Now I know I'm unstable...

[Llew]

Well mine's due to be delivered via Parcelpost tomorrow. Had a card today saying couldn't deliver yesterday because of Import Vat + Clearance Fee due - £19.13! Had to go online to pay the charge.

 

[lovelyperson]

..Oh well ..chances are I'll never get that Hughes lnb afterall..
It made it into the country on or about the 14th ...
Checked this morning ..
Item says delivered ..??
Contacted citpost as this is as far as I can go ..with the info I have.
They informed me the item was not actually delivered but refused ??
Well not by me it wouldn't be ...
Nor was any card left ..??
in other words they have either tried to deliver to the wrong address ...or simply couldn't be bothered ..marked it as refused and sent it back to the USA ...
So there it is ..
The item is currently on its way back to the vendor..
I' will of course contact him and explain ..
But will he re-send ??
I doubt it ..
This country makes me want to puke in it's gross inefficiency..
At least if it had not been passed on to some tin pot company that don't know how to operate ..
it would be here now.
Oh ..and I checked the address and postcode with citipost ..
All correct ..but perhaps the van driver at Yodel is illiterate ..braindead ..or just bone idle..
Maybe a combination of all three.
cest la vie

Had a similar event, again sat related products, and DHL.

Traced it from the USA to Spain then to the distribution depot Alicante/Elche then saw it had been despatched 07.12 hrs to me.

Checked the tracking site on the night and it said 'Package refused' !!

I emailed DHL direct to complain in the USA and within 2 hours had mail back saying that it would def be delivered by 08.30hrs tomorrow and IT WAS.

The truth is/was ( I stated this in my email) that the driver had arrived at my address to find that a remote control was needed to open the private gates.......obviously did not bother to ring the my mobile no given in my original order and simply drove off.

Unbelievable......bad enough enough when its the wifes clothes/shoes etc but when it comes to my sat gear.....stronger action is taken.

Anyway all finally received ok.

Best wishes on your future purchases that involve third party transport.

 

[Vipersan]

..just received another email from Citipost ..
They contacted Yodel on my behalf ...
message reads ..
The parcel was returned to the supplier in error ..apologies for any inconvenience caused ..


that's all she wrote..
Perhaps he'll resend ..perhaps not .
If not I guess I just contact ebay with all email info and hope they refund ..
Ironic as it ain't the vendors fault.

 

[Vipersan]

Kudos to our American cousins ..
Just had a reply to my email ..
Explaining what had transpired..
Littleagle ....the vendor has promised to re-send once it arrives there..
That's service for you ...unlike Citipost and Yodel ...Spit!!!

 

[Captain Jack]

For all their failures, there's one good thing they have over there and that's customer service.

 

[Terryl]

Dose it have to be one from Hughes???

I have several from WildBlue, they use a Ka/Ku LNB TX/RX setup.

 

[Vipersan]

These are used for experiment in Ka Terryl ..so really the most important and interesting parts are used ..
Such as the feed and OMT ..
the TX unit is redundant ..
Do you know what part/parts of the ka spectrum the wildblue is used in mate..?
Any chance of a couple of photos ?
If it's something I think I can use feed/OMT/lnb (not the TX unit) ...assuming they are easily detachable..
I might well be interested.
rgds
VS
Always on the look out for new _toys_ for experiment.
;)

 

[Lazarus]

Aren't you running out of room, VS?



Sent from my Cherry Pie (With Custard)

 

[Captain Jack]

Sent from my Cherry Pie (With Custard)

OT. My work phone's signature is "Excuse the typos. Sent from a small device using large fingers".

 

[Vipersan]

Well off to the Hospital for my 6 month checkup in 20 mins ..so spent the time waiting for the taxi to lookup any info I could find on the wildblue units ..
Found this :-
http://wildbluetools.com/content/FS/20/23/001_ViaSatProductManual.pdf
very interesting and sounds like the unit covers a very large range if continuous ..
Do they all cover the same range(s) I wonder ?
However the ODU looks to have both lnb and TX unit totally integrated ..
Maybe not easy to isolate the TX unit and disable it ..
That said ..with a schematic this would be a relatively easy and straightforward task.
The only way imo ...is to actually rip one apart ...but a schematic would help immensely
Chances of getting one ...zilch.
Such a pity...but then one wouldn't expect anything less from manufacturers these days ...and certainly not in the public domain.
c'est la vie

 

[Lazarus]

Careful not to mention that when you get to your check-up: We wouldn't want them to consider you Certifiable .........

 

[Llew]

The assembly I've received is something of a disaster.

No feedhorn attached (what I really wanted it for).

LNB tripping my satellite meters - "LNB Short Circuit'. Hooked it up to my bench power supply and with 14V supplied, current shoots up to 600mA and rising. Quickly disconnected it before my supply tripped out

Needless to say, I've contacted the supplier to sort out where I go from here.

 

[Vipersan]

Sorry to hear that Llew ..hope you get compensated.
Item faulty and incomplete ..bstds!
Which unit was it llew ...I seem to remember you buying 2 ?
rgds

 

[Llew]

It was the Hughes Satellite LNB 18.3 -18.8GHz version VS. The seller of the one like yours that I originally wanted decided he didn't want the hassle of exporting out of the US.

Back to square one, so I'll just have to keep an eye out for any that crop up again.

 

[Terryl]

These are used for experiment in Ka Terryl ..so really the most important and interesting parts are used ..
Such as the feed and OMT ..
the TX unit is redundant ..
Do you know what part/parts of the ka spectrum the wildblue is used in mate..?
Any chance of a couple of photos ?
If it's something I think I can use feed/OMT/lnb (not the TX unit) ...assuming they are easily detachable..
I might well be interested.
rgds
VS
Always on the look out for new _toys_ for experiment.
;)

Wildblue uses 19.7 to 20.2 GHz for the Downlink signal sent to the customers dish, and 29.5 to 30.0 GHz for sending the Uplink signal out to the satellite from the users dish.

So it may not be in the part of the kA band you need, I will look for some photos.

 

[Vipersan]

Not at all Terryl ..all ranges in Ka are of interest ..but can the lnb (rx) section be isolated from the TX ..is the burning issue.
If it can ..then yesss ..I would like to experiment on one.

I've yet to find an inexpensive way to investigate Ka band C (20.20 to 21.20 )..
This band appears to be used almost exclusively by the military ...and rarely has video ..
again ..mostly secure data

 

[Terryl]

I found this one on line, hope you can see it.

They mount on an arm and use a secondary reflector to hit the main dish.

We have a lot of the dishes lying around, I use them for the 110/119/129 satellites, better gain and a wider beamwidth on the dish, the 3 LNB holder from a dish 1000 bolts right on, and it has a fine tune for elevation and AZ adjustments.

 

[Vipersan]

From the pdf this looks to be the
WildBlue 1 and AMC 15 Covered TRIA


I'll scour t'internet now to see if any of these units have ever been cracked open and modded..

 

[satosk]

I don`t wanna make you sad guys, but the lnb from your ebay link will not be the one you`re expecting to be (18.3-18.8 GHz).
The lnb set from samcrocut bought on 29 April 2014 is an ordinary 19.7-20.2 GHz one. Why? Simply because of 2 reasons.
1) I was in touch with the seller a long, long time ago and he didn`t want to send me another picture confirming this band..... He never replied after I sent him a couple of my pictures...
2) I have 2 real LNBs by Hughes for that band 18.3-18.8 GHz and also the one for the higher band and they look different. The difference is visible at the first sight!
Take a look and think... Whoever of you guys bought this item, it was probably good for the OMT and feedhorn only.

 

[Llew]

I don`t wanna make you sad guys, but the lnb from your ebay link will not be the one you`re expecting to be (18.3-18.8 GHz).
The lnb set from samcrocut bought on 29 April 2014 is an ordinary 19.7-20.2 GHz one. Why? Simply because of 2 reasons.
1) I was in touch with the seller a long, long time ago and he didn`t want to send me another picture confirming this band..... He never replied after I sent him a couple of my pictures...
2) I have 2 real LNBs by Hughes for that band 18.3-18.8 GHz and also the one for the higher band and they look different. The difference is visible at the first sight!
Take a look and think... Whoever of you guys bought this item, it was probably good for the OMT and feedhorn only.

Don't know which one you're on about satosk, but the assembly I bought from samcrocut mentioned in the 29 April post was certainly with a 18.3-18.8 GHz LNB, same as in your screenshot. Unfortunately, it was dead on arrival, Subsequently after it tripped my meters I checked the input, and found it was very low resistance, probably due to a regulator burnout.

Also, there was, as I said, no feedhorn with the assembly. It's now winging its way back to Kentucky, with the promise of a full refund.

The picture shown in the link bore no resemblance to the one I actually received.