FAO Ticky or anyone else who knows

I am currently having problems with my errection (oops sorry, wrong forum) I meant to say Sat dish and in a blonde moment decided to change my two-lnb (diseqc controlled) system for a motorised one.

This is my receiver :

[hidden link - please register]

Now the later models have an output on the back for a positioner - this one does not although the spec does seem to support a motorised dish (well I hope it does else I am gonna be in shit-street when the nice man calls next week to fit it)

So my 64K question (and please be gentle with me) is how will this work for my receiver (no positioner or do I need a stand-alone one as well ?). The buzz word seems to be USALS and this model does also appear to support that ?

I have purchased nothing as the nice man said he will bring the dish/motor/lnb etc with him.

Be prepared when your dish is properly aligned and you have a clear 140 degrees view over the horizon, you may have to dig your way out through a pile of 12000 channels. I would be surprized to get reaction from you within the next 2 weeks!

Have fun!

Thanks for the prompt and easy to comprehend response.

I will post a follow up later this week if and when I can see 'birds' other than Hotbird and Astra.

I hope I understood your question right.

The specs states it supports both diseqc and usals. Though it does not specifically say what level of diseqc, my guess would be it does all three (1.0 (dual LNB), 1.1 (switch) and 1.2 (motorized) as usals is the latest standard which more or less implies diseqc 1.2. And with 1.2 you get 1.0 and 1.1 too. [[ Correction: one line further down it does explicitly say all three levels are supported, so no worries!]]

So basically you need not do anything if the nice man brings a motorized dish. The positioner is built in the STB and will instruct the dish to move -if required- on each channel change.

Just make sure the nice man does not leave befor you've seen it working. With usals things are easy, as this uses the satellites orbital position to calculate the required rotation. With diseqc 1.2 you (or the nice man) must move the dish (using the remote to step east or west) once towards the optimal position for each bird and then store it.

Aligning the dish would take a professional approx. 30 minutes, and with usals thats all there is to do. With a diseqc rotor you should add approx 3 minutes for each bird you can catch.