Out of Touch. What's new? I got Qs..

[kuernodechivo]

New to this forum - first post.

OK I have a BUD I still use for some analogue feeds and I used to use it with my old Sat-Cruiser FTA.

I was considering buying a new Ku receiver combo or buy a newer LNB for the BUD but when I got looking at the lists I noticed most all the PBS stations were "AC3" audio.

Upon reading old threads it looked like the only way to use that was an external device connected with fiber to the receiver. Is that still the case?

Also while looking through information I came across the a thread that many LA and soon NY channels are changing to MPEG4.

What's the skinny? Will it still be worth it to get an FTA. I am not a big movie watcher. I like news and documentaries. I probably don't watch more than an hour of TV per week but I live in a rural area and only get a couple of channels.

It seems in preparation for this big digital whoopdie-woo in Feb my two PBS sesame channels have turned of the local relay/translator stations in my area.

I am down to just 3 or 4 over the air channels now!

According to the lists there is still a Montana PBS in the clear without the AC3 shtuff.

So what now? ..wait for new mp4 receivers or jump in with a new (current) receiver.

I guess I could program a few channels into the Sat-Cruiser. If only the Sat-Cruiser had blind-search!

 

[gabshere]

with the blind scanning receivers dropping in price some can be had pretty cheap ( seen some folks talking about getting coolsats cheap $35 )

the ac-3 has a cheap solution if the DVB receiver has a output for it. ( i don't know if the sat-cruiser does) the sonic voom headphones is a $20 solution

if you can manually load channels to the sat-cruiser or even use a channel editor it would get you in the ball game and see a few channels on c-band without much cost and decide from there to upgrade

the HD boxes of course cost more, most have ac-3 output from the box ( no decoder needed) some require a add on board to get dvb-s2 and there is yet one that will blind scan those type of channels. i don't think they are extreamly friendly to use (yet but are getting better), but picture output is great.


you probably use a analog receiver to move the big dish. you can continue with that or eventually upgrade to the v-box or g-box

 

[kuernodechivo]

with the blind scanning receivers dropping in price some can be had pretty cheap ( seen some folks talking about getting coolsats cheap $35 )

the ac-3 has a cheap solution if the DVB receiver has a output for it. ( i don't know if the sat-cruiser does) the sonic voom headphones is a $20 solution

if you can manually load channels to the sat-cruiser or even use a channel editor it would get you in the ball game and see a few channels on c-band without much cost and decide from there to upgrade

the HD boxes of course cost more, most have ac-3 output from the box ( no decoder needed) some require a add on board to get dvb-s2 and there is yet one that will blind scan those type of channels. i don't think they are extreamly friendly to use (yet but are getting better), but picture output is great.


you probably use a analog receiver to move the big dish. you can continue with that or eventually upgrade to the v-box or g-box

Thanks for the response. Do you know if any of those Diseq conversion boxes will control skew? I have often wondered how the newer Ku FTA world deal with the inability to adjust skew on the movable dishes.

As far as the Satcruiser goes I don't think I will use that unless I come across a signal that I want to mix into my off-the-air cable 24/7 but most likely I will use it for talk radio. There are allot of cool talk-radio channels on the old T-5. Right now I use the internet to stream them into a mini-micro FM transmitter so I can listen around the yard or other places int he house. I would eventually like to get off the internet since it is somewhat heavy on the PC and I use that PC for Long-DX phone calls as well with Magic-Jack.

However the SatCruiser does work well as long as you have the patience play around entering Freqs and SRs and Pids. I used it for almost a year before I went back to the Analogue. It moves and does Skew so it was a pretty good setup for the C-band. It's just for as much as they change settings on the birds now-a-days I think Blind search is a must.

 

[SatPhreak]

Right now none of the diseqc acuator boxes control skew, but one is supposed to be coming from Sadoun in Nov that will. Alot of people use voltage controled lnb's so skew is not required. Some people use an anolog box to control skew and dish position and slave a dvb reciever to it. There are also a few dvb boxes that can controll skew such as Pansat 2500, 2700 and 3500. I'm not sure if any of these are still in production but they all have blind scan.

 

[kuernodechivo]

Right now none of the diseqc acuator boxes control skew, but one is supposed to be coming from Sadoun in Nov that will. Alot of people use voltage controled lnb's so skew is not required. Some people use an anolog box to control skew and dish position and slave a dvb reciever to it. There are also a few dvb boxes that can controll skew such as Pansat 2500, 2700 and 3500. I'm not sure if any of these are still in production but they all have blind scan.

Cool Can you tell me a little how it works? I don't need the deep down knitty-gritty but I am interested how it works if you happen to know.

It that how all the Ku FTAers get my?

I mean I know about the circular on Dish and Dave but how does the Voltage Controlled LNB work with the linear Ku?

 

[SatPhreak]

I'm not sure how it works as it isn't out yet but it probably translates the 13V to one skew setting and 18V to the other skew setting.

Most people with ku only are using voltage controled lnbf's. These have no mechanical skew controller. They use 13V for vertical polarization and 18V for horizontal. If using a fixed dish the lnb is skewed for best reception and left there. With a motorized dish the lnb is set to zero degrees skew when dish is at true south and as the dish moves it rotates the entire dish and lnbf to get the correct skew.

Circular sats like dtv also use 13V for right hand and 18V for left hand. In this case the lnbf doesn't matter how it is rotated physically because of the circular polarity.

A mechanically skewed lnb requires 18-24V for both polarities and a servo to rotate the probe in the lnb for vertical or horizontal. This is the type you now have.

There are also voltage controlled lnb's for c band and combo c/ku lnb's that can be used on a big dish. These use the same idea as the other voltage controlled lnbf's but won't work on some older analog recievers unless the analog reciever is slaved to a dvb reciever.

 

[kuernodechivo]

Yeah, having worked on mine I think they actually reverse the polarity to the servo to change the directions. It moves a small rod bent kind of like an 'L' or a hook. depending on how the bottom the 'L' is it decides if is V or H.

I have often thought about the newer smaller LNBs. I understand about zeroing out V&H at the top of the arc but I guess I can't comprehend how it would stay peaked as you move across the arc. The older C-band moved the entire dish just the same yet as you got farther across the ARC there was always some tweaking to get it maxed out. In my mind I just don't see the difference in how the older dished were moved across the arc with the actuator while the new small dishes use the Diseq motor. It's like if the small dishes could do it the Big ones should have as well but that's just my mind driving myself crazy..

Could it be that since it is a digital picture people don't are that if it is peaked or not?

You know the Satcruiser really did a pretty good job at controlling all that. Like I say if it only had blind-search. Maybe I'll have to keep an eye out for a new FTA that has the voltage and cojones to move the big actuator yest still have Blins search.

At that point I will get the newer Dual Band LNB I have seen.

 

[SatPhreak]

I remember when I had my bud there was a little tweaking of the skew on my far west sats but not much. A couple of degrees only. A digital signal is better in that regard because you either get it or you don't. With anolog it gets a little sparkly mostly on the reds if it isn't quite peaked.

You can keep the Satcruiser to set skew and slave a blind scan reciever to scan for feeds twice, once on H and then on V.

The servos don't reverse polarity by switching the power and ground. They use a pulse with different timing (width) to go drive the probe clockwise or counter clockwise. The red is always +5V and the black is always ground. The white wire is the pulse wire.

I was checking ebay for a remote for my pansat 2500a a couple days ago and there were a couple 2500a recievers for $50 or less. They blind scan (slow compared to my visionsat) and can control skew, but they still can't drive an acuator to position dish unless you also have a Vbox or Gbox. If the Satruiser can drive the dish as well as skew, it would probably be cheapest to slave a blind scan reciever.

 

[kuernodechivo]

I guess for that matter my analogue GI also has a loop that I think I can use but I have never made it work quite right.