Which SD Receiver?

[chapelrun]

I'm new to FTA but got interested mainly because Sky Angel is going away.

My brother is giving me a DirectWay Oval Dish today; I think it is 36x23

Which SD Receiver would be best for someone like me?

Here are some things I'm looking for...

Easy to use and setup
Best bang for the buck
Must have Blind Scan

BTW, I really love this forum, very helpful :up

 

[Mr Tony]

Check out the review area for some options because everyone has their favourites

 

[chapelrun]

I picked the Fortac Star Mercury II

I read many of the reviews and selected the Fortac Star Mercury II and ordered it last night. $89.99 with Free Shipping

I really appreciated "drhydro" review and picked this receiver mainly because of the good review. :up

I also got my DirecPC dish yesterday and plan to install this weekend.

If I'm missing any pieces or parts please let know.

 

[Anole]

pix

One of our members, NetBuilder, has some pix on his personal site using that dish (I think).
You might take a look to get you started.
Then, with a bit of searching, there are many more interesting threads here using that and similar dishes.
All depends on what you have in mind.

Good choice on receivers.
I would have suggested the following if I'd gotten here in time to do so:
Visionsat IV-200, Mercury II, and Pansat 3500.

 

[chapelrun]

Few more questions

I plan to attach the DirecPC to the chimney and try to pick up 123W.

The LNB on this DirecPC dish looked like this. (See Attached)

Can I go directly from the LNB to the receiver? or should I have a good grounding block in between?

I read about switches but I really don't understand this yet. What should I read to get smart on switches.

I live about 39 N 78W (about 70 miles West of Washington DC) and this site Satellite finder, how to point dish with magnetic north, azimuth and elevation program calculator. gives me AZ 247, Elev 25.5 and Skew +41, but I wonder if 123W might be out of my reach since the dish is only 30x20 oval.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tron]

Those Hughes LNBs work very well.

You can go from LNB to receiver temporarily (for aiming purposes), but for the long haul you will need a ground block.

Best place to learn is reading this forum. Good news is that, since the Hughes is a standard LNB (L.O. 10750), you can use 22k switching in addition to a DiSEqC switch.

Some members here have used DirecPC dishes for G-10R. Elevation should be obtainable, if nothing is blocking your line of sight.

 

[chapelrun]

DirecPC dish of molded plastic

Yet another question....

The DirecPC dish that I have is made of molded plastic and the surface of the dish is kind of rough. One note I read suggested a light sandpaper on the dish to make it smoother.

Good idea or bad idea??

I will not be able to put it up this weekend because of ice.

 

[lumpkin666]

Yet another question....

The DirecPC dish that I have is made of molded plastic and the surface of the dish is kind of rough. One note I read suggested a light sandpaper on the dish to make it smoother.

Good idea or bad idea??

I will not be able to put it up this weekend because of ice.

Bad idea. Under that bumpy surface is the metallic part that reflects the signal. Too much sanding and you may damage the dish.

 

[Tron]

The surface of those molded dishes is designed to maximize the signal, so any sanding you perform can do nothing but degrade the signal. The only time when you might want to LIGHTLY sand it would be as a preparation for painting it. If you do decide to paint the reflector, make sure you use FLAT paint (not glossy).

 

[chapelrun]

Made some progress today

Weatherman was slightly off so we did not get any ice.

I could not wait to get my DirecPC dish UP so today was the day.

Installed DirecPC on chimney (See Pix) and started to try to point it.
I have SkyAngel with an old 3700 Receiver and hooked it up to that. My Fortec Star Merc II has not got here yet. The shiney LNB is currently hooked up is just for pointing purposes is a DISH LNBF (BS1H3UP210M) with the cover removed (so I could attach it)

I'm currently pointed to 129W but cannot find 121W which I was going to use to find 123W. Anyway good progress today.

Any and all help appreciated!!

 

[turbosat]

Looks good, hope you got your vertical pole perfectly plumb and level on the top (do that before sticking on the dish). And don't worry about the paint, I have one that looks like it re-entered the atmostphere mounted on the space shuttle, and it still works fine on G10.
Alternately, I'd stick a chain-link fence cornerpost in the ground in concrete, lots easier to work on lol.

 

[Tron]

Although its Dish Network, 121w is not DBS, it is linear Ku. You will need to use the Hughes linear LNB to receive that satellite, L.O. in your receiver is 10750. There is only one channel in the clear on that bird, the "Congratulations you have a Superdish pointed at 121w" slate channel.

 

[chapelrun]

Thanks Tron

OK, I moved the cable over to the Hughes LNB and made some adjustments and now I have 121W with a signal strength of 110.

Now I have to wait for the Fortec Star Merc II to arrive before I can try for 123W. (Receiver scheduled to arrive Wed.)

Thanks again....getting closer

 

[chapelrun]

Fortec Receiver arrived today

Got my Fortec Star Merc II today and set it up. I had already found 121W then moved the dish very slightly to the west until 121W signal went to zero. Blind Scan and found 32 channels on 123W.

Microblocking on some channels.

Signal Level 80
Signal Quality 45

RTN here I come - - - - -

 

[chapelrun]

Question about Polarity

Noticed that I'm only getting the Vertically Polarized transponders so far. Only about 4 Horizontally Polarized stations but would like to figure this out.

I have the Hughes LNB pictured earlier in this thread and I have a Zinwell multiswitch. If I add the multiswitch and tell the receiver about it will that make it automatically go between V and H. Is this easy to setup?

Or is there an even easier way?

 

[Tron]

For a multiswitch you would need a dual-output LNB, and the only thing that keeps that Hughes LNB from being the best LNB I've ever used is that it has only a single output

 

[chapelrun]

Might have figured it out

I had only done a "Scan FTA Only" and found 32 channels, but went back and deleted all my channels and did something called a "Power Scan" on the Fortec Merc II and it found 107 channels (many encypted).

Anyway this time it did find both V and H polarity. So maybe I just needed to do the deeper scan.