I wanted to write a bit on initial usage of the
Mercury II. I have not had time to read the manual and am swapping out a Fortec
Platinum receiver. My process: Dish pointed at G10R and watching TV. Shutdown and swap out receivers. Turn the MII receiver on and set switch and lnbf. No signal. This is interesting
Decided to go ahead and setup USALS and fought for quite a bit before showing signal. Scanned in channels and upon moving to watch a channel showed no signal. This is really starting to be fun
Have no idea what transpired but for the most part this issue seems to have disappeared. Still has the same problem as the Platinum in that switching sats in mid move leaves the receiver wondering what to do.
Picture quality is superior to any DVB receiver I have used in the past. The animated menus are a bit of a pain to me as I find myself waiting for the animation to take place instead of just being there. Coming from receivers with screens that had "add ..." which produced an empty entry to be filled in, the new layout of overwriting an existing entry and then choosing to save as a new or an edit is a little rough on me also.
I have experienced the 0% strength and 80% quality readings spoke of here at the forum. I honestly believe at this time it is simply a software issue in the receiver and to an actual reading. In other words I have signal just not showing. I have not figured out how to do a manual scan yet on a single tp so trying to scan a known good tp when this 0% strength comes up has not been an option for me.
I have only played with the new receiver for a couple hours and do have it in use with roughly 360 channels scanned into it. I do not care for the new display when changing channels. I find it difficult to read signal level and volume levels. The older bar type display was easier to interpret probably due primarily to everything does things that way.
I do like the way the receiver looks on the exterior. It appears to have a door that opens on the lower portion but have yet to get it opened. It may not open. Hopefully time will permit me to play with the new MII this weekend.
Overall I am very satisfied with the receiver at this time. I wanted to post my initial thoughts and once I have had the receiver in service for some time will post another opinion. In my opinion the increase in picture quality alone makes this receiver worth purchasing.
Prior to using this receiver I was of the old thought of what is being sent down but I now know how what is being sent down is read also plays a vital role in PQ. I will most likely be installing Fortec's most current software if it is present not in the receiver as I had read an article (perhaps the one listed above) that spoke of additional features.