Choosing a Meter for certain birds

[newbie]

I live near Hamilton Ontario Canada.
I want to choose meter that is reasonable for priced preferably dual.
I would prefer a meter that locks on to the satellite vs. me to find the location
as I hear some sats tend to be very close and I don't want to hook up on the wrong one.

Accutrac apparently is a good meter but it doesn't tell me if I am on the correct sat.

I want to hook up to 110 / 119 / 91 / 82 / 72.7 / 61.5 / 129 preprogrammed.

Any suggestions will help.

[bkr™]

The interpretation of reasonably priced can mean different to who you ask. I use the birdog and when I bought it, it was reasonably priced for what I needed it to do because I used it everyday. It just makes the job much easier and faster. I do not use it everyday now, but when I use it, there are no questions if the dish is hitting all the birds it is supposed to, and I only need to climb that tall ladder 2 times.

[FARJOHN]

I Use a birddog and agree with you . But if you set up on a motor (I use a 2100 H-H ) you can have it move to Any sat you want ,including the ones you have listed .

[newbie]

how does the motor work. Do you just keep the downloaded epg in and when you switch sats it just goes "no information" then when you come back to the same sat it populates the epg again??

I'm looking around on the net. Can birddog do two sats at once??
Thanks guys.

[bkr™]

No not at the same time, but you can toggle to any sat you have programmed into the meter rather quickly.

[JCO]

I never had a problem and I use a good compas and a 10$ meter.. Dishpointers settings are very close never had to climb up more than 2 times to aim a sat..and the second time is just because I always double check with the instaled receivers..:thumbsup:

[newbie]

What about these meters that can give you the Signal and Quality levels of the sat you are pointed to.
Are they not that much better for accuracy.

[FARJOHN]

I am a bit confused Sorry. I have the motor and a ivercom LMB , One 39in dish And I get 23 FTA sats on Linear plus all the Circular sats in my ark . I was thinking USUALS and a single Dish not a bunch of fixed dishes . Sorry if I confused you newbe . I haven't used my meter on my setup in over a year . I just program the sat I want in and Usuals moves the dish to that sat at any time I select it .

[bkr™]

I never had a problem and I use a good compas and a 10$ meter.. Dishpointers settings are very close never had to climb up more than 2 times to aim a sat..and the second time is just because I always double check with the instaled receivers..:thumbsup:

1st time is to install the dish, 2nd time is to align the dish and connect the cables, getting too friggin' old for that up/down stuff...lol

[newbie]

Hey guys,

What I'm worried about is not hitting the correct sat.
Sure I can use a compass, but I hear some of the sats are so close how would I know its on the correct one.
Is there a meter out there that tells you what sat you are on (or closely connected to) before you maximize your signal and lock it in??

Thanks

[jazzman]

The best thing I ever invested in was a 10" black and white Tv from a dollar store. Just run a cable from the receiver to the dish and you can zero in on anything with the best quality showing on the TV. Works like a charm.

[bkr™]

Hey guys,

What I'm worried about is not hitting the correct sat.
Sure I can use a compass, but I hear some of the sats are so close how would I know its on the correct one.
Is there a meter out there that tells you what sat you are on (or closely connected to) before you maximize your signal and lock it in??

Thanks

See post #2.

[JCO]

1st time is to install the dish, 2nd time is to align the dish and connect the cables, getting too friggin' old for that up/down stuff...lol

I had periods where it was basement to third floor roof 20 times, those where the days when I acumulated a nice collection of blown diseqs..LMAO

[readtherules]

always used a birdog!!

[newbie]

Bluesman.
You mean I run a cable from inside the house all the way outside the house to the dish. That would be a pain why couldn't you just take it off ouput port off the diseque (my switch is outside under my house soffit against wall).

[bkr™]

The 10" tv would be taken outside and connected to the receiver so that you could see the S% and Q% bar graphs while attempting to align the dish.

[FARJOHN]

I think what bluesman is suggesting is for you to take the setup to the dish and watch the tv as you move the dish to set it on a sat.

[xayoz]

that's what i have always done...bring a small tv up to the roof, connect a receiver, and watch as i point, get the best quality, lock it down, run the cables to the house, finish setup inside...finished

[mechanicman]

First strike meter is great. will show if you are on correct sat. i use it all the time. great signal meter and you dont need a receiver hooked up.

[jvvh5897]

Not all that close to the OP topic, but you could skip the running of cable and power out to dish by using a BW TV that runs off of battery and either feeding reciever output to a gizmo that outputs enough RF power to get the TV signal where the dish is (that should be legal as you will not need more than a few milliwatts RF and the circuit would be pretty basic--might even be able to get enough out of an in-line amp for TV distribution--say $15 from Radio Shack) or you could use a couple of splitters reversed to be combiners to insert the TV out of a reciever box into the RF cable coming in from LNB and then the second splitter feeds the TV at dish--the splitters would have to have DC pass on one port or use DC block on cable to TV if DC passed to both ports (these splitters would be the $15US type that I've seem in KMart Radio Shack or online).

[humberto]

The 10" tv would be taken outside and connected to the receiver so that you could see the S% and Q% bar graphs while attempting to align the dish.

quality is shown the same on some Chinese meters as on tv thats what i use
for knowing what sat you point doesnt anyone know that already i never miss and i alaways know when im in the wrong one no need to be checking tv at all
when fta is your hobby you get to know each sat where they are in the sky no matter where you are

only free tvers would have problems knowing what they point at since they dont do that everyday several times a day

[jvvh5897]

Strictly speaking a satellite does not identify itself to any box. Individual trasponders can have network information on them and the boxes or other devices can use that info with the frequency and symbol rate info to make an educated guess as to which bird it is. Identification depends on the qizmo having current info from other sources like the operator. At least that is what I understand is going on. For me the calculation of dish pointing and info that I've input as to at least one TP's freq and SR allow me to point to and verify my pointing with a reciever.

BTW, just for the heck of it I tested to see how well I could transmit the TV modulator output of a box. Just using 75 ohm cable and a whip antenna got me very little, but when I used a 75-300 ohm balun to feed a couple of test leads or dipole I found that I could get very good signal to about 5 feet or so. By adding a 10 dB barrel antenna amp (so gain of 3) to amplify the aprox 75 dBu (u for microvolt) from the box, I got signal out to about 15 feet. Now, those distances are a bit hazzy--there were some dead spots that I could not explain with minimums around dipole, most dead spots filled in with the 10dB amp. Some spots got fairly good signal quite a bit further. I did a test with amp feeding yagi at the top of home with good results inside the building, but did not bother going outside to see if it got to dish area. I'm thinking that 20 or 30 dB would be better gain to use (30 dB would get about 0.3 mW going to antenna and about 0.5 Vrms)--just using a dipole that would be legal I think though chs 3/4 are not the best choice (there are $15 UHF TV modulators out there that might be better). I did find a simple circuit for ch3/4 Ramsey kit tv modulator that was interesting and claimed to give enough signal for 300' of coverage.

Oh, and I found that there are $1.50 US Terk Diplexers that can do what those $15 splitters can do over at the allelectronics site.

[Marcella]

Well folks I tried them all and the best has been "SUPER BUDDY" no cross ref. like the BIRD and i like the idea of checking sig. on each TP

[The Wufman]

back when i did setups for fta and such my old trustworthy coolsat was the best sat finder I used..invested in several cheap meters that werent worth crap..always took 5" tv and receiver to dish and connected right there where..never took more than a few minutes to catch the birds and set the dish..then you simply run the lines inside house