Twinhan 102G arrived!

[CharredPC]

Ok, I got my Twinhan, and figured I should start with the included software to make sure everything's working before I tweak everything. Installation went fine. I hooked the card up to my existing DTV dish (Iceburg said I'd get a couple lousy channels and some music for testing). The dish was already pointed at a DTV satellite- I'm getting 66% signal, 0% quality. Erm... now what? Selecting any of the pre-programmed sat's and scanning didn't come up with anything. The only polariation settings are Vertical and Horizontal; obviously the DTV lnb doesn't apply, but does that matter for aiming at DTV sources?

I'll keep doing my homework and see if I can solve it in the meantime- TIA.

 

[Cascade]

You won't get a single thing pointed at a DirecTV bird
Ditch the software and get ProgDVB, www.progdvb.com (I need a macro for the amount of times I've typed that)

BTW - your motherboard/CPU are going out tonight or in the morning, will PM you with numbers etc.

 

[Mr Tony]

DBS birds are L or R

R=V
L=H

so you can program those in...but if you are at a Direct spot (101), you won't get anythign as DirecTv uses different scrambling than DBS

 

[Cascade]

PCI cards won't even acknowledge any quality on the DirecTV birds for some reason, I remember thinking I'd hit AMC4 and trying to get something off it after pulling my hair out for a week.

 

[CharredPC]

Thanks, Cascade... wouldn't you know I don't have a compass.

Crud.

So... unless you know what you're aiming at, and plug the proper numbers in accordingly, there's no using the sat you find? Forgive me my ignorance, I'm demoted back to Newbie status...

Oh, and ProgDVB looks 100% better than the software the card shipped with. Even has a "Circular Polarization" setting!

 

[timmy1376]

Try 11250 on the lo's and 12700 on the LOFSW in ProgDVB. Like they say, you will not get anything off a Directv bird, but you can get the radio channels off 91 or 110 or 119. The first one is BEV, and the next two are Echostar, or Dish Network.

Good luck.

 

[Cascade]

Bah, you don't need a compass
Just aim to the right of where you're at, you'll hit one of the Echostar birds eventually.

 

[CharredPC]

Bah, you don't need a compass
Just aim to the right of where you're at, you'll hit one of the Echostar birds eventually.

Swung the dish a bit to the right and hit an 80% signal.
Nothing on the scan...

Edit: so, to reitterate; you have to know where/what you're pointing at so you know what settings to plug in/drop-down to use? .. so if you're pointing at Nameless Bird, you have about 82,000 settings to try individually to scan for channels? Is this the wonderful "blind scan" that set-top recievers use?
Again, forgive the ignorance.

 

[mchomicz]

Ok, I got my Twinhan.

If you figure out a way of using nothing but the Twinhan card and a dish for catching satellites - please let me know how you did it. I have a Twinhan card as well and ended up buying a regular receiver because no matter what I do - I can't get the Twinhan to move the motor correctly and I can't seem to find a way to use it for POSITIONING the dish. Once the dish is positioned correctly with help of my regular receiver (with motor or manually) - I get plenty of signal and can scan satellites and watch stuff.

BTW - I've read many times on this forum that Twinhan software is garbage and that one should get ProgDVB. I'm sure it's just me, but except for the motor, Twinhan software works like a charm and hardly uses any CPU whereas ProgDVB has yet to show me ANYTHING and DVB Dream, while it does work, uses around 6 times more CPU power (from around 4% with Twinhan software to around 30% with DVB Dream while watching "regular" definition programming).

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Wholeshoe]

What do you need for a computer to use a Twinhan card? CPU speed, Amount of Ram?

Wholeshoe

 

[Cascade]

Anything that can play a DVD will work with a PCI card.
Even a P2-350 will work with a Nexus-S, it has its own MPEG2 decoder onboard.

CharredPC - get on MSN mister.

 

[CharredPC]

Well, bleh.

I don't think I'm going to get anything with this setup. I've found about 5 different spots where I get 80% signal, 0% quality. No matter what transponder / frequency I try, I get no results. According to the signal meter and the software, there's birds there; I just can't do anything with them.

I hope the Winegard won't be like this. Maybe I'll have to go donate some money to the people working on blind scanning software... this 90,000 trial-and-error (all error thus far) method really isn't much fun. You'd think you could make a batch file or something that would try each transponder/frequency combination; even if it took hours and hours, at least it wouldn't have to be done manually.

Any more advice, all?

 

[iammike]

Charred,

I feel your pain. I started with a Twinhan card, and it is more difficult but by no means impossible to set up. Cascade is right about ProgDVB being the best software. Another piece of software that you'll probably want to pick up is ProgFinder. It's a freeware dish pointing software for PC cards. It's not very user friendly, but it's better than nothing. It will give you a beep tone(kind of like a Dish receiver) indicating signal strength, and will also tell you when you get quality. The downside is that it doesn't seem to keep looking for quality for very long. If I remember correctly, I'd point my dish and then go to the PC and tell ProgFinder to start looking again, and then hustle back to the dish and make small adjustments. The best scenario is to have a monitor that you can look at while moving the dish back and forth. Then you'll at least be able to see the quality bar pop up, and you'll be able to tell it to start looking again more easily as you won't have to go so far to get to the PC. That's what I finally did. You're assessment about needing to know what you're looking at is very accurate. You can be aimed perfectly at a satellite, but if you're using the wrong frequency you'll get zip for quality. I downloaded some satellite charts with the correct azimuth and elevation for Roanoke, and then was at least able to make an educated guess about what satellite I might be looking at. I'd get the signal strength as high as possible and then tell ProgFinder to try different satellites and different frequencies until I found something or until I got tired of looking and moved the dish to a different spot.

What made life much, much easier for me was the purchase of a motor. You still have to find your true south satellite, but once you get that one you can get all the others by just turning your motor east or west with the software. It took me over a week to find my first satellite, and longer to find my true south bird, but when I got the motor and pointed it correctly I got about 15 or 20 more in one morning.

Hope this helps at least a little bit. Hang in there.

Mike

 

[CharredPC]

Yaaay!!!

Big huge thanks to Cascade for the updated transponder list that made things work for me... I'm now pulling in Echo7, watching some Dish Network barker channels, and listening to digital music! This rocks... now I can't wait untill I get my real dish, and can have much more fun!

I guess it CAN be done, blind search or no... just takes time (and luck... and Cascade )

Edited for spelling; apparently I was too excited to type properly, lol.

 

[CharredPC]

I've officially found (and watched stuff/listened to) Echo7 & Echo8. I got lost for about 30 minutes tonight (in the rain, no less!) - kept hitting birds I couldn't do anything with, and started begging the FTA gods to just let me find either Echo again, and I'd keep it there.

They rewarded me! The next bird I found was Nimiq2, where it's staying till I get my Winegard. Heck, it might stay there then. I've learned alot in this experience...

1. A DisSEqC 4*1 switch is not a barrel connector; using it as such doesn't always work (or just stops working for no reason while trying to find a signal; not helpful)

2. An IN-Line Amplifier doesn't always help. In fact, with it in line, I can't even lock onto Nimiq1, oddly enough. Echo7 came through it fine. Now I've just left it off... it's a bit misleading anyhow, and I don't have that much cable that I need it.

3. A 2-way cable splitter (5-900Mhz) CAN be used as a barrel connector in a pinch, IF it's a very very small splitter ("T"-type) so that the signal doesn't have a chance to degrade.

4. The Twinhan remote doesn't work with ProgDVB. Or else I haven't figured out how yet. I'll keep trying...

5. Software stops working and must be reinstalled every so often.. like every few hours. No, I have no clue about this one. Maybe the card is locking up, and reinstallation resets it somehow? Not sure.

6. It really isn't as hard as you might initially think... as long as you don't give up. Once it starts working, it doesn't really stop. It's just locking that first signal that starts you off.

7. Twinhan cards only get 80% - 81% signal, max. Or ProgDVB, not sure which. I say this becuase even with the line amp, no matter how strong my signals are, they never go over 80%. I don't think it's the dish, becuase i've had an 80% signal, readjusted the dish for better signal (proven by my meter), and it remained a solid 80%.

8. This is really fun

Thanks to everyone for helping me get this going; Cascade for the updated transponder list, and Iceburg for his list of what's reachable on an 18" dish (I think I pretty much found them all!)

 

[max-wang]

gotta love iceburg, he da man!

 

[beeb]

I don't know who told you, guys, that ProgDVB is the best software. I personally find it close to garbage. MyTheatre is infinitely better, easy to set up, stable, and with tons of features. Twinhan with MyTheatre controls flawlessly the motor and the remote for the Twinhan works and everything is so easy. I don't know why people even try other software.
Well, I know, it's $40, and ProgDVB is free, but the price difference is not worth the suffering

 

[Cascade]

I don't know who told you, guys, that ProgDVB is the best software.

I found out for myself.

 

[CharredPC]

Hrm. The Twinhan remote refuses to work with MyTheatre here. The display IS alot more tv-friendly, I'd have to agree, but that's more personal preference, I think. I'd consider paying the $ if the remote worked, I think. And if I got more than an hour to test it.. How do you know it's stable if it runs only 1 hour?

 

[timmy1376]

MyTheatre on my Athlon 700 is a DOG. I know, I know, an Athlon 700 is a DOG, but that is all I have at the moment. ProgDVB just works better on it. RitzDVB works pretty well too. I actually liked the TVedia that uses a MyTheatre core pretty well.