Newbie seeks opinions

[imported_Jimbo]

Hi all,

Firstly, great site - loads and loads to look through!

I have just moved to a new house and have been without my Sky package for about 7 months now. Four channels of choice is really getting to me now.

I have spoken to the wife and she agrees! So I ran all the internal cables the other day ready for a new minidish (we already have the Digibox). I started flicking around on the net for decent prices for a Minidish and got thinking... why stop there... if I'm going to have a go at this then I might as well maximise on it. I have (what I think) the initial plan for my system. I will post a rought sketch here.

Can I ask for any advice on it - we ideally want as small a dish as possible, and wall mounted would be good. Hopefully the diagram will explain better than I can with words, garden and possible wall are south facing according to google earth (great tip thanks) and I am 99 percent sure (without going up the ladder just yet) that line of sight is ok.

Please feel free to gently kick me in the right direction

Jimbo

[Analoguesat]

Yes that looks workable. An 80 cm dish would allow you to have just the one dish. You cant go much smaller than this if you just want one dish.

[imported_Jimbo]

Thanks AnalogueSat,

Yeh I gather that the amount of lnb's restrict the dish size I can use due to their beam widths and 20 degree (overall) position?

80 is quite large... not sure if the wife will agree to it. Very easy for me to make my decision.... yep I want to do it

Just have to convince her that 800mm is more like 600mm - "it'll look smaller when it's up dear" :roflmao:

You know what I mean?

Can you recommend a good online supplier of dishes (would like to get one with a matching lnb mount eg Triax dish with Triax lnb mount) etc. I've seen quite a few uk ones - just wondered who you guys/girls used?


Cheers again

Jimbo

[Analoguesat]

Most of my dishes have been free

[imported_Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

Most of my dishes have been free

Some of us have all the luck

Ok, for those of us who DO get wet when we fall overboard.... Where do you lot buy from?

No offence AS

Thanks again for the help.

Jimbo

[BGonaSTICK]

Hi Jimbo. Welcome to the forum

The 80cm dish will look quite large when it first goes up, but I can honestly say that you really do get used to looking at it. When I first put my lot up I was pretty horrified - and I love dishes! :clap:

Picking the right colour helps tremendously. The Triax TD78 should just about do you, though the TD88 is the one to go for really.

I bought my dishes from parabolic.co.uk, but only because they were cheap. They weren't very good at after-sales, and their prices aren't cheap anymore. You could try Brymar.co.uk, wizardsatellite.co.uk, creativesatellite.co.uk or any of the other large stores. If you want to go somewhere else let us know where you've found and we'll pass comment. We're not affiliated with anyone so at least you'll get an unbiased opinion.

[Analoguesat]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Some of us have all the luck

Ok, for those of us who DO get wet when we fall overboard.... Where do you lot buy from?

No offence AS

Thanks again for the help.

Jimbo

heres the list:

the first one came from my parents when they went over to sky digital.

one off the side of the road on bin day in 2001

one from the local woodlands

one from one of the blokes I work with

2 off the roof of my workplace

one from one of the blokes on my ILR station ( he asked for help installing a dish so I took a scrap one away & straightened it up - its now my Sirius dish)

a 43cm zone 1 from one of the girls at work

I had to buy a new 1m Orbital dish (came from Satcure)

1 BSB minidish came from ebay for a fiver.....


I currently have 5 of them in use:

60 cm for Sky Digital 28E

3 x 80 cm's for 13E / 5E / 19E

1m Orbital for 16E / 23E

The others are in store

[Analoguesat]

Yes I do have more dishes than sense....

[imported_Jimbo]

Thanks AS and Stick,

I will keep looking around and let you know what I come up with.

Another slightly off-topic question.... (feel free to move it to appropriate place)

Does anyone know if the Skystar2 card is Windows MCE compatible?

I have a media center PC that I built and it's going to be in the AV rack so I thought it might alleviate buying another receiver if I bought a card... and you sorta get dreambox functionality? (or is that pushing the boundaries of truth).

Edit:

I have found conflicting reports, MCE2005 is possible I think BUT with a third party plugin... hmmm.
Not sure about Vista. Any ideas?

Cheers

Jimbo

[BGonaSTICK]

I'm not 100% sure on this, so hopefully someone with more knowledge will chip in, but the Skystar drivers should be fine with MCE, although functionality-wise I have a feeling that NO satellite cards are directly supported

My understanding regarding Vista is that no drivers are currently available :'(

I'm not even sure that the latest XP drivers are certified by Microsoft. The older ones that I'm using certainly aren't (though they work fine).