Pace 2600

RichardinSpain

Regular Member
My Satellite Setup
Sky 1.5 m FTE dish Amiko Alien SHD8900 receiver, Gigablue Quad
& 80cm dish for Nilesat or badr with Amstrad sky receiver
Dreambox 500s motsat3 motor
My Location
Totana Murcia Spain
Hi
I know that the Pace 2600i has a very sensitive tuner and especially good for fringe reception but is there another receiver which is comparable or even better?
 
That appears to be the best Digibox.

If you're not wedded to $ly then the Humax boxes (Foxsat HD and Foxsat HDR) are reckoned by some to be even better.
 
I agree, Foxsat HDR excellent. Very good for weak signals (and an excellent machine to boot). I also find early Thomson HD boxes with upgraded PSUs are very sensitive too.
 
The Pace "Mini-box" which was designed for caravaners has the same tuner as the Pace 2600C1. I have three Thomson HD boxes and they have fantastic tuners - you can pick them up on eBay with new/upgraded PSUs and 1TB disks for around £100. Remember the HD boxes give you the advantage of receiving FIVE HD and Channel 4 HD on the south beams and on EPG for recording.
 
Thanks Paul,Dishdick and Blueplatinum for your comments
Blue...i see you are using a black ultra, i have ordered one of these for next week. I'm using my dreambox 500 at the moment as i have a problem with the pace (switches off when i try to switch to H transponders) so hoping this will improve the signal a bit. I have no problems with bbc1/2 and itv channels but i would like ch4+1 all day. I get it through the day but weak at night although at night its just under the lock so hoping the black ultra might help. Good idea about the Thomson box as i would then be able to pick up the hd channels. Do i need a freeview card for ch4 hd and ch5 hd?
 
Triax SR110 & Vu+ Duo. BTW, if you haven't got one already a Black Ultra will make far more difference to a system than the minor differences between tuners.
 
RichardinSpain said:
Do i need a freeview card for ch4 hd and ch5 hd?
Yes. Although C5 HD was supposed to be only available with a $ly subscription (like ITV 2/3/4 HD) it appears to be available with an FTV (not Freeview!) card.
 
Well i got my black ultra yesterday and spent a couple of hours today trying to get the best signal. I must say that i am a bit dissapointed with it as i was getting slightly lower signals than my old lnb. My old lnb (engel 0.3db)was a cheap one that come with a cheap 80cm dish package that i bought from leroy merlin about 5 years ago. As soon as i put the old one back on i was getting 75% - 76% and nearly a lock on ch4 but the black ultra was about 73%. I have tried the skew and also moved the lnb closer and further away from the dish but 73% was the best i could get. I will try again tomorrow for a while and hope to get better signals..well here's hoping anyway
 
Those Engels were very good for the money. Surprised they out perform the new darling of the LNB world. JPSR is not impressed with his new Black Ultra either. Could be that you have been unlucky with your samples or just a compatability issure with your dish. Thought of tying a CM feedhorn and Invacom LNB?
 
HI dishdick
Never consdered a cm feedhorn...didnt know what one was until you mentioned it and i had a look at one on the internet. Im going out later to have another play and see what i can get out of the black ultra
 
RichardinSpain said:
HI dishdick
Never consdered a cm feedhorn...didnt know what one was until you mentioned it and i had a look at one on the internet. Im going out later to have another play and see what i can get out of the black ultra
I've got a CM feed here, tried it with an Invacom quad, but the Black Ultra is much better for my needs, so the CM feed has been relegated to paper-weight/conversation-piece status.
 
My Black Ultra has given me a massive improvement over the Invacom I had before. It does take a bit of tweaking because it has such a long kneck. I never used to be able to watch any of the big series on BBC1 at 21:00 (like Spooks), but now they are always solid.
 
I also got a good improvement when switching from an Invacom QDF031 and CM feedhorn to an Inverto Black Ultra Quad on a CM 1.8 dish.

BLUEPLATINUM said:
It does take a bit of tweaking because it has such a long kneck.

Roughly how far towards the dish did you have to slide the LNB to get the best signal?
 
Hi All
Well spent another few hours today trying to get the best result out of the black ultra. I managed to do a bit better than yesterday. I now have 11778 (epg, and back ground music horah) which i know is a weak signal here in Spain..so quite pleased. The thing is at the moment i'm using an old Amstrad DRX100 and a Dreambox 500. My Pace 2600ci died a few days ago and i'm sure if it was still working i could pull in ch4 on 10714. Ch4 started to come through about 6ish this evening but hasn't got any better than a very pixelated picture, with the pace i'm sure it would have been watchable. Does anyone know if it is easy to take out a tuner from one receiver and put it in another...i'm thinking about the tuner in the pace and putting in the Amstrad..or am i talking about something thats an impossibilty. Compatability issues etc..What do you guys think..any advice is appreciated
 
RichardinSpain said:
i'm thinking about the tuner in the pace and putting in the Amstrad..or am i talking about something thats an impossibilty. Compatability issues etc..What do you guys think..any advice is appreciated
It's not a plug-in part, it's part of the main circuit board.
 
The Amstrad DRX100 has a good tuner (there were many faulty ones that failed early, but the ones that work, work well).
 
I have a spare Pace 2600C1 as I have upgraded to a HD box. If you are interested in it you can PM me richard
 
RichardinSpain said:
My Pace 2600ci died a few days ago and i'm sure if it was still working i could pull in ch4 on 10714. Ch4 started to come through about 6ish this evening but hasn't got any better than a very pixelated picture, with the pace i'm sure it would have been watchable. Does anyone know if it is easy to take out a tuner from one receiver and put it in another...

Changing the dish to a Gibertini 1.5m would be the only real soloution as the gain will increase significantly.

If it was my house, I would have changed it to a cheap 2m when I moved in. Overkill perhaps, but never any problems in the rain, etc. :)
 
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