lifetime ultra problems!!!!

[truckracer]

:shock: when i first purchased my lifetime ultra a few months ago, it came with the factory installed firmware ver 2.29. boot ver 5.1. when i recently purchased an sg-2100 dish motor the receiver was sending erratic diseqc commands that the motor did not understand. So i upgraded the other day to firmware 2.44. I used the fortec star website and used the fortec star uploader program. The transfer was successful and seemless. After re-connecting the receiver the motor responded great in diseqc 1.2 mode. NOW....... when i load more than about 6 satellites into memory the receiver loses all the setting in the antenna setup menu. it actually read under the antenna number field "enregister". It also read in the diseqc 1.2 field "10000". all the fields were filled with irrelevant data. all of my antenna settings and positions were lost. I have reloaded this piece of *#@!%$^&* ...Junk four times and am not going to do it anymore. I HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT TROUBLE WITH THIS FORTEC STAR RECEIVER SINCE I OWNED IT. AND WILL NEVER OWN ANOTHER FORTEC PRODUCT. the only thing this receiver is good for is to slave it to my Coship 2300 (which has worked flawless since i owned it along with the rest of my coships throughout the house.) and use it for a blind search tool.

[vj9999]

Why use 1.2 when you can use USALS? I understand your frustration, but don't understand your attitude.

The problem you have with 1.2 comes from a limited number of memory slots for satellites using 1.2 and no way to change it since there are aalready presets used for atlantic and european satellites. Since you have SG2100 and Fortec with the latest firmware is very reliable using USALS, I recommend you use it.

I doubt you will have much better success with any other consumer receiver out there. They are all have their issues and they all have numerous firmware upgrades to fix those issues. Fortec has done a good job (with Sadoun's help) to stay on top of all the issues that we have reported here and they have fixed them.

It is your judgment wheter or not you will use it, but giving a negative review out of frustration is not fair (and not blaming you directly, but frm reading on here, 99% of times problems come from user errors or assuming that FTA stuff is as easy to set up as Directv or Dish).

If it was just as easy, it wouldn't be FTA and you would be paying subscription for it and receive the support. I guess you get what you pay for.

[vj9999]

Also, I have had similar problem with "enregistrar" and loosing settings, but it has not been a frequent occurance and reseting my reciver would bring things back to normal.

I suspect that there might be some kind of a memory leak in their firmware and hopefully Sadoun can alert them to take a look at it and possiblly fix it in future firmware upgrades.

Sorry if I was too "forward" in my first reply.

[truckracer]

i have been a free to air hobbyist for a few years. i do understand the difference between "cable company in the sky" directv and dish network proprietary platform satellite systems(ex. bell expressvue, globecast, voom, etc). I know these systems have built in remote support and updating because you pay for the easy service. When i purchased my fortec star i did not have a dish motor so i just used it with a 4x1 diseqc switch and four fixed dish antennas. The sg-2100 motor is NOT USALS compliant. You need a STAB H-H motor or a motor that is specifically for USALS. The reason i even used a diseqc 1.2 motor was because i got a really good deal on it. The fortec ultra is the first fta receiver i have ever seen that does not give an error message or warning message when memory is low. The fortec just works normally until it tweaks out on you with no warning that all of your data is lost and you have to start over. I agree this problems needs to be addressed. Like i said, i have never had any of these issues with the other free to air receivers i own and i have a lot of data stored in their memories. i have even found that the fortec ultra while doing a powerscan or "blind search" actually does not always find the "true" transponder frequency. I have recorded these setting and tried entering them into one of my other receivers and get no signal while connected to the same dish. So needless to say the fortec ultra is not exactly accurate either. My birdhunter satellite analyzer can confirm this.
So my finding would be - the fortec ultra is ok as long as you don't program more than four satellites in memory, you don't use a dish motor, and you don't try the blind searched frequencies in another receiver. Other than that it must be a great receiver!

[vj9999]

SG2100 is not USALS compliant, but it is "GoTo X" compliant (which is a same thing). I have Ultra and SG2100 and have no problems using USALS. Early version of SG2100 I guess didn't work well with USALS, but later version have (my SG2100 is almost a year old).

[vj9999]

Originally Posted by truckracer

i I have recorded these setting and tried entering them into one of my other receivers and get no signal while connected to the same dish. So needless to say the fortec ultra is not exactly accurate either. My birdhunter satellite analyzer can confirm this.
So my finding would be - the fortec ultra is ok as long as you don't program more than four satellites in memory, you don't use a dish motor, and you don't try the blind searched frequencies in another receiver. Other than that it must be a great receiver!

THe reason for that is that they scan in 8Mhz (might be less) increments and try to look for signal. This should give you close enough frequency (I have never seen it be more thatn 1-2 Mhz off) for any decently sensitive receiver to lock on.

As for memory. I was just guessing it is a memory leak. I have had 12+ satellites stored and over 600 channels in the memory and it has worked fine. It might be a number of thing why iti is happening. It might be that some channel on stallite x has a relly messed info and it just confuses the reciver.

I still hate it when I scan IA6 and there is 11830 / 2170SR which has no PAT inoformation and Ultra just sits there and tries to scan it until I give up and exit. Annoying yes, but just shows you that there is so much stuff out ther in the sky that a consumer receiver cannot predict and know how to behave for all of them.

[truckracer]

i have a new idea , i have deleted all satellites that my dish cannot "see". In my location i can see from around 50W to 140W. Since i suspect this is a memory shortage problem, maybe deleting the extra satellite data will solve the problem. I will post and let everyone know.
trucker

[vj9999]

That's a good idea. I might attempt the same thing.