VAST Satellite TV

Mick17 · Veteran Member

RE: VAST Satellite TV

Alan8888 · Veteran Member

Mick17 wrote:
Hi guys, these are a couple of pictures of my set-up with my Austar,Vast digital decoder box. The satellite dish is connected through a 2 x way switch betweem both systems. The top box is a 4 x way Audio system.
Cheers Mick

Now waiting for the 12V system before I go to VAST.

Only use 12V in our set up and avoid inverter near no requirement for geni either . ashamed

Mick17 · Veteran Member

Hi Alan8888,
What every suit your needs Alan is the way to go mate.
As we are set-up with 2 x 87watts solar panels, 240v main power when stopping over in C/Parks, a generator if required for free camping. Also now we have a rain water saving device that catches all the water from our awning and runs directly into our 3 tanks with a 3 way splitter.
I'm not to sure when a 12v Vast decoder box will be available and if their will be one anyway.
Also a new strong decoder box availablility has us all wounder what's going too happen in the need future, as I believe Vast has a contact with the government on this one mate.
cheers
Mick

milo · Guru

yeoeleven wrote:

Thanks Milo that was very interesting seeing how it all fits together.

Could you please show us or descibe the antennae you use when travelling because that would also account for much of the actual receiving.

John

Hi john, hw , glad the video helped out..
with our moter home it has the wine gaurd ( i think thats what its called ) areal that
you wind up from inside the van, but any areal would work , goes to where the tv is located, also has a 12 v booster for helping with reception, then you just plug the areal same as i did in the video, and the one i have pics up the local digital channels, i havent got the money for paytv, and dont care for it as i dont watch alot of tv... but it handy if were travelling....

Mick17 · Veteran Member

Hi guys,
After along an frustrating time in trying in connect to the satellite through our dish for our new Vast digital decoder box. We finally had to ring John at Satplus Caboolture,30 minutes later and after John having allot of patience with me,as I was just trying to get my head around all of this techo stuff.
John finally found the problem, as it work out that I was given the wrong code number to enter into the system. In the end I had to ring vast in Sydney to re-connect us.
The outcome is we now have 80 channels through out Australia and they all work great.
One point of interest is that Vast will send us an e-mail 4 weeks before our 6 months is up so we can re-register with Vast again.
Hope this helps others that could come across the same problem
cheers
Mick

Dunco · Senior Member

I emailed STRONG industries to see if they were going to make a new Satellite Box for the VAST system and just received a reply that they should have one ready by the end of 2011, or before...and they are working on it now. Should be better than the UEC branded one...and should be 12v.

Mick17 · Veteran Member

Hi Dunco,
We are travelling the West Coast and have Had the VAST and Austar system since Feb 2011. We won't be returning home until Easter next year.
Now my question to you mate is that having the vast system NOW is alot better than waiting for 12 months, then it might not happen with Strong anyway.
All I do is change the system from 240v when we are not on mains power through our 1000watts Sine wave Inverter.
I've watched the footy for over 8 hours and starting with the volts at 13.8, by the time I turn the system of there is around 12.3 volt remaining. The the solar panels kick in again
Thanks for the info on strong system
See ya
from Karratha WA
Mick
mickandval6@bigpond.com

Gundog · Guru

I have a 80cm dish with a Sat king dual head LMB one cable runs through to my sat king decoder and loops out tp lmb input t on my foxtel box the 2nd cable is directly to lmb input2. I receive foxlel ok but nothing on the vast box, even using the settings the vast box displays in the sat finding facility. Using those settings dish angle, direction and lmb twist fox is perfect no vast. 2 WTF anomalies on the fox box you can access a page where it shows your signal strength input 1 great but this is the funny bit without the vast boxin the loop input 2 is great but add the vast box the you have identical signal information on input 2 &4 . Now heres the 2nd WTF moment if i rotate the lmb twist 90deg from where it should be i get vast and no fox. I'm confused

KFT · Guru

G'day Gundog,

I think your issue is the connection between the two boxes. Vast uses a vertically polarized signal, Fox uses a horizontal signal.

To make this work with those two boxes you will need 1 cable from the LNB to the fox box and one cable from the other output of the LNB to the VAST box. My setup works well this way.

frank

margjohnb · Veteran Member

If you are only wanting to watch Free to Air, why do you have to register the system. Does it cost you money for that as well.
Margjohb

Cruising Cruze · Guru

Hi Margjohb

So far I know it is free,you just have to make a phone call or do it online

Here are some links to look at and to get more info

https://www.mysattv.com.au/

https://www.mysattv.com.au/RegistrationProcess.aspx

Cheers John

Phillipn · Guru

Mick17 wrote:
Hi guys, these are a couple of pictures of my set-up with my Austar,Vast digital decoder box. The satellite dish is connected through a 2 x way switch betweem both systems. The top box is a 4 x way Audio system.
Cheers Mick
Hi

-- Edited by Mick17 on Sunday 6th of March 2011 10:43:49 AM

It is not a good idea to stack the set top boxes on top of one another as you have, their is not enough air flow to expel the heat. Read the instruction regarding ventilation.

Joe50 · Guru

margjohnb wrote:
If you are only wanting to watch Free to Air, why do you have to register the system. Does it cost you money for that as well.
Margjohb

Once you have your dish, receiver, cables, etc., there is no cost to access the VAST service. Registration as a traveller only lasts for six months - you have to keep re-registering prior to the current period expiring but it only involves a phone call (you need to quote the smart card number so keep it handy). If you travel to another state you can have your new location noted so that programming will be aligned with your current time zone. One downside is that VAST is only staffed on business days, so if you have an issue that needs human intervention on a weekend ... tough!

Joe

PeterD · Guru

Phillipn wrote:
It is not a good idea to stack the set top boxes on top of one another as you have, their is not enough air flow to expel the heat. Read the instruction regarding ventilation.

A couple of things:

1.. Those pictures were posted 5 years ago. If anything was going to overheat it would have happened long ago.

2.. The poster has not been back on the forum for 12 months. It's advisable to check the activity of someone you are addressing to see they are still around.

PeterD · Guru

margjohnb wrote:
If you are only wanting to watch Free to Air, why do you have to register the system. Does it cost you money for that as well.
Margjohb

It's all tied up with broadcasting rights for the commercial broadcasters. Networks transmitting in different areas use different channels in different markets. You register your receiver to operate in a specific area and that determines the channels you can receive. The networks demanded area protection before they opted to come on board the satellite system system.

OutbackMK · Senior Member

Following the latest gravedig I thought it would be worth mentioning some recent changes I found with my sat.
I have a ITechworld D4 signal tester (has a small TV screen so you can select a channel to tune on then get an actual picture for fine tuning.)
Its been 9 mths or more since I last used it and when testing the other day I had no TV reception even though signal quality and strength were 70 and 90% on ABC.
The practice was always to set the channel to ABC or Aljevera and tune. It appears that in the last little while both of these channels are no longer available without VAST registration and you can't upload (rehit) your VAST box without a tuned system.
Solution was to tune on FOXTEL help channel, so if anyone has a D4 signal tuner you will need to use the help channel to tune, hope this helps someone.
Cheers,
Brian

PeterD · Guru

PeterD wrote:
It's all tied up with broadcasting rights for the commercial broadcasters. Networks transmitting in different areas use different channels in different markets.

For more info see this link - Viewer Access Satellite Television