Archived from groups: alt.video.satellite.mpeg-dvb (More info?)

      While I realize this question is highly subjective, and I've read some of the "hype" in Tele-Satellite magazine, what's your opinion on who's (and what model) FTA receiver is king of the hill these days? I'm not looking at this from a "pirate" perspective, I'm just not into that. I mean from an INSTALLERS perspective.

      I recently got a batch of receivers from the House of Natural Sound in California (Ben Nopakun is a pretty decent guy to deal with as well) and they have this really neat feature that allows you direct access to the internal signal meter by pressing and holding a button on the front panel for a few seconds. I thought that was pretty slick. But it doesn't have GO-TO-X function in the firmware.

       I've been reading a bit on the GO-TO-X deal, and it sounds pretty neat. Has anyone messed with it much? Does it work well for you?

       For those unfamiliar with it- the way it works (as I understand it) is that you program an extreme west bird, then an extreme east bird, and somehow, it calculates where everything else is automatically. All you have to do is give it the degrees longitude where the satellite you're looking for is, and it goes to it and finds it! I believe it's a disecq command- and should work with the little H-to-H dish rotors.

       While I have your attention- I have a small market for some TAN-TV (The Asia Network) receivers. Is there a source for these other than going direct to TAN (i.e. cheaper)? As far as I can tell they're ViaAccess units. From what one of my customers tells me- TAN seems to swap receivers every 2 to 3 years. They made her buy a complete dish/LNBF for their latest move! I have no idea why! I had an identical job in the morning and the first lady did not have to have anything swapped out but her receiver!

       But- when I attempted to set up the second lady's old dish and LNBF with her new receiver, I wasted about an hour trying to acquire AMC-4 (where TAN is now). I had just left the first job not an hour earlier where the dish/LNBF did not have to be changed- it worked just fine. Obviously one dish is no different from the other, so I swapped out the LNBF, and immediately acquired the signal! The old LNBF was not bad- I was acquiring birds all the way across the arc with it, but it just would not pick up the AMC-4 digital signal! After I found AMC-4 with the new LNBF, to satisfy my curiosity, I swapped LNBF's back to the old one, and sure enough, absolutely 0 on the signal quality! But on the signal strength, it was very strong! Any idea what gives? AMC-4 isn't circularly polarized, is it? The LNBF at the first job was linear and worked fine- so I don't think this is the issue.

       I thought perhaps a different IF, but neither the old LNBF nor the new one was marked with the IF. The old one was rated 11.7 to 12.5GHz, the new one was rated 11.7 to 12.2GHz. Noise figures were similar- .8 on the old one, .6 on the new one. It had to be a different IF- but I didn't waste any more time seeing what the old receiver vs. the new receiver were set to- I just let it go, but it's going to bug me for
awhile.

DVB-T Compliant
Navigator for easy installation
Automatic, manual channel searching
Software download via cable
PAL / NTSC auto switching
Digital audio support with AC-3
Subtitle & audio multi-language support
Provided Thai or English instruction