Swires research meters.

S

spburnett

New Member
My Satellite Setup
sky+hd
My Location
East Sussex
Hi,
Im hoping someone might be able to help me. I have acquired two Swires Research signal meters, a Terry 2 and a Digiscan 007.
Im not a satellite engineer but would like to know more about them in the way of how old they might be and which one is better than the other.
Swires Research are no longer going so they can't help me.

Thanks.
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I once tried to score a Swires meter for my collection and monitored eBay. But I never actually bought one.

I did mail Swires to present myself (I have done consulting and manual development, translations, etc., in this area as a part-time for a few companies), but did not ever get a reply.

I think that their products are not competitive in any way with the big players and it is no surprise they are out of business. Their business was probably some custom made devices for broadcasters or operators, hence the "strange" array of functionlity your devices seem to have.

The next bigger company was Horizon...

Regards,
Vitor
 
spburnett said:
Hi,
Im hoping someone might be able to help me. I have acquired two Swires Research signal meters, a Terry 2 and a Digiscan 007.
Im not a satellite engineer but would like to know more about them in the way of how old they might be and which one is better than the other.
Swires Research are no longer going so they can't help me.

Thanks.
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One is a terrestrial scanner/finder and the other is a dedicated satellite meter, so there would be little or no comparison, unless you have uploaded the wrong imagery.

The two meters must be over five years old, and so any firmware upgrades to the latest terrestrial or orbital slots will no longer be available.
 
Thank you for your reply’s.
I would say they were over 5 years old.
So are you saying they are pretty useless now without the updates?
Thanks. Shane.
 
One thing I learned from this very forum is how to use the fabulous archive.org!

Take a look here: All of our downloadable files

But yes, devices like these are normally useless, unless you are some sort of radio amateur playing with the supported signals or a collector.

Industry moves on very quickly and DVB-S/C/T have moved to DVB-S2/C2/T2. The same with analogue TV that moved to MPEG2, then to MPEG4/h-264 and is not at h-265 HEVC.

While old satellite meters are still useful when they can render the spectrum (IMHO the best price/performance ratio still is the Satlook Emitor Digital NIT, which can be bought for less than 100 Euro on eBay with some patience), most other devices are of little to no use.

Regards,
Vitor
 
vma said:
While old satellite meters are still useful when they can render the spectrum (IMHO the best price/performance ratio still is the Satlook Emitor Digital NIT, which can be bought for less than 100 Euro on eBay with some patience), most other devices are of little to no use.

Regards,
Vitor
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Sometimes the Horizon can be bought for a similar price, the advantage being the locking SkyQ functionality which a spectrum analyser such as the Emitor does not have.

www.ebay.co.uk

Horizon Digital satellite meter, V3 USB, HDSM | eBay

Horizon Digital satellite meter, V3 USB, HDSM. Condition is Used. Dispatched with Royal Mail 1st Class.
www.ebay.co.uk
 
Channel Hopper said:
One is a terrestrial scanner/finder and the other is a dedicated satellite meter, so there would be little or no comparison, unless you have uploaded the wrong imagery.

The two meters must be over five years old, and so any firmware upgrades to the latest terrestrial or orbital slots will no longer be available.
Click to expand...
 
Hi all the swires meter range wasnt mickey mouse it was very Pro i still use a swires Terry meter you can put any uhf digital channel in it and get perfect readings im looking for a swires annie if anyone has got one the date of this post is Sept 2021 im at Manchester uk the swires Terry is used daily for Aerial measurements and is fantastic bit of kit and they are over 12 years old
 
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