Quote:
Originally Posted by bill190
This is the "communications" business... You would think that various manufacturers would be good at communicating! But this is not the case.
The receiver manufacturers seem to not be aware that typical C-band dishes use a 36 volt positioner and a servo motor which has a 3 wire connection. Yet for years they made receivers which would receive C or Ku, but no possible way to connect the receiver directly to a C-band dish! |
I think the simple answer can be found in your first sentence, ie this is a "business". They only manufacture what they think they can sell. If you made a receiver that would do "everything" that us hobbiests want, it would cost thousands of dollars, and the minor part of that cost would be the additional capability, but the majority of the cost would be the fact that they wouldn't sell many, so the cost per unit would have to be very high to cover the investment. There were DVB receivers that would control a C-band dish, however people didn't buy them so they've gone away and been replaced by models that cost less, and do what the people likely to buy these receivers want. The other answer to the question is that for the most part these receivers were not developed for the North American market, even though they may have North American versions. Ie for the most part these receivers were aimed at the Western
European market, and if they won't sell there there was no reason to produce the receiver. If they will sell in Europe, then they consider making a NA version. And basically, you don't see much in the way of C-band usage in Western Europe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill190
Then there are dishes which are almost impossible to attach to a HH mount. And no optional mounting hardware available to attach these dishes.
Or dishes with no elevation screw adjustment for precise elevation adjustments which is necessary for every install I have done. (I don't think these manufacturers have ever tried to set-up a dish.)
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I think that as far as the dish manufacturers are concerned, they have made the dishes with the intention of being a fixed dish, plus, for the most part, the dish manufacturers don't make the H-H motors, so they would have to consider interfacing to a variety of motor designs. I don't think there is any real difficulty in adapting any of the new, cheap, light dishes to any H-H motor. Of course, some of the older, heavy fibreglass dishes would be next to impossible, mainly because they were very heavy.
Re the precise elevation adjustment, I agree that it would be nice and some dishes have this (my Primestar has a screw adjustment, although it's so rusted, it doesn't work well), but it really isn't necessary. THese small dishes just don't require that much precision to aim. A screw adjustment makes it easier, but isn't necessary, and as you and others have mentioned, it's not that hard to make a home-made screw adjustment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill190
Same thing with the various LNB's out there. Some are square, some are one size round, others are a different size round, etc. But a dish will come with mounting hardware for only one type of LNB. They don't seem to know there is any other type of LNB out there!!!
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Again, this is a business. They have hardware that fits 99% of the "generic" lnbfs (not lnbs) for sale. It doesn't make economic sense to design and market hardware to fit hardware that has been taken from or sold specifically for proprietary systems. Ie the few people who would be interested in buying such things are also the type people who can easily adapt those lnbfs with a quick trip to the hardware store. Anyway, it's not surprising to me that they haven't invested in producing something that they won't sell many of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill190
Luckily there are good companies who are filling the gap. Like the VBox II and BSC621-2 manufacturers have filled the gap between the receivers and big C-band dishes (Yeaaaa!).
Maybe some manufacturer could fill the gap between all the different dishes, HH mounts, the different LNB's, and those who are trying to mix/match/install these things.... |
I'm actually a bit happy, that it isn't that easy to buy this stuff off the shelf. We have a fine line here of if there is a lot of hardware available making it easy for lots of hobbiests to do everything, then we'll see more and more stuff scrambled, and we'll have fewer things to watch, whereas if it is still a bit of a hacker thing, where people have to improvise a bit, then that keeps the number of hobbiests down a bit, and the uplinkers are less likely to scramble things. Basically, we need to have enough of us hobbiests to make it economical for manufactures to market the essentials that we need, but I think that when there are enough of us that the uplinkers think we are a lost market to them, then there will be more scrambling.
haven't seen a adapter for the dish pro but if i run into one i will let you know.
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