Maybe Im the only one lol but Ive got 8 dvb satellite tuners. I currently control my actuator with an Arduino via serial. I have thought many times of making a diseqc interface for it as well but then only one card can control the dish, and no matter what tuner Im using I would have to switch to the diseqc tuner and move the dish then switch back to the tuner Im using. Right now I can use whatever tuner I want and just move the dish with a serial app. No switching back and forth.
First world problems eh? lol
If you could control your actuator the same way, via diseqc or serial, it gives users options. Maybe no one else needs that option though lol. I tend to be an anomaly most of the time
UDL
Well, yeah. Like how you have said in other forums that you don't use your equipment to actually watch TV because you are more interested in analyzing signals, or words to that effect.
But you and I must be total opposites, because an RS232 port would not be my preferred method for any purpose, especially now that many new computers don't even have RS232 ports anymore. IMHO all new satellite equipment should have an RJ45 network jack (and maybe a USB port), and should just connect to the local network, and should be able to directly download firmware and any needed datasets. Why should anyone ever have to hook such a device up to a computer at all? It should get an address from the router that one can browse to from any computer on a local network, and then show a page that lets the user control all available functions.
Sometimes when I enter FTA forums I feel like I have stepped into a time warp where I am back in 1995, as least insofar as any recognition that people now do things over local networks is concerned.
Consider that if each of your eight tuners had a network connection, and a device like this had a network connection, then each tuner could (with the proper software, and I'll bet you could write it) tell the positioner where it seeds the dish to be when you are using that particular tuner. No tuner would need to be directly connected to this device, but any one of them could control it. And at the rate technology is moving in the FTA world, we MIGHT actually see that in 2030 or thereabouts!
My only issue with RS232 is that usually I don't have a computer anywhere near my satellite equipment, and my only portable computer is a tablet, which definitely does not have an RS232 port. So, to do a firmware update, I would have to disconnect this device and carry it all the way across the house, and then if the software that does the updates only runs on Windows, I would have to fire up my ancient Windows 2000 box and HOPE that it still works and that the software runs on that, and that I don't get a virus in the time it's online. Doable, yes. Convenient? Not even slightly. Now, if the software would run on a Linux box then that would be a lot more convenient, but still not nearly as much as if it could just get updates over the network.
I don't like to be the skunk at the garden party but it just really surprises me that anyone sees a RS232 port as a good way of communicating with a device in a time when so many computers don't even have them anymore. This device must already have some kind of computer inside it to make it capable of doing what it does, so why not add a network interface, or at the very least, a USB slot that it can use to download firmware and updates?
