Fortec passion+, no thanks

haga

I've been looking round for a new sat reciever for a while now, my old Echostar 808 has been brilliant but with HD here it's looking a bit old. After a lot of dithering I decided on the Fortec, as I have read mainly good things about it. I have a 1m dish which moves by voltage, but used Diseq 1.2 and a V-Box which converts the Diseq signal to votage. Bought the Fortec from Maplins and it was delivered within 2 days, brilliant service from Maplins, anyway, dismantled the Echostar and set the dish to 28east for the Freesat programmes, the instruction book was in German so had to download the English version from the Fortec site, got it all set up and I have to admit, the HD channels looked really good, so far, impressed..
moved the dish manually to 19east and set up all the channels there, saved and decided to go back to 28east before I moved on and stored more sats. Dish wouldn't move, moved it back manually and started again, still wouldn't move, spent best part of 2 days going over and over all the settings, now I'm not green when it comes to satellites, been doing it for 15 or so years but this b****** had me beat! Called the Engish number given for Fortec which is just a recorded message telling you to email them, I've emailed them 4 times now and still aint got a reply, so packed it up, got in touch with Maplins and they collected it last Friday and promised a full refund, turns out there are quite a few out there that have the same problem.
So, if you have one and you use it just for Freesat, great. if you ever decide to go motorised with it, it'll probably be out of guarantee and it will be too late. Just a warning.
Me? I'll wait till the new Echostar HD comes out early next year,
Haga

whig

hi,
i have had the fortec hd innovation for the last couple of weeks,and have it working 36v through vbox 42e.to 43w.with no probs.but i always use disc 1.2 on all my sats.never usals.also connected hard drive to rear usb working no probs.programed old matrix rebourn cam also working.1west ect.receiving freesat hd bbc and itv when available.channel editor for pc.working ok also.on the whole for the price pretty good [recent beta upgrade]only thing with beta, lose warranty.just a pity there is no patch for it.

cheers.

thecaretaker

From what I have read elsewhere, the latest firmware downloadable from the Fortec Star website fixes this problem. Or get the latest BETA firmware from the Laurals website.

Hedgidj

I only use Diseqc 1.0 (only three sats) which seems to work fine on my Passion Plus. Still got my Manhatten ST550 (non-HD) if I want to drive a 36 volt or Diseqc motor so could always equip with a dual LNB.

I like the flexibility of each receiver been able to select it's own satellite, though, for recording etc.

I may go the way of more twin LNBs on more dishes and use the 12volt switching on the Manhattan and the Dieseqc 1.1 on the Pash, don't know yet.

I'm happy with the picture and especially sound quality of the Passion Plus but it's certainly no Manhattan. Having said that considering it has HD reception, and I got a free dish with it, it's a lot cheaper than the Manhattan.

Channel Hopper

Haga, it does sound as though this is not a problem with the Fortec receiver, but more the V-Box. This has to be cleared completely in the memory when first connected otherwise the position data remains, even if you have simply moved the motor to find a signal.

In DiSEqC mode the recever sends commands to the motor to count back or forwards from the reference position (0 degrees), nothing more. With a V-box inserted, the reference position is determined by one of the limits of the arc.

I have had problems in the past with the earlier V-boxes on some systems, but once replaced to a V-Box 2 those issues disappeared.

The only troubles I had with the Passion receiver was remembering to 'tick' the positions in the satellite menu after allocating the motor settings, and one lockup when viewing some broadcast off 42 East, but otherwise I would say it was about the friendliest receiver to tune in. And as the poster above says, it is brilliant value for money.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

haga

Hi mate, I'm running a V-Box 2, cleared all the settings and did a east west limit set, also ticked and saved all the right boxes but the damn dish still refused to move between sats automatically, yet I could move it manually,
I suppose it's like everything else in life, you get a faulty unit and it tends to put you off everything else by that maker. They are a good unit for the price, if they work, which mine didn't.
haga

Channel Hopper

Again, that is highly unlikely to be the Fortec machine at fault.

Do you have somebody nearby with a USALs or DiSEqC motor you can plug the receiver directly into ?

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

haga

It was a faulty unit, plugged the echostar back in and away it all went again, working fine.
nothing wrong with the V-box, dish and all working through the Diseq 1.2 on the echostar.
haga

jagguy

My advice - don`t get a Passion, and ignore any adivice from Maplin`s to upgrade to the Innovation
Have had 3 Passions returned to Maplin & about to return their advised "upgrade" to an Innovation - & day EPG is actually 2 hours EPG, and USB recording useless - advice from their Dubai based techsupport written in a strange form of English, and all they can say is £download the latest upgrade" - that doesn`t work either - "Made in PRC" means "reliabilty and build & QC quality nonexistant"

jagguy

For those struggling with Fortec Star Receivers such as the Passion & Passion+, the following MAY also apply:-

This may be blindingly obvious to the experienced, but not to an old fart like me - I have struggled all day with the instructions sent to me by Fortec`s techsupport in Dubai on how to download the software to correct all the problems on my Fortec Star Innovation receiver: what they didn`t tell me was that although the receiver is brand new, this doesn`t mean that its installed firmware is fromm 2009, or even 2008!!

In order to get the thing working, you have to download ALL the firmware updates on their website, and make sure that you do it in chronological order - skip a download, and all turns to ratshit - when following this bleedingly obvious procedure, the Innovation is transformed into what I thought I had bought in the first place.

The receiver now has a fully active EPG, and several upgrades that are very useful - like automatically sorting the channels into local first - being in Scotland, it has put BBC Scotland, ITV Scotland etc,m at the top of the list, then all the other regional channels afterwards - it even puts BBC HD at the beginning of the list!

Now why couldn`t the techsupport team tell me tjis in the first place - now all I need to get working is the HDD, maybe having a 1TB capacity is screwing it up?

Analoguesat

Fortec is known for spectacularly poor support - they normally drop any update support for receivers about 18 months after they are introduced.

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!

Fortecstar1

In the past with our SD products this was the case. We used to buy and badge the SD products the same as most of the uk brands. Then we decided for HD we would invest in our own lab ... And for the last 3 years we have been supporting our HD products. We were first to find ITV HD ... The first to utilize reloaded channel lists (regionalized) the first to offer a complete 7 day epg on a non freesat box.

If you have any further issues with our products pm me.

Justin

I love my Fortec Star 4400! I know it's not HD, but it does exactly what I want it to do!

Llew

It certainly helped having Laurals as a beta tester over at sataid.net (I did a little there too in the early days with the basic Passion).

Certainly needed a few fixes originally, your help was much appreciated by all, I'm sure.

Celebrating Ten Years Of The Forum As A Founder Member

Analoguesat

Whatever the situation with the new HD boxes its going to take Fortec a *very* long time to rebuild their reputation with regards to product support.

BTW Im pleased to hear something has been done

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!

jagguy

As many will have seen on my messages elsewhere, I wouldn`t accept a FREE FS anything - their techsupport can`t speak English, and the machines are a nightmare.
Take it from a newboy to this satellite game, FS produce underdeveloped products, and then can`t cope with the requests for info on how to get these pieces of junk to work - my estimate is that you have a 1 in 6 chance of getting something of theirs to work "as it says on the tin",: avoid, and look for something without the `PRC` label if possible.

jagguy

peapod1

Haga, I too have the old and trusty 808 (and a dsb2200 also), and I've yet to upgrade the receiver. Would love to have another Echostar - is the new HD model known to be coming? If so, I'll wait a while longer and postpone the purchase of the TM6900.

jagguy

You will see that I posted above regarding the FS Innovation, which has caused me no end of trouble: continually needing re-booting is the main one, but recording through USB is almost impossible through the programming procedure.
When the time is reached when the unit SHOULD start recording, it either switches off, or starts the recording OK, but when the end of the programme is reached, the unit switches off and no longer functions at all unless it is re-booted - and the recording is lost!
Just this afternoon I programmed a 1 hour recording, and when I turned the TV on, all I see is "No Video or Audio"(Even thpugh the signal indicator on the front of the unit shows a strong signal) - the solution I will have to go through for what must be the 40th/50th time - switch off at the main switch, allow to re-boot, and the picture re-appears; without the recording off course.

Assistance from FS - minimal in the UK apart from a patronising e-mail suggesting I didn`t know what FTA is, and from their techsupport - some unintelligible version of English.

I repeat my advice "Fortec Receivers - no thanks!"

Incidentally - Are Fortec & Maplin`s the same thing?

jg

Analoguesat

No, although Maplin sell a lot of their stuff as its cheap. (And some of it is very low quality - the big dishes should be avoided......)

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!