Wow! Thanks for the welcome. I gotta say didn't expect it.
So ... what to say ... should just say what brought me here .. a little history .. and what I was looking for when I clicked this link.
In 2001 I inherited some old Satellite equipment. A 12 foot dish with Actuator, some crumy cables, a dish mover, an old maunual analog receiver, and an LNA using a 70 MHz IF (can't remember the names now). I had once set this equipment up at a cabin we have in the woods of western WA some 13 years earlier to test it for my uncle. With a simple hole in the ground for the post and wires strung everywhere we actually got it to work. It was then I kind of got my interest in Satellite TVRO. We disassembled it all that weekend and it was never erected again. .... well until it came into my possession.
I erected the system in my backyard during a weekend and found nothing worked anymore except the dishmover. Hunting around I found I was hopelessly out of date. I search the net (which wasn't like it is now) to find information. I called a guy who was pushing Direct TV but who said he had an old analog receiver, remote, and a Cband LNB he would sell me for 100 bucks (I can't remember the names of any of this stuff .. but it is still in my shed ..). I went and picked it up. Retested my set up and my channels were coming in ... I was getting programming from the sky ... (and didn't even have a sub ..... but eventually that went away -- and I had to get one). Anyway, opened up a new world so I made my install more permant. I had already dumped cable over another dispute so this became a great alternative.
This upgrade eventually led to a 4DTV upgrade using the Sidecar and then eventually the DSR 922. I was a happy big dish guy for about 9 years. I got what I wanted at a price I wanted and I had some skin in the game too. When the subscriptions 'dried up' and motorola abandoned the TVRO market I just moved on. If it wasn't over the airwaves then we didn't get ... and that was fine too. ... years went by .. we watched DVDs and internet TV later.
So now I have a sidecar and a 922 that don't do anything. I knew I could do the Skyvision single Sat thing but that didn't sound all that exciting to me. I remembered that there had been talk of hooking these things up to a PC and remapping Sats and Channels. So I started searching about this again today wondering what, if anything, had transpired to resurrect life back into these receivers that had once worked so well. I downloaded a bunch of software today but looks like I will still need a special cable also if I was to even begin this project... not to mention a considerable amount of reading.
A google search for "mapmaster program DSR 922" had you listed about 7 down. The rest is joining tonight because I could not view the channel map list without being a member... so I joined. Sounds selfish I know .. but thats how I am here now.
I hope I can be an active member but I am old and tired now so I don't know how that will work out. I still have a lot of work to do on my dish before I can get up and running again. A lot of rust on the mount and the actuator arm doesn't work. I hear talk about the Battery in these units going dead ... and I don't know if I am there yet. the 922 has been plugged and powered (except for power failures) ... so I don't really know where I am at as far as equipment. .... Basically I was kinda just toying with the idea of bringing these things back to life .. and as much as I would like to, I have to still go to work every day ... so not even sure when I would find the time.
I have probably already said way more than any of you wanted to know but thats just the way I ramble.
Anyway BIG Thanks for the warm welcome. ..... That was a pleasant surprze.
Bill
