Camping with my DM800

[B16MCC]

I'm off to the great out doors this weekend chaps and I'll be taking my DM800. I've got a sky zone1 mini dish on a tripod and I want to watch the footy and the F1 !

I'll report my general experience and findings, although this is not really a test of the 800 as such, but a test of my dish allignment skills !

 

[satelliteman]

Ah nice. Should get anyone of the three main/popular sats with a zone1.

 

[haggar11]

wish you enjoyable camping, just dont forget your sat meter!

 

[B16MCC]

I ordered a new kit from fleebay, a tripod, zone1 and a quad lnb. It came yesterday whilst I was at work. At ten oclock last night when I got home, I was in the garage. It took me 10 minutes to put it all together and mount the dish on the tripod. I had a ready made cable which I connected to the LNB. I then threw it into my conversatory where my 800 lives, removed the permenant feed from the 800 and coupled up my new rig. Turned the telly on, brought the box out of standby and guess what, ITV1 HD was on by the time the TV came alive ! I totally guessed at dish position and elevation and got it first go in the dark with no reference equipment what so ever !

Let's just hope it goes as easy in the field tomorrow !

 

[andel]

i'll bet some people are wishing it was always that easy!!!!

 

[B16MCC]

Well guys I'm back from my maden voyage in my new folding camper. I took my DM800, a 19" LCD with HDMI input and as mentioned a nice new zone1 dish on a tripod. I was dead easy. Our pitch was about 50 yards from a very high line of trees but the line of sight was obviously clearing the trees without any issues. The site steward came over for a chat when he saw me setting up and mentioned that it was a problem area because of the many rock outcrops and trees in the area. I connected everything up and didn't bother to insert my meter to begin with.

Using my hand held compass I alligned to about 140 degrees. Knowing that the north of the UK uses pretty much no elevation at all on the dish I already had that set so the dish was perfectly flat. Using the 'SatFinder' screen on the dreambox I have a lock with a signal strength of 50% within 3 minutes. As I flicked through the predefined TP's on the satfinder page some of them went as high as 80% ! On some I did have a little BER but nothing more than about 1000.

My required channels, ITV HD , BBC1 & 2 , and Scy Sports News came in like a Dream. I took my card with me as Scy Sports News is still encrypted via sat. and ran it in the internal reader having already setup the CCcam.cfg to suite at home before I left.

So, all in all, dead easy setup , everything worked at treat ! The site steward came back several times over the weekend to ask my advice on a long term fix for the site. I advised on a 1m dish fixed close to the ground with a quatro LNB and a 32 way multiswitch so that people could simply plug in and go.

 

[andel]

The site steward came back several times over the weekend to ask my advice on a long term fix for the site. I advised on a 1m dish fixed close to the ground with a quatro LNB and a 32 way multiswitch so that people could simply plug in and go.

All very interesting B16MCC. I was wondering though, would the above mentioned setup allow for more than 4 people to connect and all watch different channels? I thought a quad LNB would restrict you to viewing 4 transponders simultaniously or am I wrong and the multiswitch you mentioned will somehow allow more than four connections?

 

[hexah]

Well guys I'm back from my maden voyage in my new folding camper. I took my DM800, a 19" LCD with HDMI input and as mentioned a nice new zone1 dish on a tripod.

How did you attach the Zone 1 dish to the tripod?

I seem to recall it has an odd pole mount which is off-center, which would make it much more prone to being knocked over or blown over.

I would have used a round perforated 60cm - though I just happen to have one handy

 

[moelikepie]

All very interesting B16MCC. I was wondering though, would the above mentioned setup allow for more than 4 people to connect and all watch different channels? I thought a quad LNB would restrict you to viewing 4 transponders simultaniously or am I wrong and the multiswitch you mentioned will somehow allow more than four connections?

quattro lnb, different thing to a quad lnb

_http://www.xtendedplay.co.uk/techtip-quatro-quad-lnb-differences.html

 

[B16MCC]

The dish is attached through the standard bracket using a u-bolt around the pole of the tripod. It does sit off centre but this makes for better adjustment when alligning. It won't blow over as its pegged to the ground. I'm away again on the 2nd July, I'll take a picture of it.

The setup I suggested will allow 32 single feeds all watching different channels. As mentioned a quatro lnb is a different beast to a quad. It is designed to work specificially with a multiswitch.

 

[B16MCC]

So guys for my next outing I'll have no electric hookup so I'll be running from my onboard leisure battery. Yesterday I went to maplins and bought this. _http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=228639

It's a cigarette lighter power adapter that gives several selectable voltage outputs. The important part is this particular unit has an output rating of 3 amps. If you look at the mains power adapter for the DM800 you'll see it's the same. I tested the 12v cigarette lighter power adapter on my DM800 and it works a treat. I already have a small 12V TV/DVD player with AV input. I'll be using the scart output from the DM800 into the AV input of my TV/DVD. All works great ! A good option when only 12V is available.

 

[hexah]

The dish is attached through the standard bracket using a u-bolt around the pole of the tripod. It does sit off centre but this makes for better adjustment when alligning. It won't blow over as its pegged to the ground. I'm away again on the 2nd July, I'll take a picture of it.

Hopefully it will be good weather for it.