Echostar ad-3000ip viaccess with mpeg-2 mp do i need a replacement receiver ?

[Trust]

Hi Trust Oh dear is that also out of date ! Its a SATLOOK MK4 FTA bought in 2007 so this wont work then ?

It does not bring pictures from DvbS2 channels but will still show the spectrum

 

[subman]

Morning John I wish I could show you a picture but my receiver is only good for MPEG-2 MP and it would seem that they have changed the format to MEPEG-4 which is why I have been searching for a suitable receiver that can cope with a 36 inch Jack a Chaparral Corotor with Skew control . The dish is on Sirius2_3 or you might know it as Astra 4 so all I am getting is a blank screen this is on Clear channels however I can tell you signal levels are 85-90 % if you go to Astra 28 its full 100% . As far as Precision goes they closed down in 2009 and I have no idea who makes larges dishes in the UK now but be warn Dont Buy One from the States as the ones I have had in the past are only good for C band yes they will work but no were near the spec of a Ku dish if you also fit a Corotor you will also have loss . Hope this helps .

 

[John]

Morning John I wish I could show you a picture but my receiver is only good for MPEG-2 MP and it would seem that they have changed the format to MEPEG-4 which is why I have been searching for a suitable receiver that can cope with a 36 inch Jack a Chaparral Corotor with Skew control . The dish is on Sirius2_3 or you might know it as Astra 4 so all I am getting is a blank screen this is on Clear channels however I can tell you signal levels are 85-90 % if you go to Astra 28 its full 100% . As far as Precision goes they closed down in 2009 and I have no idea who makes larges dishes in the UK now but be warn Dont Buy One from the States as the ones I have had in the past are only good for C band yes they will work but no were near the spec of a Ku dish if you also fit a Corotor you will also have loss . Hope this helps .

Ok thanks,
I remember the old Precision works from when i went down to pick my first 2.2mtr reflector and mount up - a very interesting place which eventually ended up in Elite Antennas hands.
My second 2.2mtr was from Elite Antennas, they ended up with the tooling etc from Precision but re-located to another area and the chap that spun my first one also went onto working at Elite and spun my second one - shame now that they too have fallen foul as well.
Have you any thoughts re: Cband reception with your dish ?.

 

[moonbase]

.... the main thing is the dish is ok that was made by Precision Antennas they closed some time ago . Is there any C / KU band dealers left in the UK I wonder .

If I have the timeline correct, I think that Precision antennas were taken over by Andrew who subsequently sold the Precision business to Q-Par who then sold it on to Elite Antennas? A full range of spun aluminium reflectors and associated equipment was manufactured by Elite Antennas from November 2010 until April 2019 when they went into voluntary liquidation.

I am guessing that your 4.0m Precision reflector is multi piece, to the best of my knowledge the single piece range stopped at 3.7m? As far as I know, the 3.7m single piece reflector started life as two pices of 2.0m wide aluminium sheet that were welded together to form a flat welded blank which was subsequently spun into what looks to be a single piece reflector.

Pics of your 4.0m gratefully received, there are a few "Precision" owners on the forum who would probably be keen to see pictures.

As regards a motor controller, you could look out for a second hand Research Concepts RC1500 or RC2000 unit. They have sold second hand on eBay for somewhere in the Region of £100 to £200 in the past and they are a corporate grade unit costing thousands when new. They offer quite a range of motorisation options and should have polarity control depending on which boards were fitted when new.

The Satellite Superstore website probably has the widest range of products for enthusiast satellite in the UK. They are based in Newcastle and have a decent selection of C-Band and Ku-Band equipment.

 

[subman]

Ok thanks,
I remember the old Precision works from when i went down to pick my first 2.2mtr reflector and mount up - a very interesting place which eventually ended up in Elite Antennas hands.
My second 2.2mtr was from Elite Antennas, they ended up with the tooling etc from Precision but re-located to another area and the chap that spun my first one also went onto working at Elite and spun my second one - shame now that they too have fallen foul as well.
Have you any thoughts re: Cband reception with your dish ?.

Oh I did not know that Precision came back under a new name Elite Antennas are they still at the same location I wonder ? Just had one reply from Paradigm Sales they have nothing and so the search goes on . Ok on your 2.2 before the 4m I had a IRTE 1.8 on a polar mount just for Ku . Then I searched around for a large dish installer and found one in Pickering near Scarborough so I went up to his place and he had a 6m he used for C band and he used it for recording programs from the middle east he had a nice location in the middle of no where with nice take off to est and west .

Thanks Trust for the feed back regarding the SAT LOOK it should be ok to search for satellites I do have a older one with a CRT display that I used for C band all those years ago I still have my old Phantom 70 Mhz band width filter .

Any I will contine my search for a MPEG 4 receiver but I have a feeling its going to be a AC1 with a MPEG receiver .

Thanks again Guys

 

[subman]

Hi Moonbase

All ok on Percision well I am only going by what your find on the internet :-
A Stratford-upon-Avon based satellite dish manufacturer is to close three sites in Warwickshire, with the loss of nearly 350 jobs.
American-owned Precision Antennas announced in August that 350 jobs could go if the sites at Stratford-upon-Avon, Bidford and Long Marston were closed.
A consultation period has now ended and it has been agreed that 345 jobs will be cut and the sites closed by 2009. The closures will take place gradually to allow the company to honour existing contracts and to give staff time to find new jobs.

Yes I know Andrews very well but did not know they took over Percision but Andrews is one hell of a very large company thats world wide and Precision only had a small work force of 350 so its like a ant and a elephant but one thing is for sure they have gone and I wish they had not as I cant find any other company in the UK that do spun aluminium reflectors as far as my dish goes its got a plate on dish with a ser number as far as the size goes it was sold to me as 4m . Its a bit of a long story how that all came about as this big dish installer from Yorkshire install a US spec dish the polar mount he made him self .The dish was found to be crap on Ku band in fact my 1.8 gave a far better picture on 27 west than his system gave in the end he bought from Precision this dish and mounted it on his polar mount the problem was due to the weight of the dish the dish dropped the setting up the polar mount was impossible so in the end I ended up with this . The LNB mounts were the corotor are he made from threaded bar .
But it all seem to work ok the problem was that I never had time to play with any of this until now the problem is things have moved on and its my receiver the old Echostar is only good for MPEG-2 and the format these days is MPEG-4 so any thoughts on what receivers that can power up a 36 inch jack and have skew control .

As far as my dish goes I cant see welding it seems to be spun . I will see if I can get some photos together . Yes I did check with The Satellite Superstore they have nothing but I will have a look out for Research Concepts RC1500 or RC2000 units .

Its would seem that large dish enthusiasts still out there .

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[Channel Hopper]

It does not bring pictures from DvbS2 channels but will still show the spectrum

The Emitor Satlook I use (NIT) has no digital circuitry that plays pictures, though it does have the constellation setting on the spectrum.

More interestingly , whilst it does not recognise S2 transmissions, it does a very good job at - almost - locking on the UHD stuff as you can see from the two constellations.

The MkIV does from the specifications show digital pictures, though the imagery confirms only an analogue display.

https://www.satcraft.ru/custom/emitor/satlook-mk4.pdf

You would have to plug it in to a working dish to see the analyser does actually provide TV in digital mode ( A Freesat/Sky dish on your property ?) Regardless, it's not that important since the AD3000 will have the ability on SD transmissions.

Post a couple of pictures of the 4M dish face, along with the back mount and actuator system, a dish of that size really needs two motors to get the best out of it, even if perfectly aligned on the arc.

 

[moonbase]

...so any thoughts on what receivers that can power up a 36 inch jack and have skew control

To the best of my knowledge there are no consumer grade satellite receivers currently being manufactured that are capable of powering a 36V motor. I think that you are going to have to go for a two box solution, one box for the 36V actuator and the polarity control, another box to receive the pictures.

If your AD3000 is still working you could use this as your 36V actuator and polarity controller and use a modern consumer grade satellite receiver for the pictures.

Looking at the picture of the plate on the rear side of the dish the "Type" details are not visible, it is the "Type" details that indicate the original part number of the reflector including the size.

If you have a need for dual axis motorisation on your dish for Azimuth and Elevation then a Research Concepts RC2000 is a single box solution for this. It can drive two x 36V actuators in addition to driving servo motors for skew etc.


Just a question, is polarity skew adjustment mandatory at the moment to get you back up and running? The majority of C-Band satellites receivable from a UK location are circular polarity, lessening the need for fine skew control. You could get up and running without polarity skew control and add it back later? For Ku-Band, if you use a Universal twin probe LNB and align the polarity correctly for 0.8W at the centre of your arc then the polar mount traversing the arc should automatically align the skew correctly per satellite.

 

[moonbase]

...
As far as my dish goes I cant see welding it seems to be spun . I will see if I can get some photos together .

Have a look at the rear face of the dish for a very slight line passing from one side to the other and through the centre. Sometimes it is only visible under certain lighting conditions on the rear side. They did a very good job of lessening the visibility of the seam for those reflectors that were spun from a welded blank of two pieces of aluminium.

 

[subman]

The Emitor Satlook I use (NIT) has no digital circuitry that plays pictures, though it does have the constellation setting on the spectrum.

More interestingly , whilst it does not recognise S2 transmissions, it does a very good job at - almost - locking on the UHD stuff as you can see from the two constellations.

The MkIV does from the specifications show digital pictures, though the imagery confirms only an analogue display.

https://www.satcraft.ru/custom/emitor/satlook-mk4.pdf

You would have to plug it in to a working dish to see the analyser does actually provide TV in digital mode ( A Freesat/Sky dish on your property ?) Regardless, it's not that important since the AD3000 will have the ability on SD transmissions.

Post a couple of pictures of the 4M dish face, along with the back mount and actuator system, a dish of that size really needs two motors to get the best out of it, even if perfectly aligned on the arc.

Many Thanks Channel Hopper regarding the Emitor Satlook yes the one I have is a MK4 bought in 2007 for £449 I used it a few times for setting a few things up and its been sitting here ever since , I would think the battery pack needs changing out seen thoses on ebay for about £40 - £60 , How do you change out the pack I wonder ?

Yes when the guy installed the dish all those years ago he did ask about installing a second jack but that would mean more cables and control boxes so only went with the single jack . I have attached a picture showing the rear of the dish with 36 inch jack .

 

[moonbase]

...
Yes when the guy installed the dish all those years ago he did ask about installing a second jack but that would mean more cables and control boxes so only went with the single jack . I have attached a picture showing the rear of the dish with 36 inch jack .

Thank you for the picture, it is interesting.

The polar mount looks to be similar to an original Precision Antennas square frame polar mount but without the declination offset index scale on the part that the upper bearing passes though? I have a couple of original polar mounts here that came with 2.2m Precision reflectors and they both use 3 fixing points tather than the 4 used on your mount.

It looks like Precision Antennas may have used a 4 bolt mounting system for their larger reflectors unless your dish and mount had been slightly modified. From the picture it seems that you are not using one of the boss head mounting points on the dish rear mounting ring so it might have been modified at some point?

Modified or not, it is a very nice dish and mount you have there, absolutely top class, take good care of it, they are getting rarer as each year passes. I hope you get it all back working, it would be nice to see some signal reports and scan results once you are operational again.



I have attached a couple of pictures below of one of the mounts I have that are almost identical.

.

 

[subman]

Thanks Moonbase for the info on consumer grade satellite receivers currently being manufactured that are capable of powering a 36V motor in that case it looks like a ADC1 for dish and Skew and a separate receiver but I will do lots of home work and see what I can find if not in the UK there must be some thing in Europe plus there are millions of motorised system all over the world cant see them all playing with a separate control for dish so I think they are available but not in the UK since there is not the demand .

Yes the Good old AD3000 still works fine I even do have a spare unit this one is still fitted with a Dragon Cam Module from the good old days of down loading and programing your own cards for D2-Mac . Yes there is nothing on the ID plate were its got type so I have no idea maybe it was sold as a single piece reflector and the installer just adapted it but the Polar mount was made by Percision the only thing they did not make was the LNB mount were the Corotor sits .

Any thoughts on were I can buy a replacement Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB , So far the only one I might get my hands on is a SMW Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB (switchable) Q-PLL Type G Size 23 .

Many Thanks

 

[Channel Hopper]

Are you certain your existing LNB is faulty ?

 

[moonbase]

...
Any thoughts on were I can buy a replacement Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB , So far the only one I might get my hands on is a SMW Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB (switchable) Q-PLL Type G Size 23 .

I think eBay might be your best bet, save a search and wait for one popping up. If you go to the original listing on the link below, the seller sold 5 of them for £150 each.

NEW x 1 SMW Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB (switchable) Q-PLL Type G Size 23 | eBay

LO 10.0 / 11.3 GHz (13/18 V) LO Stability +_ 10 KHz. NO COLLECTIONS.

www.ebay.co.uk

Is there any reason you specifically wish to use this SMW model of LNB? If you opt for a twin probe Universal LNB you can eliminate the need for polarity skew control and scan for both H and V polarities without the need for a co-rotor. Also, the SMW model of LNB you are looking is not full band, it has a gap in the frequency range between 10.70-10.95 GHz and a further gap between 11.7-12.25 GHz. You would eliminate these gaps and get full band coverage with a Universal LNB.

 

[John]

Many Thanks Channel Hopper regarding the Emitor Satlook yes the one I have is a MK4 bought in 2007 for £449 I used it a few times for setting a few things up and its been sitting here ever since , I would think the battery pack needs changing out seen thoses on ebay for about £40 - £60 , How do you change out the pack I wonder ?

Yes when the guy installed the dish all those years ago he did ask about installing a second jack but that would mean more cables and control boxes so only went with the single jack . I have attached a picture showing the rear of the dish with 36 inch jack .

... if you slightly enlarge the pic it looks like you can just make out the well hidden joint seam where indicated.
MB, i'm drooling Dave

 

[moonbase]

... if you slightly enlarge the pic it looks like you can just make out the well hidden joint seam where indicated.
MB, i'm drooling DaveView attachment 129294

Aye, they made some top class reflectors, it is not easy to see the seam on the welded halves.

Returning to the picture, it looks like the reflector rear mounting ring is stood off from the square frame on the polar mount? I am guessing this is to avoid fouling the centre of the reflector on the frame. It the reflector is fitted with a 1200mm rear mounting ring its centre section protrudes beyond the outer plane of the mounting ring so it needs to be stood off when mounted.

 

[Channel Hopper]

I am guessing that your 4.0m Precision reflector is multi piece, to the best of my knowledge the single piece range stopped at 3.7m? As far as I know, the 3.7m single piece reflector started life as two pices of 2.0m wide aluminium sheet that were welded together to form a flat welded blank which was subsequently spun into what looks to be a single piece reflector.

If I recall the meeting I had there (almost 30 years ago), the spinning areas could cater for dishes up to 4.5m in diameter (and ever so slightly larger), though only the best 'sweepers' were employed for reflectors 2m and above.

 

[Satfaca]

Subman,
I have a practical solution for you if you'd keep using the Echostar as a dish mover. I have a well preserved sample of Pansat 9500HDX (looks brand new, I think I also have the original box somewhere) which has a polarizer control. It handles MPEG4 and all HD channels however no 4K/UHD. It does have an HDMI output. With this you can easly handle all FTA channels keeping Corotor in use. If you need a Corotor, I also have a new one here (no dielectric inside though but that can be inserted somehow).
If interested in either of the items, please contact me with PM.

You'd also need a new "Universal LNB" to be fitted on to Corotor. Here's the cheapest option right now on Ebay.
The only other option with WR-75 flange is NJR2842 series (suggestion 2842S).

I am attaching here the backside photo of the receiver. Wanted to upload user's manual aswell, unfortunately the file is too big.

I hope the above helps.

 

[subman]

Wow you must have very good eyes as I cant see the joint ! But like you say they must have welded the 2 halfs together but you want to see this 6m one that the dealer had in pickering yorkshire WOW that had 2 jacks fitted it was made like a IRTE dish with aluminium panels .

My current Ku LNB is still working as getting a 85% - 90% signal on encrypted transmissions its just its very bady corroded same with with Chaparral Corotor so it might clean up with my dremel but I hate to think what the waveguides are like inside the corotor .

Back to the mount on the dish it looks a bit like your polar mount 2 picture but I have bolts on each corner going to the ring on the rear of the dish plus my polar mount fits over the mounting post and there are no U bolts as there are in yours . When they bought the dish over to me it came on a big flat bed lorry and the dish came on a wooded frame and was up right . It took 4 of us to move the dish over the garage roof using ladders as ramps . All good fun .

So this dish and mount came straight from Precision after this dealer tried to plam me off with a home made polar mount and C band dish . But as you can see from the pictures its showing its age these day . I do clean it about once a year .

Regarding that ad on Ebay for the SMW Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB (switchable) Q-PLL Type G Size 23 his sold out and wont be getting any more there is some silly man on Ebay selling a second hand one for £550 !!!! But any Ku-Band Quad Multiband LNB will do I only picked SMW because thats the only one I could find . SMW in Sweden have 3 in stock but they only deal with trade .

I will try and load some more pictures but one thing for sure I think the only large dishes available now are some thing like the Windgard or the Paraclipse with stamp aluminium petals which are not much good for Ku band .

Oh yes can someone tell me how do I change the battery pack out of the sat look meter as I can buy a spare battery and looks straight forward to change out ?

 

[subman]

Thanks guys for all the feed back its a bit like about 30 years ago when every one was after D2-Mac codes forums

Ok thanks for the offer there Satfaca not sure were abouts you are in the UK but I am in Essex but might be a bit hard to go any where until the lockin ends . I did look at a ADC1 but dont think these are available in the UK but they are in the states but like I said import duty is over 25% on any thing New or Secondhand from the states so at best its going to be Europe . From looking at the links you gave me JRC is from Japan and the other is from the states importing both means you pay 25% import duty . So my best bet I think is buying one from within Europe thats if I can . Attached is the Corotor mount with the band going round the outside .