Hey RAK...,
Nice ta make your acquaintance... Not easy living on a tight budget and being retired. I do without and save, save, save until I can finally afford to buy. Learned that from my parents. If I can't afford to buy it, I'll just save till I can. In the meantime just do without. Got most of my audio/video stuff when the wife and I were still working stiffs. Now, like you it takes a lot longer to be able to afford things. Been saving for this package now for over two and a half years... So I had to be careful on what I bought and not waste any ole dem bucks... Ha ha ha. We've got cable, but no special movie tiers, just the basic stuff for mostly news. I did have DISH, but gave that up to take advantage of Cox's offer to bundle the phone, cable TV and hi-speed Internet. As I'm very involved with all things computers, it's good to have friends, that give you all their older stuff when they constantly update. Smile. Since I be pushing 71, it keeps my mind engaged, so what the hell. I thank you for the kind words, about making mistakes. It's for sure, one has got to be very careful in today's world. Blow what ya got on bad decisions, and it takes a long time to recover. But I do like dinking around with electronics. And like you do, figure out how to do things on the el cheepo whenever possible... You should see the wiring behind my TV and stuff in my audio/video room (converted garage.) But hey, while it may not look great back thar -- it works...! An that's what counts. Right? I liked reading about what you've done on all your stuff... For me I pretty much do things zactly the same way. Right now, I've got all my old Dish equipment including that old dish with two LNBs. Listening to what you've done, maybe I should have saved myself some bucks and gone that route. On the other hand I'm already having problems finding space for all my computer junk... Wife says, don't bring any of that S--T in the house... Oh well, maybe you know what I'm talking about. Smile. In any event, I do what I can and enjoy what I do. But if it's not free, I've for the most part learned to do without. It was while I was in the process of gearing up my system again, that I discovered a less expensive way to go for the receivers and so decided to take that route with the MPEG-2 and a cheapo Legacy as a slave to move the dish instead of that pricy 4Dtv 922. After all it wasn't paid programming I was after. Well Richard, I've been a bendin' your eyeballs 'nuff, so will get back to my computers and start answering a few of my 300 plus emails that I get everyday... I'm currently an Internet writer bloviating on all the things gone wrong in America under the auspices of dRAt Enterprises, Ltd. If you have a pute and would like seeing somama chit... let me knos whar I's kin send ya stuff, an I will... Smile. Till then, all the best to you and the misses. Take KAIR...I'm a outta cher... And as an old CBer once said, "I be on da side...!" dRAt ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard A. Keirstead To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 6:18 PM Subject: Re: [TVRO] RE: dRAt's new MPEG-2 BUD system 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 > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
