The (dish) "farm" has been doing okay, but business has kept me too busy to do any tweaking until tonight. My morning co-host Penny is sitting the "mobile studio" at our local fair, and I needed a break from routine, and FTA seemed a nice diversion.
So, finally...all of the "farm" is in use:
From Left to right, ALL functional...
137W fixed for Alaska PBS and others
103W fixed for Cozi-TV
Birdview C/Ku with rotor for sky scanning
1m Channel master (finally tonight) fixed for PBS on 125 (new today.)
.75m DTN dish for 72 West NBC/Weather/CNBC or MSNBC
Newer DTN dish for 97 W (mainly Ebru TV)
Moving tonight to a dedicated 125w dish helped reception immensely! The PBS on the 1m actually performs better than the PBS on the Ku side of the moving Birdview. The scan tonight brought in Montana and OETA with others, and so far, all perform even if quality jumps around quite a bit. I aligned using the transponder with the lowest "Q" and one which jumped quite a bit. A total of 15 "clear" PBS feeds are now available to me. Well worth the work (switching to using the fixed vs. the combined/motorized Birdview feed.) My .75 meter Channel Masters didn't work this well for PBS but the 1m does well. Amazing the difference in one Channel Master dish to another. The neat thing about this dish is that it came from a former radio station I worked-for, was used as the AP news printer feed via a computer. Never thought it would land here with me!
I've not been able to successfully use an 8-place diseqc, so I'm doing a 22khz switch into (2) 4-way diseqcs, leaving one "free" feed for experimentation with anything I want to add later. I'd like the option to add more dishes down the road, but need to read up on "adding" beyond the 8 available ports and how to make switches "talk' to each other correctly.
A friend of mine came over and tapped/threaded the back of the main Birdview to hold a fiberglass box, drilled for cables attached to switches inside. It was time to get them out of the weather. I quickly found that we had to seal the bottom holes (ugly, though it is) because small crawling, fast-moving bugs of a very thin variety (I'm no expert) had moved in within a day. The box has thumb-tightening screws for quick access to switches for change-out or expansion.
I'm completely convinced that when there's room, using fixed dishes outperforms the motorized combination c/ku, but I've never had a "super duper" feed on the motorized dish....only the modern combined ones, this one's a 741 if memory serves.
I've not updated the originally supplied firmware yet on my receiver....it's the Amiko Mini HD. My latest "update" is the original Firmware of March 21, 2014 which came with the unit fresh out of the box.
Nice in some features, but....(and I'll try not to duplicate the other thread of observations)
1) Clock on the front is nice, at the cost of it not having a 'recording' LED indicator.
2) Tone used for signal level (in my box) is constant "on" or steady beep, has no change in tone, making alignment by audio-alone impossible without multiple trips back to the TV to check signal/quality.. I prefer a unit where the tone changes so I can use an FM transmitter to align via a walkman or radio outside. It's only good for knowing you didn't LOSE all the signal while adjusting.
3) Instruction book vague on some topics as outlined in another thread.
4) Seems to randomly drop a timer now and then, but...I'm going to run this box on a UPS or with battery inline per a post by "Titanium" because I believe this one to be even MORE prone to dropping proper time and timer settings with brief power flickers.
5) In "exiting" web-tv functions (watching internet TV feature) the box tends to reboot on it's own.
6) Extension "eye" for remote has a cable too short! Ordered a 4-conductor "extension" which I thought would work, and found the plug's various connectors' lengths were not standard. Will likely have to manually add wire to the one supplied. Anyone gotten an extension successfully to work on this (commercially purchased??)
THE BIG QUESTION I have for any other owners of these boxes...
Do you experience sudden "no signal" moments on various satellites? I checked and changed my 22khz and other switches, have changed the jumper wires between the 22khz and the two diseqc switches, and replaced ends on almost all the coax feeds. I still get a "no signal freeze" now and then. Can't be the LNB, it has occurred on the fixed 137 C band dish, on the moving C-band dish as well, haven't logged the Ku side doing it...hmmm..just haven't noticed it perhaps.
Still overall quite happy with the box, wondering who has performed an update of their software and if any of my problems/observations in this thread (or the other one) are fixed with updating.
I think, now with dishes aligned and all verified working through switches, it may be time to try to flash the update into my MicroHD which I never did. I took that unit offline after power supply issues seemed to affect stability of channel reception. If it updates and runs, I'll compare performance when time permits.
End of my boring contribution to our fine Satguys' site.
Been awhile, so I got a bit wordy....
Darn. If only I was paid by the word....
But...even in radio that doesn't happen.
Cheers!
So, finally...all of the "farm" is in use:
From Left to right, ALL functional...
137W fixed for Alaska PBS and others
103W fixed for Cozi-TV
Birdview C/Ku with rotor for sky scanning
1m Channel master (finally tonight) fixed for PBS on 125 (new today.)
.75m DTN dish for 72 West NBC/Weather/CNBC or MSNBC
Newer DTN dish for 97 W (mainly Ebru TV)
Moving tonight to a dedicated 125w dish helped reception immensely! The PBS on the 1m actually performs better than the PBS on the Ku side of the moving Birdview. The scan tonight brought in Montana and OETA with others, and so far, all perform even if quality jumps around quite a bit. I aligned using the transponder with the lowest "Q" and one which jumped quite a bit. A total of 15 "clear" PBS feeds are now available to me. Well worth the work (switching to using the fixed vs. the combined/motorized Birdview feed.) My .75 meter Channel Masters didn't work this well for PBS but the 1m does well. Amazing the difference in one Channel Master dish to another. The neat thing about this dish is that it came from a former radio station I worked-for, was used as the AP news printer feed via a computer. Never thought it would land here with me!
I've not been able to successfully use an 8-place diseqc, so I'm doing a 22khz switch into (2) 4-way diseqcs, leaving one "free" feed for experimentation with anything I want to add later. I'd like the option to add more dishes down the road, but need to read up on "adding" beyond the 8 available ports and how to make switches "talk' to each other correctly.
A friend of mine came over and tapped/threaded the back of the main Birdview to hold a fiberglass box, drilled for cables attached to switches inside. It was time to get them out of the weather. I quickly found that we had to seal the bottom holes (ugly, though it is) because small crawling, fast-moving bugs of a very thin variety (I'm no expert) had moved in within a day. The box has thumb-tightening screws for quick access to switches for change-out or expansion.
I'm completely convinced that when there's room, using fixed dishes outperforms the motorized combination c/ku, but I've never had a "super duper" feed on the motorized dish....only the modern combined ones, this one's a 741 if memory serves.
I've not updated the originally supplied firmware yet on my receiver....it's the Amiko Mini HD. My latest "update" is the original Firmware of March 21, 2014 which came with the unit fresh out of the box.
Nice in some features, but....(and I'll try not to duplicate the other thread of observations)
1) Clock on the front is nice, at the cost of it not having a 'recording' LED indicator.
2) Tone used for signal level (in my box) is constant "on" or steady beep, has no change in tone, making alignment by audio-alone impossible without multiple trips back to the TV to check signal/quality.. I prefer a unit where the tone changes so I can use an FM transmitter to align via a walkman or radio outside. It's only good for knowing you didn't LOSE all the signal while adjusting.
3) Instruction book vague on some topics as outlined in another thread.
4) Seems to randomly drop a timer now and then, but...I'm going to run this box on a UPS or with battery inline per a post by "Titanium" because I believe this one to be even MORE prone to dropping proper time and timer settings with brief power flickers.
5) In "exiting" web-tv functions (watching internet TV feature) the box tends to reboot on it's own.
6) Extension "eye" for remote has a cable too short! Ordered a 4-conductor "extension" which I thought would work, and found the plug's various connectors' lengths were not standard. Will likely have to manually add wire to the one supplied. Anyone gotten an extension successfully to work on this (commercially purchased??)
THE BIG QUESTION I have for any other owners of these boxes...
Do you experience sudden "no signal" moments on various satellites? I checked and changed my 22khz and other switches, have changed the jumper wires between the 22khz and the two diseqc switches, and replaced ends on almost all the coax feeds. I still get a "no signal freeze" now and then. Can't be the LNB, it has occurred on the fixed 137 C band dish, on the moving C-band dish as well, haven't logged the Ku side doing it...hmmm..just haven't noticed it perhaps.
Still overall quite happy with the box, wondering who has performed an update of their software and if any of my problems/observations in this thread (or the other one) are fixed with updating.
I think, now with dishes aligned and all verified working through switches, it may be time to try to flash the update into my MicroHD which I never did. I took that unit offline after power supply issues seemed to affect stability of channel reception. If it updates and runs, I'll compare performance when time permits.
End of my boring contribution to our fine Satguys' site.
Been awhile, so I got a bit wordy....
Darn. If only I was paid by the word....
But...even in radio that doesn't happen.
Cheers!
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