Bill, wow.. .you are the curmudgeon. LOL
I am new to this satellite stuff and found the manual for the
Mercury very limited in explaining all its functions. It took me a month to run through all the buttons on the remote and I still don't know how to get the IMG working.
At first
installation of my dish, I received only a few satellites and I figured my south was off. I could get say Long 85 to 107 at first. I would not use the USALS function. I used the Disceq 1.2 to get the dish near the satellite, and then I would nudge the dish using the Mercury to hone in on the strongest signal. Many of times I would be on the wrong satellite, but would powerscan for channels anyway.
Now that the weather has gotten better, I finally took a 20 inch tv (the smallest size I have) and the receiver to my porch roof to adjust the dish direction and altitude. I knew my cooridinate just fine (using Google gives them pretty accurately). I just didnt have true south down. After the adjustments it has been night and day. I am amazed... and the Mercury has been great for this newbie. Since my dish is now on the ARC, I can use USALS only to find any satellite from 40.5 to 148. WOW, it is all automatic.
I have a tree obstruction that blocks my getting 123.
But now, do I understand that I can add transponders to the Mercury and possibly get more stations? If I find that I am not getting all the DVB stations for a satellite on Lyngsat, I can add the transponder? I thought that is what powerscan was doing. I did update the software for the Mercury and was able to get the
PBS stations I was hunting. Is that because the reciever is not always up to date?
Anyway, for this newbie the Mercury II works just fine, but probably could be better, but I don't know how. I just neet to find more channels.
Thanks for all your informative postings.
fortecstar Mercury II
fortec 80cm dish
sg2100 motor