Viewsat blindscan

[lansell]

Hi,

I need some advice here. I'm hoping to get a 36" motorized dish for my viewsat platinum, primarily for news feeds. I have read on other forums though that the viewsat is trash when it comes to true FTA (like driving the motor, and blind scanning sats).

Is there anyone out there with a VS2000 on a motorized setup that can comment on this?

Thanks

[Darkman]

just would like to point to you that VS Platinum does NOT have a True blind scan!

VS Xtreme DOES though!

and the models after that one (Ultra, etc.. ), i believe have True blind scan as well...

[lansell]

Could you explain more? Because in the antenna setup screen, there is an option that says blind scan, or atleast something quite similar.

thanks

[q12345]

My Ultra blind scans fine. I got about 190 video and over 100 audio channels off G25 a couple of weeks ago, using a 6MHz step. Although, I don't have a motorized dish it's 90cm like the one you're asking about. Hope this helps.

[lansell]

If the platinum doesn't have a true blind scan, how will this affect my ability to watch fta? What if I have a new sat file loaded, will this help in any way? I was all ready to run out and get a large dish and motor, but now I'm not sure.

Thanks

[wejones]

Originally Posted by lansell

If the platinum doesn't have a true blind scan, how will this affect my ability to watch fta? What if I have a new sat file loaded, will this help in any way? I was all ready to run out and get a large dish and motor, but now I'm not sure.

Thanks

I don't know anything about the platinum, but I googled it, and like you said above, it does say that it has a blind scan. So I'm curious as well about why Darkman says it doesn't have a true blind scan, or what the true implies here.
I know some tuners are faster than others and broader than others, but I'm not sure why one blind scan would be truer than another. Not saying it's not correct, just curious.
But re the above question, blind scan doesn't generally affect your ability to watch anything, it only affects your ability to find new signals. If you enter the data you find in Lyngsat or other sources, then you should be able to tune anything a blind scan receiver will tune.

[lansell]

Just incase anyone is curious, after looking into it, it seems that the Viewsat platinum only has a firmware blindscan, while later viewsats have a proper hardware blindscan.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by lansell

Just incase anyone is curious, after looking into it, it seems that the Viewsat platinum only has a firmware blindscan, while later viewsats have a proper hardware blindscan.

What is the difference?
Sounds almost like done via software vs done via hardware, but I don't know why one would be better than the other. Hardware would be faster, but not necessarily better.

Just curious.

[lansell]

I don't know what the difference is when it comes to performance. I was hoping that someone else could enlighten me.

Also, If I have loaded a sat file with the current transponder info, will just a regular sat scan (as opposed to blindscan) give me all the active channels?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by lansell

I don't know what the difference is when it comes to performance. I was hoping that someone else could enlighten me.

Also, If I have loaded a sat file with the current transponder info, will just a regular sat scan (as opposed to blindscan) give me all the active channels?

If, in fact, the sat file does have all the current transponder frequencies with the correct SR values, then yes, most receivers have some sort of "satellite scan", which scans all transponder freqs in memory, and this will actually probable be even better than a blind scan at picking up channels, because blind scans generally miss a few signals.
HOWEVER, it is unlikely that this file that you loaded is actually current, or accurate. I'd check the transponder freqs vs Lyngsat to see how they compare, and manually add any missing freqs.