BATC Forum

Hello everyone, I've recently rejoined the club now that I have more time to myself.

I was wondering if the IceCrypt satellite RX would be a useful addition to the shack for checking my home brew transmitter?
These are sold by maplin at a very reasonable price - does anyone else have experience of these?

Many thanks for any help.

Regards
Bob G6TDR

Bob,
I have an older Icecrypt S3200CCIHD and I have recently set up one of the current models, an S1600CHD. They are both very fine satellite receivers. They will do both DVB-S and DVB-S2 and will tune down to 1ms/s. However, for local monitoring of your transmitter, a cheap free to air receiver from Ebay would be adequate and these may be obtained for £20 or so. However, if you want an Icecrypt from a local shop, you will not be disappointed and they also work very well with a dish and lnb on satellite broadcasts.
73 Shaun G8VPG.

Thanks Shaun, I'm very tempted as freeview is very poor in this area so it would be useful for that too.

Regards
Bob G6TDR

Bob,
If you want a satellite receiver for domestic TV viewing, I would recommend a Freesat type. The problem with the free to air type is that your local domestic channels are all mixed up with lots of others and you have to spend a lot of time sorting out a list of favourites. A Freesat receiver gives you a dedicated EPG with everything properly and automatically sorted for your local channels. However, they can often be very difficult to add non-Freesat channels to. However, they are so cheap now, you might as well have both .. !
73 Shaun.

Hi Shaun,

I've settled for the IceCrypt s3750 and I've done a quick test on a cheap dish and I'm very impressed so far.

Thanks for your help.

Regards
Bob G6TDR