UPDATE: I received my meter today by courier, exactly two weeks on from ordering from Wizard Satellite. I have been testing it the last few hours and will say after some initial "this thing is too complicated" scepticism I sat down and read the manual, then I re-read it
and found the thing a doddle to work.
It comes with 38 different transponders pre-programmed in; with all the most popular birds included. Typically me my bird wasn't included as the firmware is from Feb 2006 on it, (updateable via the net from
www.emitor.se) so rather than update the firmware I just added my three transponders which I am hunting for to trackdown Atlantic Bird 2 at 8° West. Telecom 2D at 8° West is preprogrammed on it but as Telecom 2D reached the end of its ten year lifespan during summer 2006; certain channels and data services migrated over to Atlantic Bird 2 so as to not upset their customers by having to change dish positions. Anyway I added in my chosen transponders which I got from Lyngsat. I have a dish aligned to 8° West already so I was able to test it out and it worked handsomely.
The Satlook Micro+ comes with a
european two pin plug on the charger so an adapter is needed, luckily I had one from a recent stint in Lanzarote. The battery seems good if a little iffy, it came with only a limited charge and began shutting itself down with about a fifth left in the battery indicator meter.
I put it on charging and the display says 10.00 and it begins working its way up after about 2 or 3 hours it was up to 2.22 - 10.00 with ten seemingly being the goal; (Manual very gray on this). Anyway the battery said 14.0 volts (12 Volt battery
) so for fear of overcharging it I stopped it and switched it on where the built in bat meter read full. Most of these things usually have batteries as their Achilles heel although the charging is a bit iffy the battery does hold good (I wonder though if it would be good enough for the pro with several installs to do everyday). I had a guy from Sky out to fix my Sky Digital dish at xmas and naturally I struck up conversation with him; and his meter (yellow banana type) was being powered by a DeWalt drill battery rigged up with homemade dangly wires.
My meter also came with a Cigar charger, a RS232 connection lead, a software CD with the software for copying my customised transponders onto someone elses Satlook Micro+ the disk also contained a PDF file about the firmware upgrade but the file was corrupt and wouldn't open on either Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader. The paper manual and Tough navy nylon carry case also came included.
While I originally criticised Wizard Satellite in my previous post, I rang them on the phone and found them courteous and helpful and got me my meter this week as promised. The irony in it was that it came from hisat, whom I was considering ordering from but they were £3 dearer and I chose Wizard instead
2 the only gripe I had with Wizard was that I was charged £30 shipping (free-shipping
) because I don't live in the UK. Watch out if ordering from outside the UK as delivery is expensive, if the cost of shipping rises anymore it will soon be cheaper to get a Ryanair flight and collect the thing from a postbox at the airport.