Motorised satelite dish

[gasmataz]

Hi there everyone, so I finally had enough of paying £80 a month for cable.

Basically I'm a big sports fan and currently have all sky's ports channels and box nation and Esp.

What I wanna do is use a motorised dish with satelite receiver which will give me a good signal for hopefully European channels aljazeera etc.

I know nothing about this this sort of thing and I'm going to get a couple of quotes but wanted to know abit of background knowledge before hand.

Basically I wanna know what you reckon I should get. I don't really wanna spend more than £500 if that is at all possible? I will spend more if it's worth it but I'm completely in the dark on this sort of thing.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I would need recording facility like v+ cheers in advanced

Shane

 

[streetlighter]

If you require a recording feature like V+ then I would recommend having a Freesat+ box like the Humax connected to a fixed minidish to handle the free UK channels.
For the motorised set up I would say a Technomate box with USB recording features, they do make a twin tuner version as well.
If you are after the football then a box with LINUX software might be good as you can use it to cardshare ( although illegal )
Dish wise I would say if you can get away with it a 1mtr dish with a metal geared DISEQC motor, quality secure mount is essential to track the arc correctly.
I've never gone for a motor just got two dishes front of house one 60cm for Astra/Hotbird and a minidish for Freesat.
In the back garden I have a 90cm which I have on a patio stand with the satellite locations roughly marked below, moving the dish by hand as required.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Street lighter is it not possible to have a motorised dish and scan the sky?

Andy

 

[gasmataz]

Thanks alot for the reply. I don't think the mrs will go for 2 dishes. I've read some some reviews on the techno mate and they seem good just a bit unsure on the user interface as been use to sky and virgin for so many years.

Curious as to what card sharing is ?

Also is there any receivers that do series link?

And finally with the motorised dish do you get long waits when changing channels sorry if this a stupid question but in a bit in the dark here.

Cheers

 

[Sam Gangee]

Card sharing is illegal. End of discussion.

Having only a motorised dish means that the household is stuck if you want to watch football. They won't be able to watch or record anything else. Better to have a fixed dish, aimed at whichever satellite you choose for football, with an LNB on a bracket to get Freesat.

Or a standard sky minidish for Freesat and the 1m dish for football and other foreign stations. (If I decided to do this my wife wouldn't have any say in it.)

It's possible to "reduce the visual impact of dishes" by suitable positioning and painting.

 

[streetlighter]

I've got a motor just haven't got around to fitting it yet

 

[SimonH2]

Sam Gangee has indirectly hinted at another option.
Take a good look at which satellites you'll want to receive from. If the number is small and they aren't too far apart, then it may be possible to put multiple LNBs on one dish - one LNB per sat.
No experience myself, but you may need a larger dish - the LNBs create a small shadow, and operating slightly away from prime focus reduces the gain a bit. Not to mention, the smaller the dish, the closer together the required mounting points are.

 

[gasmataz]

Right then I'm considering getting a 1m motorised dish with a dream box receiver running Linux. I'm going to get a engineer in next week to give me a quote. Is there anything I need to ask him ?

 

[Sam Gangee]

Tell him exactly what you want to achieve and let him figure out the best way to achieve it. You'll be paying for his skills so use them.

the LNBs create a small shadow

Not on an offset focus dish.