Need help Choosing Satellite dish package

[_drew_]

Well I'm just starting to get in to this FTA have been reading past few weeks.I don't have any spare PCI slots left in my machine.I"m just starting out,I went to by a USB receiver and the DVB world Box had good reviews on this site,but this is no longer being sold I'm told,in it's place they are selling a device called Match Box Pro USB DVB-S Satellite Receiver .I just bought one of these,this seems to have everything the DVB WorldBox had.Now what I am looking for is a simple dish LNB and motor Combo.I will just be using this receiver on only my main PC which is connected to my HDTV LCD in the living room.I have been looking at packages from Sadoun Satellite systems..looking at this package here MKit 2 Package:eSame as above, but here you get a 90cm dish instead of 80cm and a SatControl motor.This comes with a 36 inch dish.I'd like to know what you all think that have been into this FTA..and would welcome any suggestions you would have for Dish packages..thanks in advance.

 

[stogie5150]

You're in for a steep learning curve. The standard advice here is to get a settop FTA receiver first, set the dish up, concentrate on learning how to aim at one satellite. When you have that mastered then you can move on to the motor. Motors have their own learning curve too. THEN you can slave your USB box to the FTA receiver and get what you want. That's how it was suggested to me, that's how I did it, and having done it, That's how I suggest everyone do it. Yes it seems like a pain from the outset, but there are very good reasons to do it that way, that will only become apparent when you actually do it. But once you do it, you will quickly understand why.

Setting up a motorized dish with JUST a USB Box is gonna be danged near impossible. They're just not designed for that.

As far as suggestions....I use old Primestar dishes...hey, they were free. But if I had to buy a dish I'd get a 90 cm/1m dish providing I had a place to ground mount it. You want, if at all possible to mount your dish on a pole concreted in the ground because you WILL be spending a lot of time out at the dish aiming, tweaking, etc.

Now, as far as specific receiver reccomendations...you can look in my sig and see what I have, out of all of them I like the Coolsat 5000 the best. It was my first receiver, but I still like it the best. They do not sell them anymore to my knowledge, but you can get a 6000 which is about the same, function-wise.

Motors, all I have experience with is the Sg2100, I like them, I have two, they are solid pieces of kit.

Hope some of the above rambling helped.

 

[Anole]

I'm with Stogie

I looked up your Mkit2 package.
It seems to be a pretty good value for all the pieces.

But, I have to echo what Stogie said.
I bought a similar pack with a USB receiver a few years ago.
Was a real chicken and the egg battle:
- can't get the dish aimed without a working receiver
- can't get the receiver to work without having the dish aimed.
- can't get the motor working at all.
- the software was a nightmare !

You should really search the forum here, using keywords like: "USB"
Read everything you can - it'll do you well.
Scan through the DVB forum section and look for interesting threads.
Here's one thread worth a look.