Post out of excitment!

[bobbit4]

Just pre-ordered a 500HD!! Ordered through hxxp://www.dreamboxshop.co.uk/ (http://www.dreamboxshop.co.uk/) hopefully I won't be waiting too long for it to be released!!

Not having the box yet will make sure I take my time and research dish/LNB setup properly and get what I want out of my setup. Back to the forum for some more reading then! :sleep: lol

Although I didn't ask any questions before buying I did do a lot of reading on here and there is some really good info available on here. Keep up the good work everyone! :congrats:

[caveman_nige]

when i sent hem an email asking questions about another type of box they just ignored me so maybe its just as well you did not ask anything..

Or do you work for them?

[bobbit4]

Hey,

I don't work for them....I have read that on other forums...someone posted on one site, basically stating that he knows the guy and is genuine however is kept pretty busy and get's a lot of emails, so doesn't always get back...it seems universally considered a decent place to buy dreamboxes from across a number of forums so hopefully all will be okay?! Although I'll have a nagging doubt in my mind until I get it delivered! lol

[caveman_nige]

we will be expecting lots of pics of the insides etc lol.. I have been asked whether the tuner can be swapped for a C tuner and the box still be HD etc..

[bobbit4]

Okay interesting, I don't have a cable feed so I'll be sticking to the S tuner. I will however be more than happy to take some nice high res images of the insides once I get it!

[caveman_nige]

hopefully the box will not be a pile of shite, seems like you will be one of our guinea pigs on this model... I hope you are very familiar with DMs and image creation as their will be no support for a while until the image makers and developers get their hands on them, granted it does not take them long but you will be flying blind to start with.. Have you used dreamboxes in the past?

[bobbit4]

I'll second that as well, it better not be a pile of shite! lol

1st dreambox...I'm quitely confident from the information available for other models that I'll be able to work out what I need to do to get things going.

I have a basic understanding of Linux and a pretty techie background so i think I'll be okay with a few pointers...well fingers crossed lol

That's what having these things are all about anyway tinkering learning getting things working. It wouldn't be any fun if they worked out of the box! :)

[tvadict]

will this 500hd will it take same image as once for 800hd?

[osborne82]

will this 500hd will it take same image as once for 800hd?

itle be enigma2 but no not same images :)


cheers

osborne82

[westkill]

it will have its own image for dm500hd
once the creators have started on them lol

[Evilbert]

Is there actually a definite release date for this yet?

[bobbit4]

nope not that I've seen, just rumoured for September 09 release

[bobbit4]

Just need to calrify something with USALS and diseqc if someone can help out.

Can someone confirm for me,

diseqc is the standard for sending control commands up the coax to the motor from the receiver. The motor itself has nothing to do with USALS that is controlled and run by the receiver...dreambox in my case??

cheers!

[krazylegz]

yes mate the reciever tells it when to move and stop, but the motor must be USALS compatible

[bobbit4]

Excellent....was planning on going for the Technomate TM2300 I can see it supports 1.2/1.3 diseqc but I've only seen a couple of places that mention that it's USALS compatible.

diseqc 1.3 and goto x are essentially USALS aren't they?

Thanks again!

[krazylegz]

yes mate, the 2300 should be spot on as my older 2200 is

[.: JaCkPoT :.]

USALS is Diseqc 1.3
Its stands for universal satellite automatic location system.

[bobbit4]

Right here's what I've picked out so far...

from southernsat.co.uk

Technomate TM2300 Motor
Icecrypt 0.1db Universal Quad LNB (is this worth the extra cost compared to cheaper offerings?)
Orbital 1mtr dish (a dish is a dish?)
from wizard

20mtr fitting kit
wall mount. (heavy duty I'm guessing)
anyone forsee any problems with that stuff?

Cheers!

[opsmonkey]

i dont trust 0.1db LNB's.. they are a rip off.. many aren't actually 0.1db.. you will be just as fine with the cheaper 0.2db LNB's

[bobbit4]

okay, just had another look and that one I listed, it's ?20. Some of the 0.2 LNB's are actually more expensive...has anyone got any suggestions on a decent LNB?

[opsmonkey]

here you go..

Quad LNB.. ?20

http://www.southernsat.co.uk/index.php?l=product_detail&p=359

says its 0.1db.. probably closer to 0.2db at this price.. seems fine

[bobbit4]

That just so happens to be exactly the one I was looking at! lol

Cheers mate!

[.: JaCkPoT :.]

you might want to look at this one MTI AP8-XT2EBL 0.2dB Universal LNB from Aerial Shack MTI 0.2dB (http://www.aerialshack.com/ap8xt2ebl-02db-universal-p-379.html?osCsid=c34ikmrs07i761eojo8s65c673)

[opsmonkey]

he wanted a quad LNB

[bobbit4]

I've ordered everything now went for the technomate TM2300 and the Icecrypt quad LNB. Once that all turns up I can put the dish up and get ready for a painful wait for the 500HD to be released lol

I've got another question if no-one minds. When I see a saellite listing for example say Hotbird on 13 degrees east. Where is that exactly, is it 13 degrees east from absolute south? or is it 13 degrees east from my azimuth position?...I'm getting a bit confused on that bit! lol

[I_just_want_to_know]

Just one other thing.. are you aware some dream boxes have issues moving certain motors??
Hopefully the 500HD wont give you any problems.

I had this problem running a quattro LNB (motor point blank would not move from the DB) However, I changed to a single low power LNB and the issue was resolved..

Just my ?3.47's worth

[opsmonkey]

The TM2300 is a spot on motor and will give you no issues whatsoever, especially with a genuine Dreambox

[reloaded]

Just to add to wat OP's is saying,

i have a technomate 2300, and have been using it for almost 2 months, and can happily say it does exctly wat is sez on the box...

compared to some motors, it actually moves a lot faster...
and doesnt make a racket when moving either!

highly recommended...;)

[bobbit4]

thanks for the reassurance on the 2300! All that is ordered now and should be arriving this week. Already getting impatient on the whole not knowing when the 500HD is coming out (it's not even mentioned on the dream multimedia website!). I can see myself cancelling that order and buying an 800HD soon!! lol

[bobbit4]

Hey,

***LONG POST WARNING!*** lol

So predictably I got fed up with waiting for the 500HD to come out so ordered a 500S to play around with.

I now have the dish up, coax cable run all connected, green light on the motor happy days.

Fired up the 500S set IP address. Messed about flashing some images currently have the NabiloDM500-V08-MAXVAR image on there (not for any particular reason). Got that flashed okay and everything starts up okay.

I'm doing a transponder scan and get a good lock on Thor 1W get 93% SNR 90% AGC and 0 BER. Try to do a scan on 28.2 can't get a lock BER and AGC are okay but SNR never goes above 60%. Just done a scan this time on AtlanticBird3 5.0W no lock 61% SNR.

Went back and scanned Thor2 1.0W again SNR 93% AGC 89% BER 0. So I thought I'd scan for some channels to see what happens. This doesn't ever seem to complete, nothing changes on the progress bar. Had that going for about 15mins nothing happens so hit the exit button.

get screen saying
Done
0 new transponders
0 new TV Services
etc..
0 Transponders with 0 Services Scanned.
Press okay to close the window

Go back to TV mode hit the OK button blu button for bouquets Favourites (TV) list of 107 channels all with (removed service) next to them. If I select one I just get a blank screen.

So I have two issues can't lock any satellite except Thor2 1.0W and I can't get any channels.

My pole is plum all the way round. Motor is set to 51 degrees on the latitude scale which is my location. Dish elevation was set to 30 degrees minus 7.5 declination as per the motors instructions at this setting I couldn't lock any satellite. Currently have this set to 17 degrees which is getting me the lock on 1W. I'm assuming my dead south is correct as the motor is moving to 1W and then locking...or could that be locking to a different satellite??

I've been running up and down the ladder all day now...exhausted with different degree numbers rattling around my head...not too sure where to go from here :bawling: can anyone point me in the right direction?

Sorry for the long post just wanted to give as much detail as possible!

Thanks,

Dan

[bobbit4]

Hi,

Solved the issue by taking a trip to maplins this morning and buying one of these SLX Satellite Finder : Satellite Finders & Meters : Maplin (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48667#checkstore).

Took about 5 minutes to get correctly alligned using this instead of messing about all day yesterday!

Got a good lock (90%+) on 1W and then moved to 28.2E and got 90%+ lock again so looks like the arc is setup correctly and ready to go!

:party: