what is the cheapest portable satellite dish set up
cheers snap
woolman said
03:10 AM Oct 20, 2013
One that you find on the side of the road.lol
KFT said
03:16 AM Oct 20, 2013
NOT one from Itechworld, RV4X4, 4X4world, 4X4Rv world or anything that sounds like it.
deal with a reputable company like www.satplus.com.au or www.accessantennas.com.au who only sell quality components that will rarely if ever give you any trouble and if they do these companies will give you the support you need.
many on here can vouch for the service these people provide.
I have no connection other than as a satisfied customer.
frank
valiant81 said
04:57 AM Oct 20, 2013
Hi Snap1945;
I too have the Vast set up for my television reception while we are traveling and what i have used for the dish is a second hand old Austar dish and lmb that i picked up from the local tip where i live. Total cost $5.00, and all good. The satilight that we use for our Vast receiption is the same one that Austar use for there pay television.
I did replace the lmb after 18 months as the original ( a very early sharp lmb ) failed. A new lmb cost me $ 20.00 trade. Some people will say that that size dish will not work in the Northern states as it is just a bit to small. Earlyer this year we traveled from home to Darwin and never had a problem seting up the dish at our camp sit.
$5.00 compaired to what some of the retailers want ( $100's ) for a dish and lmb.
One thing that you will need is some form of trypod to mount the dish so as to sit your set up at ground level. On a nother note i have seen one or two caravans use a jocky wheel mount to hold a lenght of 2.25" pipe to mount the dish that way. I find that useing the trypod method work the best for me.
_wombat_ said
09:27 AM Oct 20, 2013
I'll second KFT and Valiant81, sounds like you have no info in regards to vast and the decoder box, can I suggest you visit a store that sells them and get all the info and see them working and how to set them up correctly.
You could go to ItechWorld (just for info) BUT do not by from them as KFT suggest two of the best places to purchase, A complete setup should cost about $500-$600
PS size of dish 50mm, I have had no problem all over Aus with this size dish, small enough to store on the bed when travelling.
-- Edited by _wombat_ on Sunday 20th of October 2013 09:29:17 AM
snap1946 said
02:32 PM Oct 20, 2013
HI valiant81
WHAT ELSE WOULD I NEED BESIDES THE DISH AND CAN I USE VAST JUST FOR SAY 6 MONTHS TRIPS
CHEERS SNAP
hako said
03:18 PM Oct 20, 2013
What is a "LMB" please ?
valiant81 said
03:21 PM Oct 20, 2013
Hi Snap1946;
Ok, Yes the Vast set up for people in caravan's, the registration has to be renewed every 6 months. Has your receiver been registed yet??. It will not pick up the comercial channels until it is!. It does not cost money to resister or to re-register.
So were to start. i would think you have your vast receiver set up. Can you receive channel 800. IF NOT do not go any further until you do !!! This is the most important thing for new people setting up for the first time. It pointless going any futher. The vast receiver needs to be pointed at the correct satilight to be able to receive this imformation and once you can get channel 800 the rest is easy (registration ).
snap1946 said
03:28 PM Oct 20, 2013
HI valiant81
DO I NEED A SET TOP BOX OR SOMETHING BESIDES THE DISC
CHEERS SNAP
valiant81 said
04:35 PM Oct 20, 2013
Hi Snap1946;
Ok i will take it from the top, what you need to be able to get television receiption while youn are traveling.......
1/ A receiver capable of picking up the Vast service, I use the UEC brand as it was the first one on the market at the time and there are now other brands starting to appear now. And one other thing, what ever you do, get a receiver that is capable of running off 12 Volts DC, and i think that these type of receivers also come with a 240 Volt to 12 Volt power supply.
2/ A satilight dish and LMB. The LMB down convertes the signal that is received by the dish to a lower frequency that the receiver can work with, after the down conversion the frequency is in the order of about 1200 Mhz and at the frequency this is why your coax cable and connections are so important.
3/ Some type of stand,i use a trypod type that folds up and lives in the boot of the caravan.
4/ 20 odd Meters of good qality coax cable ( RG6 quad cable ) and i short lead made out of the same coax cable and fittings that will connect on to your LMB on the dish. And one coax cable joiner, buy a couple incase you lose one!!
5/ Some type of satilight meter and this you can spend anywere from under $100.00 to several $1000's. The one that i use in my job cost about $2500 and works real well and is a bit of a over kill, BUT all you would need is a basic one and one that would cost about $120.00. Do not buy the $60.00 'special'.
6/ A good compass, some thing a lot better than the one that comes with your meter.
7/ I do use a HDMI lead to take the signal from my Vast receiver to the television, easy one type of connection that has the best high quality transfer from equipment pluged in to your television. Or you could use the old and trusted way of the red & white ( audio ) and yellow ( video ) leads that have been around since the year dot.
8/ The television..... there are some good brands and some rubbish one, If you are happy with the set that you have , use that, providing that your set can also run on 12 volts. Hope fully your set has at leased one HDMI input, ( HDMI = High, Difinision, Muiltymedia, Interface )
Now power reqirments .....And this is important if you are going to free camp
How big is your house battery ( AH's ) just because the televion will pull about 4~5 Amps + the set top box would pull and this is a guess, about 2 Amps. Then there are all of the other things that you would have around your caravan, lighting and hopefully led lighting, water pump and any thing else that you may have in your caravan that runs off 12 Volts. Voltage drop can be a big issue.
KFT said
07:19 PM Oct 20, 2013
G'day snap46,
If you can take a look at the Satplus website there is a plain language explanation of how the VAST satellite system works and what you need in order to get the free to air digital channels anywhere in Australia
from my own experience an 85 cm dish is best. They are easier to aim, work better in rainy weather and will work anywhere in aus.
I also use a tripod to mount my dish and peg it down so the wind will not blow it over. The tripod also means I do not have to bend over or kneel down to set it up. I can also set it up clear of trees and park my van in the shade.
I would also suggest you look at a sat finder like the SF3239 which will make selecting the correct satellite much easier.
I have been using satellite TV for around 15 years now and always have good tv reception(important for state of origin and V8's)
please feel free to ask any questions you may have as we are here to help.
frank
Bunkerbob said
07:54 PM Oct 20, 2013
I would suggest that a 50mm dish would be far to small. We were told a minimum of 85cm that is 850 mm as a minimum. Smaller dishes, 65cm, are too hard to locate the satellite and more so the further north you go. As a complete set up you need
1. The dish, having something to cover and protect it when travelling is a good idea. We had a bag made from the canvas maker in Albany.
2. A stand. Try and get a tripod style not the triangle style. The stand needs to be exactly vertical. Good ones have a small bubble to get it right.
3. A set top box. Needs to be registered, free, every 6 months and when you change states. Just ring them and it is basically done while on the phone.
4. Cable from the dish to the box. Some people put a connector to go between the box and your van/MH and van/MH to the dish. Much easier.
5. Not 100% necessary, but a satellite locater device. When setting up emits a loud beep when you are on a satellite. There are 3, you need the middle one.
We purchased ours from Albany TV, we have no affiliation at all with them but Neil was so helpful. Cost $650 and reception is great wherever we have been.
Just be careful of the $199 ads. They are a smaller dish made from thickened tinfoil and do NOT come with the set top box, that is what makes it go. Apparently their after service leaves a lot to be desired. Good luck. Worth the money but hasten slowly with your decision.
hako, no question is dumb have a look at the two links I have posted
LNB = Low Noise Block (I think) its the thing on the front of the dish that picks up the signal.
-- Edited by _wombat_ on Sunday 20th of October 2013 08:08:32 PM
03_troopy said
08:12 PM Oct 20, 2013
hako wrote:
Apologies for this dumb question which I repeat again, but what is a "lmb" mentioned by valiant81 please. I've Googled it and I won't be so crude as to repeat what Google says it stands for on this forum, but there must be another meaning....please. Regards
The LMB is a typo, it should be LNB which stands for Low Noise Block Downconverter.
Edit.. Looks like i just got pipped at the post on that one.
-- Edited by 03_troopy on Sunday 20th of October 2013 08:13:48 PM
Dunmowin said
01:46 AM Oct 21, 2013
Totally agree with BunkerBob. We bought ours in Albany as well. Neil set up while we shopped, on return gave us instruction for when we plugged into van. (Important to know whether your van is pre-wired for sat.) We bought ours last May, just after the boxes became 12 volt.
valiant81 said
01:53 AM Oct 21, 2013
Hi all;
Have trouble seting up your dish using the smaller dishes that have flooded the market are a problem to set up useing the little meters that a lot of retailers sell. Problem is that to find the satilight in the first place you need to first set your dish to the correct cordinants ( how far off North, the elevation and finaly the skew adjustment ). Get one of these wrong and no service or at best a service that will drop out or freeze for no aparent reason. A biger dish does make it easyer to find the correct satilight, but half the problem is geting to know were to point the dish and know what the cordinants mean and the one adjustment that a lot of people miss out on is the skew. Even with a good signal and your satilight receiver set up and telling you that you have X amount of channels, IF the skew is NOT set up incorrectly you will still not get the signal that the Vast receiver will be able to decode.
If you google Vast cordinants or vast set up, there is a site that has all of the cordinants for every state in Australia.
As i have said befor i use a old Austar dish both for the caravan and also have a second dish on the roof of my house that is used for when the caravan is at home so as the UEC box can recieve it's up dates. Yes my caravan is pluged into the power 24/7, one for the house battery to be charged by the built in smart charger and second even with the satilight box turned off but still will display the time. I do not have a problem,even after 2 odd years like this. So that is my set up both on the road and also at home. Both of these dishes are 65 cm and are used all over Australia.
Now the cheaper meters that used are just that, cheap and nasty, yes they will work to a point, but can be very deaf or selectivity is poor and as Australia has 3 satilights that are very close to gether and these cheaper meters can not tell the differance between the satilights, and only one satilight has the signal that we are looking for. Is it any wonder that a lot of people are having trouble. That and poor qality coax cable
In may of this year the wife and my self took a unplaned ( long story ) holiday and traveled up to Darwin and we free camped along the way and the Devil's Marbils comes to mind. We even stayed at Daily waters and were siting down to a quiet beer when there was a knock at the door and a nother caravana asked if we had television, yes and not a problem, but he was, and asked for my help. Thank god i had my tools with me, including my antenna gear.
Any way after a few minuites with his meter i could not find the signal and this bloke was useing a 85 cm dish, whent and got the little meter that i keep in the caravan for my own set up, any way found the requirded signal, did a default and retune and oner happy customer repayed use with a couple of coldy's at tea time.
The satilight meter that i use with my work is a Uniohm satilight meter and worth about $2500.00 and has to be sent off evey 12 months for recalabration.This meter is used every day, but it is my bread and butter and would be totaly lost with out it. BUT the little meter that i have in my caravan is a Labgear SQ702 and cost me about $120.00 and this little meter can be programed for the satilights in our hemisphere. When traveling i do leave the uniohm meter home.
So the best advise i can give you is to practice at home seting up you dish, try several times and finaly it all will slip into place and you will hopefully get good at setting your system up. What ever you do, do not panic, life is to short. Take a breath and remember the satilight that we try and find is quiet small and trying to find it can be a bit of a ordeal at first, SMALL and CARFULL ajustments are the way to go, so take it easy take a break, have a coffee / tea or even a beer if you feel like it. Just remember...slowly,slowly catch the worm.
Highwayman said
02:36 AM Oct 21, 2013
Snap mate...I hv a itech 85dish with vast .i can only tell you I do not recommend this firm to you..their tech people were rude and short with me I am not the brightest of technophobes but I can follow instruction ..I can't compete with incorrect data settings in the finder I bought thanks to a gn from toowoomba together we set up and registered the vast ..thx Errol ..I've painted out all ads from dish and cover...good luck choosing when they work it's great ....
hako said
02:42 AM Oct 21, 2013
Apologies for this dumb question which I repeat again, but what is a "lmb" mentioned by valiant81 please. I've Googled it and I won't be so crude as to repeat what Google says it stands for on this forum, but there must be another meaning....please.
Regards
Still think it would be better to go to a shop and have it all explained and demonstrated.
KFT said
03:07 AM Oct 21, 2013
Hako, LMB is a misprint/typo the device referred to is actually a "low noise block" which is a very sensitive receiver that downconverts the signal from the satellite before it goes into the decoder/sat receiver.
It is normally referred to as a LNB.
frank
valiant81 said
03:50 AM Oct 21, 2013
Hi every one;
Yes it was a typo, and i re read the post befor i posted, Yes you are all right and i'll be the first to admit the mistake, .........See even at my age you are still learning and prone to making mistakes. Yes and sorry to one and all and i did mean to type LNB and not LMB.
hako said
04:30 AM Oct 21, 2013
Thank heavens for that - if it was indeed "lmb", I figured you were talking about what male dogs do.
Ontos45 said
03:20 PM Oct 21, 2013
Concur with iTech being useless. Had gear from them 2010 and was ok for WA but not for Central Qld. Had to throw it all away when we changed to Vast here in Rocky (cept for tri-pod only thing that worked properly) .
As a pensioner applied for Gov. free units and after a lot of mucking around got a complete unit. Have an Altech receiver that I attached a hard drive (HDD) to record. Am updating to a 12VDC model with on-board HDD and duel tuners when we travel again. Am replacing my sat. finder with it's blinking lights to one that can be set to C1 and ignore other satellites.
Peter
valiant81 said
03:44 PM Oct 21, 2013
HI Ontos45;
Great news about getting your new satilight receiver. With your new receiver you will also need to replace the LNB on your dish with a duel feed model. This is so you can record one channel and watch a totaly different channel, so you will need to run a second coax cable from your LNB to your receiver.
Ontos45 said
03:52 PM Oct 21, 2013
Thanks valiant81.
Have a duel LNB with setup. Mate staying next to us now so we set up unit over a stubbie, connected him to spare outlet so he can watch satellite too.
Peter
goldcoaster said
11:25 PM Oct 21, 2013
Does anyone travel with the Austar or Foxtel IQ. We have the old Austar box single LNB, was interested in upgrading to IQ as long as it works ok when on the road.I know I have to use a double LNB. Sorry to hijack post but while everyone is fired up I thought it would be an interesting subject.
valiant81 said
05:04 AM Oct 22, 2013
Hi goldcoaster;
I haven't had a lot to do with the Q series of receivers but i think this receiver needs to be fed from a duel LNB so the only think you would need is a second run of coax cable from your dish's duel out put LNB to the second input on your receiver and you will be good to go.
briche said
03:06 AM Oct 23, 2013
Might as well put my thoughts in on this subject. Last year we bought from SaPlus a digital Satellite Finder model SF 3239.
It makes the job of alining the dish so easy by being pretuned to the Optus C1 satellite. Once you get used to using it it will take all the frustration out of the job. I can now get the dish set usually in about 1 to 2 min with not hassles at all. By the way in am in no way connected with the company, just a satisfied customer.
briche
_wombat_ said
03:11 AM Oct 23, 2013
briche wrote:
Might as well put my thoughts in on this subject. Last year we bought from SaPlus a digital Satellite Finder model SF 3239.
It makes the job of alining the dish so easy by being pretuned to the Optus C1 satellite. Once you get used to using it it will take all the frustration out of the job. I can now get the dish set usually in about 1 to 2 min with not hassles at all. By the way in am in no way connected with the company, just a satisfied customer.
briche
I agree briche, they have very quick delivery and the best backup I have ever received.
I went to AccessAntenna just north of Perth when I had a problem, they fixed it in 3 mins, and I did not buy my unit from them, so here is another company that is great.
Aemerf said
03:58 PM Oct 26, 2013
This is such an informative string for me - we have just bought the VAST system from Albany TV in Brisbane and it is extremely reassuring to me that we have done the right thing :):):). We plan to head off on our big trip in a year or so but are in the process of setting our Jayco camper trailer with all we think we might need. And then we play with it! Cannot wait to get going!!!!
what is the cheapest portable satellite dish set up
cheers snap
One that you find on the side of the road.lol
deal with a reputable company like www.satplus.com.au or www.accessantennas.com.au who only sell quality components that will rarely if ever give you any trouble and if they do these companies will give you the support you need.
many on here can vouch for the service these people provide.
I have no connection other than as a satisfied customer.
frank
Hi Snap1945;
I too have the Vast set up for my television reception while we are traveling and what i have used for the dish is a second hand old Austar dish and lmb that i picked up from the local tip where i live. Total cost $5.00, and all good. The satilight that we use for our Vast receiption is the same one that Austar use for there pay television.
I did replace the lmb after 18 months as the original ( a very early sharp lmb ) failed. A new lmb cost me $ 20.00 trade. Some people will say that that size dish will not work in the Northern states as it is just a bit to small. Earlyer this year we traveled from home to Darwin and never had a problem seting up the dish at our camp sit.
$5.00 compaired to what some of the retailers want ( $100's ) for a dish and lmb.
One thing that you will need is some form of trypod to mount the dish so as to sit your set up at ground level. On a nother note i have seen one or two caravans use a jocky wheel mount to hold a lenght of 2.25" pipe to mount the dish that way. I find that useing the trypod method work the best for me.
I'll second KFT and Valiant81, sounds like you have no info in regards to vast and the decoder box, can I suggest you visit a store that sells them and get all the info and see them working and how to set them up correctly.
You could go to ItechWorld (just for info) BUT do not by from them as KFT suggest two of the best places to purchase, A complete setup should cost about $500-$600
PS size of dish 50mm, I have had no problem all over Aus with this size dish, small enough to store on the bed when travelling.
-- Edited by _wombat_ on Sunday 20th of October 2013 09:29:17 AM
HI valiant81
WHAT ELSE WOULD I NEED BESIDES THE DISH AND CAN I USE VAST JUST FOR SAY 6 MONTHS TRIPS
CHEERS SNAP
Hi Snap1946;
Ok, Yes the Vast set up for people in caravan's, the registration has to be renewed every 6 months. Has your receiver been registed yet??. It will not pick up the comercial channels until it is!. It does not cost money to resister or to re-register.
So were to start. i would think you have your vast receiver set up. Can you receive channel 800. IF NOT do not go any further until you do !!! This is the most important thing for new people setting up for the first time. It pointless going any futher. The vast receiver needs to be pointed at the correct satilight to be able to receive this imformation and once you can get channel 800 the rest is easy (registration ).
HI valiant81
DO I NEED A SET TOP BOX OR SOMETHING BESIDES THE DISC
CHEERS SNAP
Hi Snap1946;
Ok i will take it from the top, what you need to be able to get television receiption while youn are traveling.......
1/ A receiver capable of picking up the Vast service, I use the UEC brand as it was the first one on the market at the time and there are now other brands starting to appear now. And one other thing, what ever you do, get a receiver that is capable of running off 12 Volts DC, and i think that these type of receivers also come with a 240 Volt to 12 Volt power supply.
2/ A satilight dish and LMB. The LMB down convertes the signal that is received by the dish to a lower frequency that the receiver can work with, after the down conversion the frequency is in the order of about 1200 Mhz and at the frequency this is why your coax cable and connections are so important.
3/ Some type of stand,i use a trypod type that folds up and lives in the boot of the caravan.
4/ 20 odd Meters of good qality coax cable ( RG6 quad cable ) and i short lead made out of the same coax cable and fittings that will connect on to your LMB on the dish. And one coax cable joiner, buy a couple incase you lose one!!
5/ Some type of satilight meter and this you can spend anywere from under $100.00 to several $1000's. The one that i use in my job cost about $2500 and works real well and is a bit of a over kill, BUT all you would need is a basic one and one that would cost about $120.00. Do not buy the $60.00 'special'.
6/ A good compass, some thing a lot better than the one that comes with your meter.
7/ I do use a HDMI lead to take the signal from my Vast receiver to the television, easy one type of connection that has the best high quality transfer from equipment pluged in to your television. Or you could use the old and trusted way of the red & white ( audio ) and yellow ( video ) leads that have been around since the year dot.
8/ The television..... there are some good brands and some rubbish one, If you are happy with the set that you have , use that, providing that your set can also run on 12 volts. Hope fully your set has at leased one HDMI input, ( HDMI = High, Difinision, Muiltymedia, Interface )
Now power reqirments .....And this is important if you are going to free camp
How big is your house battery ( AH's ) just because the televion will pull about 4~5 Amps + the set top box would pull and this is a guess, about 2 Amps. Then there are all of the other things that you would have around your caravan, lighting and hopefully led lighting, water pump and any thing else that you may have in your caravan that runs off 12 Volts. Voltage drop can be a big issue.
If you can take a look at the Satplus website there is a plain language explanation of how the VAST satellite system works and what you need in order to get the free to air digital channels anywhere in Australia
from my own experience an 85 cm dish is best. They are easier to aim, work better in rainy weather and will work anywhere in aus.
I also use a tripod to mount my dish and peg it down so the wind will not blow it over. The tripod also means I do not have to bend over or kneel down to set it up. I can also set it up clear of trees and park my van in the shade.
I would also suggest you look at a sat finder like the SF3239 which will make selecting the correct satellite much easier.
I have been using satellite TV for around 15 years now and always have good tv reception(important for state of origin and V8's)
please feel free to ask any questions you may have as we are here to help.
frank
I would suggest that a 50mm dish would be far to small. We were told a minimum of 85cm that is 850 mm as a minimum. Smaller dishes, 65cm, are too hard to locate the satellite and more so the further north you go. As a complete set up you need
1. The dish, having something to cover and protect it when travelling is a good idea. We had a bag made from the canvas maker in Albany.
2. A stand. Try and get a tripod style not the triangle style. The stand needs to be exactly vertical. Good ones have a small bubble to get it right.
3. A set top box. Needs to be registered, free, every 6 months and when you change states. Just ring them and it is basically done while on the phone.
4. Cable from the dish to the box. Some people put a connector to go between the box and your van/MH and van/MH to the dish. Much easier.
5. Not 100% necessary, but a satellite locater device. When setting up emits a loud beep when you are on a satellite. There are 3, you need the middle one.
We purchased ours from Albany TV, we have no affiliation at all with them but Neil was so helpful. Cost $650 and reception is great wherever we have been.
Just be careful of the $199 ads. They are a smaller dish made from thickened tinfoil and do NOT come with the set top box, that is what makes it go. Apparently their after service leaves a lot to be desired. Good luck. Worth the money but hasten slowly with your decision.
here's the full list of co-ords, download the PDF
http://www.aurorasatellite.com.au/Web%20page%20skews.pdf
hako, no question is dumb have a look at the two links I have posted
LNB = Low Noise Block (I think) its the thing on the front of the dish that picks up the signal.
-- Edited by _wombat_ on Sunday 20th of October 2013 08:08:32 PM
The LMB is a typo, it should be LNB which stands for Low Noise Block Downconverter.
Edit.. Looks like i just got pipped at the post on that one.
-- Edited by 03_troopy on Sunday 20th of October 2013 08:13:48 PM
Totally agree with BunkerBob. We bought ours in Albany as well. Neil set up while we shopped, on return gave us instruction for when we plugged into van. (Important to know whether your van is pre-wired for sat.) We bought ours last May, just after the boxes became 12 volt.
Hi all;
Have trouble seting up your dish using the smaller dishes that have flooded the market are a problem to set up useing the little meters that a lot of retailers sell. Problem is that to find the satilight in the first place you need to first set your dish to the correct cordinants ( how far off North, the elevation and finaly the skew adjustment ). Get one of these wrong and no service or at best a service that will drop out or freeze for no aparent reason. A biger dish does make it easyer to find the correct satilight, but half the problem is geting to know were to point the dish and know what the cordinants mean and the one adjustment that a lot of people miss out on is the skew. Even with a good signal and your satilight receiver set up and telling you that you have X amount of channels, IF the skew is NOT set up incorrectly you will still not get the signal that the Vast receiver will be able to decode.
If you google Vast cordinants or vast set up, there is a site that has all of the cordinants for every state in Australia.
As i have said befor i use a old Austar dish both for the caravan and also have a second dish on the roof of my house that is used for when the caravan is at home so as the UEC box can recieve it's up dates. Yes my caravan is pluged into the power 24/7, one for the house battery to be charged by the built in smart charger and second even with the satilight box turned off but still will display the time. I do not have a problem,even after 2 odd years like this. So that is my set up both on the road and also at home. Both of these dishes are 65 cm and are used all over Australia.
Now the cheaper meters that used are just that, cheap and nasty, yes they will work to a point, but can be very deaf or selectivity is poor and as Australia has 3 satilights that are very close to gether and these cheaper meters can not tell the differance between the satilights, and only one satilight has the signal that we are looking for. Is it any wonder that a lot of people are having trouble. That and poor qality coax cable
In may of this year the wife and my self took a unplaned ( long story ) holiday and traveled up to Darwin and we free camped along the way and the Devil's Marbils comes to mind. We even stayed at Daily waters and were siting down to a quiet beer when there was a knock at the door and a nother caravana asked if we had television, yes and not a problem, but he was, and asked for my help. Thank god i had my tools with me, including my antenna gear.
Any way after a few minuites with his meter i could not find the signal and this bloke was useing a 85 cm dish, whent and got the little meter that i keep in the caravan for my own set up, any way found the requirded signal, did a default and retune and oner happy customer repayed use with a couple of coldy's at tea time.
The satilight meter that i use with my work is a Uniohm satilight meter and worth about $2500.00 and has to be sent off evey 12 months for recalabration.This meter is used every day, but it is my bread and butter and would be totaly lost with out it. BUT the little meter that i have in my caravan is a Labgear SQ702 and cost me about $120.00 and this little meter can be programed for the satilights in our hemisphere. When traveling i do leave the uniohm meter home.
So the best advise i can give you is to practice at home seting up you dish, try several times and finaly it all will slip into place and you will hopefully get good at setting your system up. What ever you do, do not panic, life is to short. Take a breath and remember the satilight that we try and find is quiet small and trying to find it can be a bit of a ordeal at first, SMALL and CARFULL ajustments are the way to go, so take it easy take a break, have a coffee / tea or even a beer if you feel like it. Just remember...slowly,slowly catch the worm.
Snap mate...I hv a itech 85dish with vast .i can only tell you I do not recommend this firm to you..their tech people were rude and short with me I am not the brightest of technophobes but I can follow instruction ..I can't compete with incorrect data settings in the finder I bought thanks to a gn from toowoomba together we set up and registered the vast ..thx Errol ..I've painted out all ads from dish and cover...good luck choosing when they work it's great ....
Regards
some info here, download the PDF file http://www.hillsantenna.com.au/en/Support/VAST%20Satellite%20Information
Still think it would be better to go to a shop and have it all explained and demonstrated.
It is normally referred to as a LNB.
frank
Hi every one;
Yes it was a typo, and i re read the post befor i posted, Yes you are all right and i'll be the first to admit the mistake, .........See even at my age you are still learning and prone to making mistakes. Yes and sorry to one and all and i did mean to type LNB and not LMB.
As a pensioner applied for Gov. free units and after a lot of mucking around got a complete unit. Have an Altech receiver that I attached a hard drive (HDD) to record. Am updating to a 12VDC model with on-board HDD and duel tuners when we travel again. Am replacing my sat. finder with it's blinking lights to one that can be set to C1 and ignore other satellites.
Peter
HI Ontos45;
Great news about getting your new satilight receiver. With your new receiver you will also need to replace the LNB on your dish with a duel feed model. This is so you can record one channel and watch a totaly different channel, so you will need to run a second coax cable from your LNB to your receiver.
Have a duel LNB with setup. Mate staying next to us now so we set up unit over a stubbie, connected him to spare outlet so he can watch satellite too.
Peter
Hi goldcoaster;
I haven't had a lot to do with the Q series of receivers but i think this receiver needs to be fed from a duel LNB so the only think you would need is a second run of coax cable from your dish's duel out put LNB to the second input on your receiver and you will be good to go.
Might as well put my thoughts in on this subject. Last year we bought from SaPlus a digital Satellite Finder model SF 3239.
It makes the job of alining the dish so easy by being pretuned to the Optus C1 satellite. Once you get used to using it it will take all the frustration out of the job. I can now get the dish set usually in about 1 to 2 min with not hassles at all. By the way in am in no way connected with the company, just a satisfied customer.
briche
I agree briche, they have very quick delivery and the best backup I have ever received.
I went to AccessAntenna just north of Perth when I had a problem, they fixed it in 3 mins, and I did not buy my unit from them, so here is another company that is great.