Hello everyone,
There is still a strong satellite TV hobbyist group in the US but we have a hard time finding receivers that will receive our signals properly. We've recently discovered the Freesat V7 which I bought along with several others and it works so good we're buying Goldens and Supers now. I'm the first to buy a Super and my Super is on the way, will get it in about a week or so now. One other member of the group bought a Golden but I don't think he's received it yet.
Our Openbox S9's stopped receiving three of our best channels, the signal goes from 0 to 70 constantly and it turns out it was the S9 because the V7 HD receives them just fine. One is called "Decades" which is a retro type channel that runs lots of older programming and movies. Another is also a retro channel called "Heroes & Icons". Then we lost "Movies!" which is a great movie channel. I'd say most of us spend 50% of our viewing time on those channels.
We don't know the exact cause and some members have examined the streams. There doesn't appear to be anything different but they are not stable at all. For one thing they have 4MHz spacing and the channels would also switch back and forth. Decades would become H&I and then switch back every few seconds. We tested all of our equipment for months trying to fix it (since November 2015), wasted a lot of time.
There are a couple of other channels the V7 produces skips in the AC3 audio, not bad but it does. I hope the Super is able to get all of them, it looks like a fine receiver. We'll use SCART adapters to output other formats we can use. We wouldn't be able to make use of the T2 tuner in the Golden at all, that's why I chose the Super with the loop out. Another member ordered a Super today.
We have very limited channels so when we lose one, it matters, especially if it's three of our best channels. Everything we do is legal, they are FTA channels no keys or anything like that is needed. Many of us have big dishes, 6-12 feet because most of our channels are on C band with Ku being loaded with religion and news. There are a few Ku entertainment channels and great radio stations. Lots of us have motorized 30-40 inch Ku dishes and I have a nice old Primestar 40 inch dish I'm going to install and eventually motorize. Right now I'm using a 7.5 foot C/Ku motorized dish. We do all we can to keep the hobby alive but losing channels causes some people to quit. Without a large group of us we get ignored as a market.
Anyway, sorry that is so long but I figured many of you don't know anything about the satellite hobby in the US. I know a little about the European satellite market, but not a lot. We don't have a Freesat type service in the US. That would be really nice. Ok, so you all have a fine day and I'm going to go look around. My real name is John by the way. I also turned off my ad blocker for the whole domain as requested. Thank you for allowing me to join your community.
John
There is still a strong satellite TV hobbyist group in the US but we have a hard time finding receivers that will receive our signals properly. We've recently discovered the Freesat V7 which I bought along with several others and it works so good we're buying Goldens and Supers now. I'm the first to buy a Super and my Super is on the way, will get it in about a week or so now. One other member of the group bought a Golden but I don't think he's received it yet.
Our Openbox S9's stopped receiving three of our best channels, the signal goes from 0 to 70 constantly and it turns out it was the S9 because the V7 HD receives them just fine. One is called "Decades" which is a retro type channel that runs lots of older programming and movies. Another is also a retro channel called "Heroes & Icons". Then we lost "Movies!" which is a great movie channel. I'd say most of us spend 50% of our viewing time on those channels.
We don't know the exact cause and some members have examined the streams. There doesn't appear to be anything different but they are not stable at all. For one thing they have 4MHz spacing and the channels would also switch back and forth. Decades would become H&I and then switch back every few seconds. We tested all of our equipment for months trying to fix it (since November 2015), wasted a lot of time.
There are a couple of other channels the V7 produces skips in the AC3 audio, not bad but it does. I hope the Super is able to get all of them, it looks like a fine receiver. We'll use SCART adapters to output other formats we can use. We wouldn't be able to make use of the T2 tuner in the Golden at all, that's why I chose the Super with the loop out. Another member ordered a Super today.
We have very limited channels so when we lose one, it matters, especially if it's three of our best channels. Everything we do is legal, they are FTA channels no keys or anything like that is needed. Many of us have big dishes, 6-12 feet because most of our channels are on C band with Ku being loaded with religion and news. There are a few Ku entertainment channels and great radio stations. Lots of us have motorized 30-40 inch Ku dishes and I have a nice old Primestar 40 inch dish I'm going to install and eventually motorize. Right now I'm using a 7.5 foot C/Ku motorized dish. We do all we can to keep the hobby alive but losing channels causes some people to quit. Without a large group of us we get ignored as a market.
Anyway, sorry that is so long but I figured many of you don't know anything about the satellite hobby in the US. I know a little about the European satellite market, but not a lot. We don't have a Freesat type service in the US. That would be really nice. Ok, so you all have a fine day and I'm going to go look around. My real name is John by the way. I also turned off my ad blocker for the whole domain as requested. Thank you for allowing me to join your community.
John