale. Orby can make it, low cost for programming, no contract BS, channel disputes, etc. May have to pick a system up Scott, when they are available for purchase here.

Scott Greczkowski · Sep 22, 2019

Well had some time today to put the dish in. Amazon delivered the pipe adapter at around noon. So when I got home from errands I went to work.

I was able to use the Dish pole I had already installed back when I was testing some things for dish on Both western and eastern arcs. So I just slid the pipe adapter down the dish pole and tightened it on.

before I went out I set the skew and elevation on the dish. Placed the dish on the pole and hooked up the usb meter to Orby lnb and my laptop which was giving it power.

spun the dish on the pole until I had signal which was about 30 seconds after putting the dish on the pole.

I then fine tuned signal on the meter with a 68 quality and a 98 strength.

I was mad I could not get the quality higher. But locked things down and then installed the OTA antenna. I mounted it to the pole my Eastern Arc dish is located so I could clear everything.

The instructions don’t really show you how to assemble the antenna and mount it but I figured it out easily.

I hooked up the LNB and diplexer and ran a cable from it to a cable I had run as an extra which goes up to my testing lab (aka my bedroom).

I connected the cable to the Orby DVR and checked my signals and was relieved to see a signal strength of 82% and a signal quality of 99%. This tells me the USB satellite meter is good to find signal but don’t trust it for accurate readings or for real good fine tuning. (But hey it’s a $20 meter)

I did a scan of my OTA locals and the little antenna did good pulling in 36 channels.

Now with it all installed only thing left to do is activate the unit which I will do in the next day or so.