rkhsaw said:
Does anyone know if it is possible to have both a diseqc switch and a positioner controled by the same receiver ?
This is a subject close to my heart, since I have asked the question myself on more than one occasion - the short answers is:
- No one has really tried it and therefore can't really answer.
But that's not much use to you. I have personally looked into it a little further and come up with the conclusion:
- Possibly, depending on your receiver/kit.
I checked out the diseqc spec to see just exactly what it would support - and the following is my reasoning: Section 8.2 of the diseqc bus spec (
http://tinyurl.com/44y67 from
http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/4_5_5.html ) seems to suggest different devices are addressed differently - i.e. you can talk to a switch and motor independently.
I have a 4-way diseqc switch the which has clearly hex addr 0x15 printed on it, I'm guessing a diseqc motor might respond to 0x31.
Say you put 3 fixed dishes (13E,19E,28.2E) on the switch 1,2,3 outputs and a motorised dish (say for 1W, 30W, 42E etc) on the 4th output:
In theory, if your receiver knew to send commands to the motor down through the '4th' lnb position it could work, however whether your receiver would support such a set up is questionable.
It would have to know to switch to the '4th' lnb position, then send the motor command and know it was looking for another sat (1W, 30W or 42E).
Someone with a sat-PC card commented that he could send diseqc commands in a chosen sequence, thus in theory that would work - with the proviso that the switch didn't filter out the commands and pass them on to the motor.
I haven't a cheap diseqc motor to test out my theories - which comes back to the first answer - no one really knows.
Of course the next logical step is to try it. I know in my receiver (Samsumg DSR9500) it is possible to configure both a diseqc switch setting and a positioner (i.e. motor) for a given satellite - your receiver should have this option as a minimum before you try anything.
Well I hope that's entertained you even if it hasn't given you the magic answer you were looking for. What ever you do - please report back, many of us are interested to see what happens exactly!
Cheers
CTS