Further to my ramblings about Free-to-air satellite TV, I have recently aquired a new box (Manhattan Starlight7000) off e-bay. The guy selling it only lived 'over the hill', so I went to pick it up. He also had a one-metre dish with rotator for sale so I bought that as well.
The interesting thing is the rotator. It is labelled "Manhattan" but is actually made by STAB, an Italian outfit, and is their model HH120. This will take a 1.2 metre dish! I knew there was a protocol called DiscEqc1.2 which sends signals up the coax to switches or motors, but this gadget goes one better as it understands USALS (Universal Satellite Autolocation System). With DiscEqc1.2 you have to line up the dish on each satellite in turn and the box then remembers the positions. This can be a lengthy process apparently. With USALS this is not necessary. You tell the satellite box (assuming it handles USALS) your Lat/Lon, line up your satellite dish due south (having sent the motor there) and then tell it to go to a satellite near south and tweak azimuth and elevation for best signal. The box then knows how far to turn the dish for all the satellites it knows about. The rotator shaft is not vertical but set at the angle of your latitude (53 degrees here). Thus when it turns it tracks the elevation. I think this is called a Polar Mount as effectively you are lining up the axis of rotation with the axis of the Earth.
I didn't install mine quite like this because, owing to the location of the dish, I can't point it due south, so I sent it to Astra1 at 19E and set it up on that. It happily picks up Hotbird at 13e and Astra2 at 28.2.
I have installed the dish at ground level in the back garden so it isn't an eyesore. I wouldn't have liked to put it high up as it is, to say the least, rather heavy! One metre is OTT really but "the price was right" :-)
There are detailed indtructions on the web if anyone wants the full story. (Do a Google for STAB HH120)
TTFN (I'm off to watch BahnTV on Astra1)
Geoff Baxendale
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++