<span class="highlight">Satellite</span> <span class="highlight">TV</span> Dishes

Hi
I installed a Campersat system in my brother-in-law's bus/motor home. I think it cost him about $5000. You just push the "on" button on the controller in the motorhome and the dish unfolds and adjusts it's self to find the satellite. It takes up to about 1 min, sometimes a lot quicker. We have connected it to two decoder boxes via a selector switch, one for Optus Aurora and one for Austar pay tv.
We mounted the unit to an aluminium plate then cut a hole in the roof and mounted the plate to the roof. There is also a signal wire that is connected to the ignition, so if the bus is started, the dish folds down, so you don't drive off with the dish up.
Regards
Neil

It must be a worry having that much money!

Can't comment on the TV question (we go without). For internet, what works for us is very simple and no contracts required.

We use a Samsung A 412 Next G phone (any good Next G phone with a direct external antenna connection will do).

Simply ring Telstra and activate a casual data pack ( we use a 1G pack for $89 per month, other packs include 200M for $59). There is no contract on these packs. Activate and cancel whenever you want. We travel for about 6 months each year, so activate only when we hit the road. This is (I believe) the simplest and cheapest set up for net connection.

Load the supplied software, connect the phone to the laptop with the supplied data cable and start surfing.

I am currently sitting on the bank of the McArthur River, 40 KM outside Borroloola in NT. Have a 6.5db antenna on a sappling about 20 feet in the air. All works very well for us.

Contracted plans are also available via Telstra and Bigpond, using modem cards you plug into the laptop. We did not go this way because of the need for a (normally) 2 year contract - and the service costs about the same. But they do work well also, so are an option if you travel full time.

That's our experience. Hope it helps.

Norm C

Norm,

Funny you should mention that. I only spoke to somebody at Telstra the other day about it. Sounds pretty good but I'm just in the dark a bit about how much internet time 200mb will give me. I wouldn't be endlessly browsing but maybe a max of 1/2 hour per day. I use it for weather/marine forecasts and news/sport updates mainly as well as it being a good info-search tool.

NN: re: the sat dish: probably not what you're after for your needs but others may be interested that I got set up for just over $300. It took a bit of getting used to at first and I wondered if I'd ever get a signal but after you've used it 3 or 4 times you become pretty used to setting it up. I just take my TV, Foxtel box, sat dish and market umbrella base (better than the tripod that I paid $70 for - $25 and a more stable base for it) Again, don't use it a lot but it's nice to be in the bush and not have to miss major sports events etc

Gooday,
Have an Oyster unit, made in Germany, fully automatic, 12 Volt, very happy with it, had it for a year & a half.
Sold by SmartSat, (just google them ) on the Gold Coast, last I saw they were around the $5,000-00 fitted. Been available from these people for about 4 years, he is very experienced in this field.
Cheers,
Boroma604.

Hi Graham
If you are reasonably handy and have basic electrical knowledge, you should be ok.
With the Campersat unit, came all the assembly and wiring instructions along with forms to register the Optus Aurora card etc.
The instructions were comprehensive, clear and straight forward.
The kit contains the dish, which has to be bolted to the arm / motorized head unit, this was then bolted to a square aluminium plate about 3mm thick (sourced / supplied by us). This plate was then bolted to the external roof and sealed. There are two cables that you need to feed through the ceiling space ( the space between the external roof and the inner ceiling, these cables need to go to the control module (pre programmed), which needs to be mounted in an accessible location. It has an lcd display and a couple of push buttons. This unit (from memory) was about 200 x 150 x 30 but the display and button area was (from memory), only about 60 x 100. So we cut a hole this size on an aluminium panel, and mounted the control unit behind the panel, then mounted the panel to a wall, therefore the control unit and all cables were hidden and fed the cables from the dish in the wall. We also needed a fused 12v supply through the wall to the control unit, along with a cable to the ignition, so if the dish isn't down when the bus ign is turned "on" it folds down automatically. Not sure you would / could use this feature in a caravan. The output of the control unit, a coax cable, was fed through the bus, to the location of the decoder box. The kit we bought, had one decoder box with it, and the Optus Aurora card (which gets you all the ABC's, all the SBS's, a couple of other tv stations and about 50 radio stations and two of the four commercial TV stations either Imparja & 7 Central or GWN & WIN - depending which side of the WA border you are travelling) we also purchased a coax switch, so my brother-in-law could also take his Austar Pay TV decoder box from home. Both Optus Aurora and Austar come from the same satellite C1).
The RF outputs ( antenna outputs) of the two decoder boxes were mixed together with a diplexer (mixer) and then split, using a three way splitter which then feed the three tv's in the bus.
If you need any more info, photos, wiring diagrams etc. , get back to me.
If you do want more info., I won't have computer access for 4 or 5 days as I am working inter-state .
Hope this helps.
Regards
Neil (res.q.guy@westnet.com.au)