Another newbie question

[blx286]

I just started looking into FTA, so I am very green. I have been lurking here for about a week searching and reading. I need some direction on how to start. I am on a limited budget and just have local channels now. I am just trying to see what kind of channels are up there.

I found a guy giving away an 8' mesh with motor and original Toshiba receiver. I assume I would need to buy a new receiver for this.

I also found a guy with a Chaparral Corotor feedhorn with 5 LNB's for $40. I don't know anything about the LNB's yet, but will post when/if I get details. So, would a feedhorn work on this dish and allow me to get C and KU bands? Is this a buy I should consider, if it's still available?


Since I have no clue what I am doing, would I be better served buying a kit or trying to piece together a system?

Thanks for your input,
Tim

 

[RT-Cat]

First, Welcome to the forum. You WILL find many here that can and will give you the answers you will need to get up and going.
As for the 8 footer with the Chap- Corotor, it is what I use here and you will pick up more than anyone could watch. Can't tell you about the Toshiba, but there are many post here on some great receivers. I use a popular one - openbox S9, not expensive. If the dish is in good shape, could be a great deal. New that size will cost $$$$$$$$$. As for the C and Ku lnb's check if printed on them yet, they have low degrees K and low number for DB. I have an an old one from 1984 that has such a high number it is amazing it really worked back then. I am sure you will get more posts on more good info.

RT.

 

[turbosat]

Toshiba made some pretty good analog receivers back in the day, some of them were prized finds. If its still working it would serve well for the remaining analog signals on c/ku, provided you have a c/ku feedhorn on the dish and its working properly. Sight down the side of the dish edge if its still on the pole, to check for massive warping. If its free I'd say grab it. If it has a working feedhorn/lnb you may not need the other lnbs. But for $40 its probably worth it to get those too. That corotor has a plastic 'drive shaft' inside the body of the feedhorn to turn the ku-probe, pop the cap off the end of the feedhorn, look down inside the circular body of it and see if it is still in place and not broken. Welcome to the satellite place to be!

 

[kodaz]

if you have the 8' dish, check to see if the holes in the mesh are about a pencil lead width. Much bigger then that and the dish will be best suited for c-band. You have much reading to do to set up a c-band dish,but c-band rules!!

As far as receivers are concerned, Dont be in a big hurry. everybody that i have gotten into FTA (all 1 persons) i recommend the following:
get a coolsat 5k or 6k from ebay just to see if you like FTA, just to see if you can line up satellites , just to see if its for you. I got my 2 coolsats for 30 bucks , 15 apiece.

If you know that FTA is for you, then get an affordable DVBS2 receiver like the Openbox S9 that RT-cat suggested.
here is some good reading;

http://www.satelliteguys.us/c-band-satellite-discussion/248617-finally.html


BIG thread BIG info!

 

[KE4EST]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys!!!! You can to right place for help. The above posts pretty much covers it, until we have more info. Yes, if the 8' is in decent shape grab it, unless the guy wants an arm and a leg for it.

 

[blx286]

Thanks for the welcome and info (I'll start reading that other thread).

Here is a pic of the dish. I don't have it yet, going to get it Saturday. The guy is giving it away if I will take it down.
It does have some dings in it, will that hurt anything?
Will I have to take it completely apart to transport it?

Never did hear back from the guy with the 5 lnb's and the Chaparral feedhorn. He must have sold it.

Thanks again.

 

[kodaz]

they still work with a few dings.
that dish resembles my unimesh. my unimesh has the small holes.
If the dish isnt warped too much giver er a go.

i transported a 10'er this way. (post 8)

http://www.satelliteguys.us/c-band-satellite-discussion/266113-dishlifter.html

post 8 has the pic of the dish in the truck. Just strap it in good or it will go Mary Poppins on you.

Kodaz

 

[RT-Cat]

....Here is a pic of the dish. I don't have it yet, going to get it Saturday. The guy is giving it away if I will take it down.....Will I have to take it completely apart to transport it?....

Looks like you found a nice one. Have fun with the removal. Be careful and safe.
You are going to hear more than once, but SURE you have the pole you install it on at your site as plumb as possible when you concrete it in. That will prevent more problems than you can ever guess.
Have fun with your new toy.

RT.

 

[crackt]

how far you travelling with it? id recommend removing the reflector from the polar mount for transport. the reflector weighs a fraction of the mount and actuator. carrying a dish with that weight hanging off the bottom isnt a good thing. otherwise it shouldnt take more than an hour to load it on a truck provided you dont have to fight seized bolts. im picking up 2 dishes tomorrow as well. hoping for good weather. good luck with your first install.

crackt out,.

 

[Pittsville]

I'm a former newbie who still doesnt know a lot, but I second the advice that your mounting pole needs to be perfectly plumb and solid. When I first got my system I attached the dish to a pole and lashed it to a clothesline pole. After a few hours I was able to receive something but it wasn't on the satellite the receiver said it was on, and I had to make a final permanent mount anyway. All that time I spent wanting to receive something right away was basically wasted, and the only thing I learned is what everyone tells you is the first thing you should do, which is to start with a plumb mounting pole. After the clothesline folly I tried putting the dish on the roof. Still didn't have a rigid, perfectly plumb mount and I made many trips up and down the ladder fooling around trying to aim it properly. Finally I realized that it would work just fine on a pole in the ground. I dug the hole, cemented the pole and made sure it was plumb all around, and it's been an enjoyable hobby ever since. No advice or solutions that anyone gives you will help if your mounting pole isn't correctly installed, and as far as advice, you've come to the right place. I learn something every time I log on here. I think I might spend more time here than I do receiving satellite signals. I'm the kind that likes to receive something just for the sake of receiving it and then move on to the next signal, sort of like catch and release fishing. I do watch complete shows on RTV sometimes. I've been to a lot of other forums and some of them are helpful but you won't find anything on any other forum that isn't just as well or better covered here in my opinion. Good luck

 

[blx286]

Thanks again for all the feedback. I will get the pole in the the ground and make sure it is plumb. I do have more questions, if you could point me in the right direction.

Got the dish Saturday and it was about 200 mile round trip. The guy said it was an 8', but it is a 10' Unimesh. He said it does C and Ku, I don't know but I took the cover off so I could show you guys pics.

I am attaching some pics, that show the hail damage on the lower part of the dish. There is a "v" shaped tear, about 3" long. There are other dings and some creases. These are in the pics so you can see the length. Can I bend these back? Can I replace these sections? Do I leave them and try to get signal first?

It also came with a Toshiba TRX-2200. I powered it up and the LCD came on, guess I will find out if it works when I get everything hooked up. It also had like a ribbon cable that was 4 large cables together. 1 coax to the motor, 1 coax to the lnb(?), 1 coax not connected to anything, 1 multi-wire cable to the blue bo?). Will I need to get this same type of cable to set it back up?

So is it worth keeping and trying, or should I just kick it to the curb? I think that all the questions I have. Thanks again.

BTW: I will make sure the post is plumb before I go any further

 

[turbosat]

Little tears like that in a 10' won't make much difference. You can see how the mesh slides into that channel, and maybe with some loosening of some bolts you can slide that back into place, take a hammer and flat piece of metal if you want to straighten out the dings. A little fine wire will let you mend the small tears back. As long as the dish still has good overall shape it should do a good job.
That's a c-band only feedhorn in the picture though, the unused coax you mentioned would have been used to power a ku-band lnb.
You can go with that and just tinker with c-band for awhile, or buy yourself a c/ku feedhorn with polarotor (that blue box controls polarity of the signals). Or you can get yourself a c/ku lnbf, won't need that Toshiba to control polarity, but you will need it to move the dish, unless you buy one of those gbox actuator controllers. That's a nice analog receiver there too, but there's not a lot of analog video left up there to see. See how this hobby works, now? One part begets another lol. That looks like the makings of a good beginning though. Good find.
edit: Added: the other questions, about the cable, I didn't address. YOu'll need a run of RG6 to power the lnb, if you didn't get the ribbon cable with the dish. If you use the analog receiver to power the lnb and polarotor, you'll need wire to operate the polarity motor too, you can buy sprinkler wire that'll handle that 5volts. May be able to use the same thing to power the dish-actuator motor. I think that's what I used on my last one that I rigged from parts. That ribbon cable can still be had, but I don't recall from where right off. Hope this helps get you started. Did you get the pole to put the dish on? If not, you'll need a 3.5" OD pipe to plant it.

 

[blx286]

Thanks for all the info.

I did get the pole, it was the most time consuming part of the removal. It still has a little concrete I need to remove before I replant it.

Guess I'll get everything cleaned and straightened up. Then I'll work on the electronic stuff. I didn't get the ribbon cable, it was buried kinda deep and the guy didn't want me ripping a trail through the grass

 

[turbosat]

blx, you seem to have a good handle on getting it going now. I don't understand where my post went-last night when I posted the above, there were no replies to your message, lol

 

[blx286]

One part begets another lol.

I see what you mean. I found this package below at Sadoun.
SatHawk PVR800 HDTV FTA Receiver
V3000 (GBOX) Actuator Positioner
DMX741 C/KU Band LNBF
Sale $199
Powertech Sadoun GBox V3000 Motor controller

So this would modernize the electronics and with some RG6 and wire for the actuator, I should be in business right?
Can I just install this DMX741 in place of the LNB that I have now or do I have to replace something else up there?

Thanks for the help with all my questions,
Tim

 

[chaskuchar]

you need to check if the actuator is the heavy duty one from sadoun because you have a 10' dish. the old actuator if it has a reostat instead of the reed relay will still work with the gbox. it just won't go to the position automatically. with my old heavy duty actuator i had to count the pulses from satellite to satellite but worked ok. now i got the reed switch actuator and works well. dmx741 works well on my 6' dish. the dmx741 gets it's power through the rg6. you only need one run with the dmx741 because it has a switch built in to go from c band to k band. my post still has the cement on it. my post hole digger was big enough to make a hole big enough. charlie