Well I finally got all the FTA equipment from the package I ordered from gosatellite.ca to get started with FTA late last week and finished installing everything this weekend. I just thought I'd give my impressions of someone just starting out for those who may be where I am (or was 
).
The shipping was prompt (5 bus days I think from BC to ON) and everything well packed except one item (in a seperate box): the FortecStar 90cm dish appeared to be packaged a bit haphazardly in that the box wasn't quite big enough for the dish and it bulged out one side. The dish is fine but the lip that was bulging out had a very slight deformation no doubt from rough shipping. Inside the box it was very well packaged with a generous amount of bubblewrap around everything, and all the parts were there; nothing was missing.
The Stab HH-90 motor, Invacom QPH-031 Quad LNBF, CaptiveWorks CW600S Premium receiver and disecq switch were all in the same box and well packed.
The FortecStar 90cm dish was very easy to assemble and I already had everything put together before I realized the instructions that I couldn't find actually were in the box I was a bit worried the weight of the Invacom LNBF would pull down on the LNB arm but it seems solid and after installing everything a gentle nudge up or down only made the signal worse so it's plenty stiff enough.
I don't have any experience with small dish motors (the antennas in my line of work are of the 10 meter variety with much larger proprietary az/el motors for LEO satellite tracking) but was nonetheless impressed with the quality of the HH-90 motor and it works as advertised. It doesn't seem to strain; the noise from the motor is about the same across the entire track although at the extreme limits it does seem to make a bit more noise but I can't see anything there anyway. I guess time will tell whether or not it is well mated to the 90cm dish or not.
The Invacom QPH-031 is fantastic. I really didn't expect it to work as well as it does. I'm only using two of the four outputs right now on the 4x1 switch that came with the receiver. One thing that would be nice (maybe other receivers do - again I'm new to FTA so I just don't know ) is an indication of L or R instead of V or H when using a circular LNB.
Mounting the motor and the dish, then peaking it all went okay except I had to redesign the platform it sits on to a lower, safer, more manageable height, although now alot of the satellites I was interested in are partially blocked by the tops of some trees (which is why I built the platform). I am getting a signal on most satellites but the quality is very poor because since lowering the platform I now have many more treetop leaves in the way. I knew this was going to be a possibility before getting into it so it's not a huge disappointment. We are moving soon anyway I just couldn't wait to get started and I look at it as a hobby anyway.
I can get a very good signal and quality on most of the DBS satellites (not surprising) with the Invacom QPH-031 Circular out, particularly Echostar 3 and Nimiq 1. Some of the others are also visible but these two just happen to be in spots where there is a break in the trees. This LNBF works well beyond all expectations! I can see several other satellites on the linear output but because of the aforementioned trees the signal quality is very poor. I'm sure when winter comes and the leaves are gone the reception will be much better. AMC 6 and Galaxy 11 are probably the ones I am getting the strongest signals from, although there is little of interest on AMC 6. I can occasionally pull in a transponder from Galaxy 10R, but the leaves are pretty thick at that spot which wasn't the case with the much taller platform.
The CW600S Premium delivers everything that was promised but there are a few things that are buggy, even after I upgraded the firmware to the latest version from their website. The most REALLY annoying thing it does is it always resets your USALS coords to the factory default seemingly at random which made peaking the dish a fun enterprise. When you try to position the dish with USALS it just sits there; no warning. For someone just getting started this was a bit worrisome until I realized what it was doing. I do like the "dish moving" indicator although it isn't very accurate - the time is usually about double what it says. The disecq/usals controls are very well done and you can move the motor in extremely small increments which makes peaking the dish much easier; although the step indication is backwards - 10 is smallest, 1 is largest. Since I'm new to FTA, I'm happy with this receiver but when it's time to upgrade I'll probably look elsewhere. It's a great receiver to start with though and that's all I expected, and once winter comes around I'll have more fun searching
).The shipping was prompt (5 bus days I think from BC to ON) and everything well packed except one item (in a seperate box): the FortecStar 90cm dish appeared to be packaged a bit haphazardly in that the box wasn't quite big enough for the dish and it bulged out one side. The dish is fine but the lip that was bulging out had a very slight deformation no doubt from rough shipping. Inside the box it was very well packaged with a generous amount of bubblewrap around everything, and all the parts were there; nothing was missing.
The Stab HH-90 motor, Invacom QPH-031 Quad LNBF, CaptiveWorks CW600S Premium receiver and disecq switch were all in the same box and well packed.
The FortecStar 90cm dish was very easy to assemble and I already had everything put together before I realized the instructions that I couldn't find actually were in the box
I was a bit worried the weight of the Invacom LNBF would pull down on the LNB arm but it seems solid and after installing everything a gentle nudge up or down only made the signal worse so it's plenty stiff enough.I don't have any experience with small dish motors (the antennas in my line of work are of the 10 meter variety with much larger proprietary az/el motors for LEO satellite tracking) but was nonetheless impressed with the quality of the HH-90 motor and it works as advertised. It doesn't seem to strain; the noise from the motor is about the same across the entire track although at the extreme limits it does seem to make a bit more noise but I can't see anything there anyway. I guess time will tell whether or not it is well mated to the 90cm dish or not.
The Invacom QPH-031 is fantastic. I really didn't expect it to work as well as it does. I'm only using two of the four outputs right now on the 4x1 switch that came with the receiver. One thing that would be nice (maybe other receivers do - again I'm new to FTA so I just don't know
) is an indication of L or R instead of V or H when using a circular LNB.Mounting the motor and the dish, then peaking it all went okay except I had to redesign the platform it sits on to a lower, safer, more manageable height, although now alot of the satellites I was interested in are partially blocked by the tops of some trees (which is why I built the platform). I am getting a signal on most satellites but the quality is very poor because since lowering the platform I now have many more treetop leaves in the way. I knew this was going to be a possibility before getting into it so it's not a huge disappointment. We are moving soon anyway I just couldn't wait to get started
and I look at it as a hobby anyway.I can get a very good signal and quality on most of the DBS satellites (not surprising) with the Invacom QPH-031 Circular out, particularly Echostar 3 and Nimiq 1. Some of the others are also visible but these two just happen to be in spots where there is a break in the trees. This LNBF works well beyond all expectations! I can see several other satellites on the linear output but because of the aforementioned trees the signal quality is very poor. I'm sure when winter comes and the leaves are gone the reception will be much better. AMC 6 and Galaxy 11 are probably the ones I am getting the strongest signals from, although there is little of interest on AMC 6. I can occasionally pull in a transponder from Galaxy 10R, but the leaves are pretty thick at that spot which wasn't the case with the much taller platform.
The CW600S Premium delivers everything that was promised but there are a few things that are buggy, even after I upgraded the firmware to the latest version from their website. The most REALLY annoying thing it does is it always resets your USALS coords to the factory default seemingly at random which made peaking the dish a fun enterprise
. When you try to position the dish with USALS it just sits there; no warning. For someone just getting started this was a bit worrisome until I realized what it was doing. I do like the "dish moving" indicator although it isn't very accurate - the time is usually about double what it says. The disecq/usals controls are very well done and you can move the motor in extremely small increments which makes peaking the dish much easier; although the step indication is backwards - 10 is smallest, 1 is largest. Since I'm new to FTA, I'm happy with this receiver but when it's time to upgrade I'll probably look elsewhere. It's a great receiver to start with though and that's all I expected, and once winter comes around I'll have more fun searching 
