On the Primestars, he just uped his starting bid and is rather defensive about his listing -- not worth it to me, especially since he is not willing to tell me the real size, but says it is the "biggest dish" for KU fta. I think it is a 75E.
yeah watching it some more now, its obvious he doesnt know what he has. he thinks those receivers can do more than it really does and all people really want are the reflector and the lnb arm heh
Despite all of the doubts in this thread so far, I went for it anyway.
I live near the guy so shipping wasn't too bad (~$26). I already have a DVB-S card and I'm going to get a DVB-S2 box soon, so I don't care too much whether this box is any good. I've kinda been wanting a DCII box anyway though, for completeness. I have a truly universal remote that can programmed to work with nearly any infrared device, assuming I can find the bit patterns on the net somewhere.
I'll post back here after it arrives and let you know whether I got ripped off or not.
One email or description said it was the biggest dish for FTA -- He then changes that to being one of the biggest. He went from $9.99 to about $25 Plus shipping. If that is what you paid and it is a complete Primestar 75E or bigger, then you got a good dish for a very good price, regardless of the receiver. If it is an 85e or bigger, then I would have been reasonable for me, but -- hey, let us know what you get.
POP
The shipment arrived today (45 hours from auction end; not bad!) It looks like the dish is a 75E... the back of it says "MOLD NUMBER: .90 x .63 - 2". The LNB is model NJR2119F, and the receiver is a DSR410DS. I think I can figure out how to get the various FTA DCII channels with this receiver, but I don't think it will be easy.
Everything appears to be in better condition than I expected. There's nothing obviously broken, damaged, or missing, though there are a few small nicks in the dish surface. If that turns out to be a problem I'll fill them in with metal-bearing epoxy. I'm itching to test it out, but I've only got one DVB-S receiver and I'm not about to mess with it with a Space Shuttle landing coming up so soon. There's nothing like watching the live landing coverage at 4 AM while waiting for the right moment to rush up onto the roof to see it fly over, and then rushing back down in time to see the live cockpit camera.
You got a DEAL! That was a good price for a 75E. For an 85 that would have been an excellent price. But for the 90 WOW!!! I think that is the "largest FTA dish" in that series. If he had looked at it and told me the numbers that you gave, you would not have gottoen it for that. SO, CONGRATULATIONS ON AN EXCELLENT BUY!! I am about jumping for joy for you!
Thank you for your enthusiasm! I think you might be confused about that mold number though. My understanding is that there are at least four basic types in this series:
What I have: .90 x .63
75E: .90 x .66
84E: 1.0 x .75
"1.0M": unknown size, but I'd guess an area of PI * (0.5m ^ 2). This one has the LNB on a tripod.
So, I think I must have got some old one from before they even had model numbers that's even smaller than a 75E.
It was still a nice deal though, especially after all the times I've been ripped off on eBay. This thing is very sturdy and easy to work with. I've already tried it out on the roof with the receiver and it got good signal and quality on Anik-F2 (but obviously no channels since they're all encrypted). For some reason I couldn't pick up Galaxy 16, except for a tiny blip on my signal meter and a signal strength of 24 on the box. This was a totally ghetto setup involving cardboard boxes, bricks, alligator clips, etc... so I'm lucky to have gotten any positive result at all.
nice, let me know if you are able to get any of the FTA DCII chans, hes got another one up just a box for sale and it works and the price is right i might get one. like you said for completeness hehe