New guy needs help

[pagerman]

Hey all,
I just signed up here, and I looked at all the posts...
Here's the question: I have an old DirecPC dish on my roof (now that I have RoadRunner).... Can I use it and it's LNB for FTA? I believe it was aimed at G3R Ku... also, it mounts on the larger of the DTV-type mounts (about 3"??).. can I get a motor to move this dish? It's not round, it's eliptical - was ment to receive DirecPC and DirecTV.... Also, what FTA receiver is recommended? I would like to get HD if there is FTA HD out there. Any help would be great! Thanks in advance!!
Bob

[Malamute]

Pagerman, first welcome to the List:)

When I first join this list I talked about this system then they made this a section for us to talk & share info.  I've been doing it for severly years now, I hope I can lead and help you out.  Right now I have a old Primestar dish that I use but after this weekend I will have a 12 ft C-Band dish up and running.

First: Dishes:  Bigger is Better, the DirectPC dish you have is a little small, cause you need signal strenght and more area (dish dia) to collect the low & meddium power satellites.  You can goto //www.lyngsat.com then click on Feq: America it will list all sats in our area.
   You will notice that they are color coded PINK = Old C-band satellite /  Yellow = Mixed C & Ku Band satellite / Green = DBS/Ku High power satllites (Directv/Dish Network) and some others also use these.  When you click on each satellite the first section is C-band transponders the second set are Ku -Band transponders.

Second: LNB:  you must have a FTA lnb in order to pick up the signal, the one you have is only for Data Use so it will not work, sorry.  What I use right now is a C/Ku band Feedhorn from the big dish mounted to a strenghten arm so i can pick up both the C & Ku transponders.

Third: Dish Movers Motors:  Yes you can buy them & some will hold a dish size up to 1.2m (about 48in dia.) which I will recemend for you. This will give you area that can pick up signal from the low power sats.  They use what is called DiSEqC controll that is at 1.2 or higher. Most receviers have DiSEqC 1.2 in them and are ready to go.

Fourth: Receviers:  The first rec I had was a Coship 5300B very nice unit.  Many features on it. Other makers also have great receviers too such as Pansat, Fortec, Topfield, Coship, SatWorks and a few more (can't remember them all).  The newest recevier that I Have is a Interga 912S which has HDTV built in along with a ATSC tuner for OTA DTV pick up.  The only falt it has is DiESqC 1.0 so it will not work with the dish movers motors so you will need a stand alone dsih mover controll unit. The Interga 912S cost about $600 -700 for the recevier only, one were you can get a whole system for about or under $500 bucks.

Here are some web site you can look at to buy the stuff at:
//www.sadoun.com
//www.skyvision.com
//www.global-cm.net

Satellite info can be found at //www.lyngsat.com which is updated every day

Or you can pick up some stuff off ebay which is were my stuff first came from.  

Remember One thing, the channels that are up today might be gone tomorrow, also you will pick up wild feeds at all hours of the days (Tazman will a test to that!)(read other post in this section) cause he just bought the Interga 912S and found stuff he watch that didn't air till the next day.

If you have any more questions just ask, I'll try to answer all of them to my best knowlage.

Malamute

[StarvingForHDTV]

Excellent post.

[JohnRacine]

Malamute,

Just wondering what brand BUD you are using.  I installed my Janiel 10' Dark Star in 1984 (Made right here in Racine).  A major hailstorm this Spring finally put enough dents into it to cause me to replace it.  Since Janiel is long gone, I'm looking at an aluminum dish from KTI.  Do you have any experience with that company?  I've had 4DTV+HDD200 decoder for about 3 years now.  I would never leave the world of C & Ku Band.  Soon, I'll be adding an mpeg receiver.  Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the dish from KTI.  Thanks.

[Malamute]

JohnRacine,  it was made by skyvision I think?  The cover on the feedhorn says that.  But I had to do some welding on it, some mesh was broken off so I took the tig welder put it back together and a friend paints cars for a living and he painted for me.

I did get it back up yesterday and moving again, just had to put new feedhorn on it ( C & Ku band w/ lnb's) ran the cables to the house and done.

I have a General Insterments 2650R VC2+ with a Motorola 905 4DTV side car.  Will call today to get programing on it, then program all the sats into it and also move the Interga on to it and then take off the Coship and take down the other dish and put into storage for now.

Malamute