My in-laws' Lifetime Ultra died recently and I replaced it with a
Mercury II. Actually, I bought two of them, including one for myself to upgrade my Ultra. I was surprised to see that signals were noticeably weaker on the Mercury II than the Ultras. I realize that Signal Quality meters vary between models and the readings are not absolute, but besides the lower quality readings (3ABN went from 99 to 65), channels (GMC) that had been 100% stable before were now breaking up. Both of the systems I "upgraded" were using 90cm dishes fixed on AMC4 so the only thing that was changed was the receivers.
I will switch back to my Ultra for primary viewing, but keep the Mercury II online also to help me provide phone support and troubleshooting to my elderly in-laws.
I wonder if anyone else has observed poor sensitivity with the Mercury II, or did I just get a pair of dud receivers?