VU+ Duo2 Tunner Configurations

[sunday96]

Hello Everyone,

I wonder if anyone out there can help with the following questions:

1. I have a Duo2 with twin tuner and I was wondering if there is any benefit of me going for quad tuners as I only have two cables coming from my dish (LNB)

I have read about loop through but I don't know if there is any benefit or if it work for me in this case. Probably to be able to record more than one channels while watching another.

2. Is it worth getting another dish in tandem with my existing dish?

3. Is getting a wider / bigger dish guarantee receiving foreign / more channels outside that of 28.2 (Sky)

Cheers

[afc_rich]

1) 2 cables = 2 tuners. Unless you run extra cables then there is no benefit in buying extra tuners as far as I can tell. I think loop through allows you to connect it up to a second box, but I might be wrong.

2) For what purpose? If you want to run 2 extra cables to your Duo2 then run them off your current dish (may have to upgrade your LNB so you have more outputs)

3) Buying a bigger dish will not pull in foreign channels unless you point it towards a different satellite. If you wanted to pull in Sky Italia for example then you could have 2 dishes, one pointing at 28.2E and one at 13E. The size of 2nd dish all depends on where you are in the country and what satellites you want to hit. I personally have a 1M motorised dish that tracks the arc so I can hit multiple satellites (1 at a time) for football, movies etc.

Bottom line is what do you want to achieve?

[sunday96]

Many thanks for your input.

My primary aim is to be able to pull foreign channels for sports, movies etc like you do. I have heard that having a motorised could slow down zapping between channels as the dish keeps rotating to lock to a channel, not sure if this true though but you are in a best position to tell.

And some are suggesting that the best solution to the slowness when zapping between channels is to have a fixed and a motorised dish and connect both to the same box via different lnb, is this assertion correct?

[judge]

If you want to avoid the motor switching time, you could try a multi lnb set-up.
You would be limited to what the LNBs are pointing at, but channel switching would be instant.

[sunday96]

Yeah...I do know that. So it will be pointless having a multi lnb setup since the only dish is pointing to 28.2. Probably to have two dishes with both pointing to different satellite? and then a multi lnb will make more sense?

[Johev]

Let me try to clarify some things about motorised dishes and multi lnb setup.

If you are on the same satellite (all your bouquets are on one satellite) the zapping speed of a motorised dish is the same as for a stationary dish.

Now if you want 2 different satellites, you could do several things:

1) If your dish is big enough (lets say you have a 80+ dish) than you can go and buy a LNB bracket holder for 2 LNB's, and try to align your dish in a way that you would be getting both 28.2E and one at 13E. Should not be very hard as they are only 15.2 degrees apart. But this will also depend on where you live and if you have a good clearance (no big objects are blocking the the satellite). This is also the best option for zapping through multiple satellites and cheaper if you don't have to upgrade your dish. You will need new LNB, possible 2 switches if you have a dual tuner setup. If no switches were needed than you would need more cables directly from your LNB.

2) Buy a second dish and point it at the other satellite. In this case I would suggest that you do make the extra investment (around 40-50 GBP or even lower, check the sponsor of this site as he has good equipment at a reasonable price) to buy a good motor and that way you should use point the fixed dish to the satellite which you use the most and use the motorised dish to the other one, or any one that you wish. A motorised dish gives you an incredible flexibility, which is why I had mine. Even if I don't want a satellite today, does not mean I don't want it in the future. As for the zapping speed, it will depend on how many satellites you would be using on the daily basis. If they were only 2, than the zapping speed will be as good as with option one. However if you would be using 3 satellites, and wanted to watch a channel on one of those where it would not be currently pointing at, than you would have to wait for the dish to reposition. Once in place and staying on the 2 satellites would mean that the channel change would be as fast as you tuner can handle.

3) Get a second stationary dish and just point it at the other satellite. You save the cost of the motor and loose a lot of flexibility, but if you don't need it then why bother. More expensive than option 1, due to the need of buying an extra dish and mounting equipment (normally, if you can't use your current one).

4) Just get a motor for your current dish. Zapping speeds between the channels on 2 different satellites will be slow as the dish needs to reposition. I would advise creating bouquets based on the satellite and not on your preferred channel, because if you mix channels from different satellites than your dish would be going left and right every time you would be zapping through your channels list which could be annoying (specially if you have an impatient wife :)). This option could be even cheaper as you would not have to use buy a new LNB and more cables.

If this advice was helpful feel free to press the Thanks button below :)

[sunday96]

Wow...very well explained. Thanks for this useful information. I never knew it is possible to buy a motor for existing fixed dish.

Thanks

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Johev]

You're welcome :). The motor works like this, you attach the motor to the mounting pole where you current satellite is, and then you mount the dish on the motor. This way it will rotate.

Just a friendly advice, before you go and buy a motor for your current dish, the tricky part will be to align everything correctly. To do this correctly and if you are a novice you would need to research a bit or ask someone to help you with it.

If you take this into account you should be fine :)

[E2Royal]

Continuing the discussion: I have a VU+2 with 4 tuners and have two separate movable dishes. 2 outputs from each quad LNB to the tuners. AB from one dish and CD from the other.
Tuner A set up as Advanced - Usals
Tuner B second cable from A
Tuner C set up as Advanced - Usals
Tuner D second cable from C

The sat positions are shared between the two drives so each sat position is only used once.

I find Tuner A can regularly gets confused and refuses to move when previously Tuner C/D was used as the E2 software remembers the last sat position which would have been set by C/D and A/B is not there. To fix it I need to send A/B to another sat position which it always goes to. Is this a known problem or is it my setup? Does anyone know?