Hi dRAt/Bonesarebad/Mr. Burns,
Don't take seriously what you read here, especially if someone
suggests you made a mistake. You are taking a step forward, and that is
not a mistake. Your post here tells us what your interests are. You seem
to be here mostly as an electronics hobbyist. I dig that. Before
retirement, I installed big dishes professionally. It was never very
lucrative, but as I did that, I put in my own 8' dish. We are talking
about the days of LNA's, not LNB's. The days when you had a separate box
to just jockey the dish across the arc. Now I am a hobbyist. The little
woman & I are news junkies, so we sort of settled the dish on AMC-1
(103.0 W) & watched DW-TV for the news (in English) from Germany. Then
DW announced they would switch to DIGITAL transmission. We took the
plunge (getting great email advice from DW tech department), bought an
el cheapo Coship MPEG receiver, 17 degree C band LNB, & added to the mix
a 30" Ku dish w/appropriate Ku LNB plus quad DiSEqC switch.
This opened a new world. DW went from heavy sparkles to perfect
picture. Setting the Ku dish on what now seems to be called Galaxy 25
(97.0 W) brought in a flood of video & audio channels, mostly in
languages we don't understand. Many are from countries we have traveled
in or worked in, and some of those have some English language
programming. And French, which the wife understands.
Then I was given an old DirectTV system. I ditched that receiver but
added the dish from that to the mix & aimed it at EchoStar 7 (119.0 W).
That gives me NASA TV. I also was given an older analog receiver that
for us adds CSPAN & CSPAN2 to our available channels. Someday I must
switch the dish moving from the ancient stand-alone box to the analog
receiver as these boxes are taking over living room.
This is a boon to us as we are on a very small fixed income that has
no room for subscription fees. This reception is all free - legally
free. It can be yours, too. Oh, the Coship died & I replaced it with a
Fortec which has blind search, a real advantage. But it has its
confusing quirks. I guess they all do.
Right now I am looking at space shuttle* STS-117* on the pad. It is
due to launch in less than 23 hours. How sweet this technology is!
RAK
PS: Another way to add channels is via the rooftop antenna using a
digital broadcast receiver. But I expect that should be dicussed on
another forum.
dRAt wrote:
>
>
> Hey Tim...,
>
> What's the old saying when attempting to buy the BEST...? It being
> that you won't know until AFTER you bought what you thought was the
> best... Waaaaaaaa. Just like me. Oh well, what's done's done.
>
> And since I'm primarily only using my 9 foot BUD(dy) strickly for
> hobby purposes and no PAID..., subscriptions to anyone..., chose to
> forego the 922 in lieu of a Legacy dish controller w/C-Ku band
> capability and a VS2000 Viewsat ULTRA MPEG-2 receiver.
>
> As my dish is already set-up for C-Ku and since I was receiving a
> nearly sparkleless picture before, figured this would (cost wise) be
> the best way for me to go. I was however, advised to update to a high
> stability 20 degree LNB because of my using an MPEG-2 receiver. My
> wife's a dedicated - yeck - cable person while I'm primarily a movie
> nut. And since I get most all of my movies via computer and various
> other sources, pretty much don't need paid access for hobby purposes
> (over 4,000 movie films in my current library.)
>
> Not only that, my 65 inch RCA (analogue) ProScan gives me a picture
> that I'm more than happy with. Plus having 2500 watts of pure RMS
> sound, puts me in my own theater.
>
> As far as HD goes, and speaking only for myself, I've found all this
> Hi Def equipment to be somewhat over rated. Especially in terms of the
> cost for what you get. I've also found HD pictures to be unnaturally
> shinny and overly bright with colors that are way too vivid. True,
> picture quality, is definitely more crisp in its detail, and that I do
> like, but for the rest, especially when considering the costs, well
> let's just say, I'm not overly impressed.
>
> In any event, I'm bringing in an expert from Satellite Technology to
> set the system up as good as present day electronics will allow. And
> according to what I'm told the guy that's doing this is about as good
> as they come down here in Tucson. Also, with the Viewsat now having
> flash drive capability, and my being heavily invested in all things
> computer (ahem...,) I'm privy to being able to do some other very
> interesting things as well...!!!!! Smile.
>
> BTW, from what I've been able to determine, there's a lot of really
> great receivers coming out of Asia, that do an incredible amount of
> things, in comparison to our 922..., and for a lot less money...!! Wink...
>
> Meantime, I'll keep everyone posted,
>
> All the best,
>
> dRAt
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