combi meter or separate meters

grousedogtom

Hi iam looking for advise on a meter/meters for saorview and free to air satellite installations.I was looking at the horizon hdtm plus for the aerials and wasn't sure what would suit best for the satellite dishes,my budget is about €500 or so .Could some recommend a single combi meter or two meters which would be sufficient for someone who carries out an odd installations with the plan to expand this in the future,many thanks.
Ps would something like this be only rubbish?
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/SATLINK-WS-6909-3-5-LCD-Digital-Satellite-Terrestrial-Finder-Meter-DVB-S-DVB-T-/260912993253?pt=UK_ConEle_SatCableFreeview_RL&hash=item3cbfa053e5

tommyh1977

I have the HDTM, it's fine for general installation but you wouldn't want to have to pull too specific info off it. As regards Satellite the Horizon Meter is fine too. I have the benefit of owning a Promax Prolink so if either the Horizons fail to do their job at least i have this to get me out of a hole. I tend to use the horizons as they are cheap and if they fall or anything I really don't care that much about them, however drop the Prolink:eek: Just remember any meter is only as good as the person using it, make sure whatever you buy you understand its functionality fully and know what you are searching for and when you should be searching for it!!

ISAA

tommyh1977 wrote: »

I have the HDTM, it's fine for general installation but you wouldn't want to have to pull too specific info off it. As regards Satellite the Horizon Meter is fine too. I have the benefit of owning a Promax Prolink so if either the Horizons fail to do their job at least i have this to get me out of a hole. I tend to use the horizons as they are cheap and if they fall or anything I really don't care that much about them, however drop the Prolink:eek: Just remember any meter is only as good as the person using it, make sure whatever you buy you understand its functionality fully and know what you are searching for and when you should be searching for it!!

+1

watty

You need
Spectrum on Satellite
Spectrum on Terrestrial (so you can see if any off channel signals might overload an amp or tuner)
DVB-S2 so you can properly see BER. DVB-S only meter is now too obsolete on Satellite except for hobby user.
DVB-T BER, but if you are North East, Louth, Cavan, South West etc, you need DVB-T2

I'm afraid €500 is touch and go for a budget.

When an installation is giving problems a Spectrum Analysis display is invaluable. It also shows potential problems.

While most meters will not go as low as Tetra or as high as GSM, you will see the cross modulation on output of Mast amp vs Input if you have the misfortune to need a high gain aerial pointing straight at a nearby mast with Tetra and/or Mobile (900MHZ) GSM. There are filtered mast amps and also additional filters.

Or indeed a leaky UPC trunk cable on the other side of the street is obvious on a Spectrum Analyser.

I have a bench model and it does 100kHz to 18GHz. Directly! The level of the GSM from a mast 900m away is 40dB more (off back of aerial!) than the signal of Woodcock hill about 13.5km away. Shows why some distribution amplifiers work and some apparently inexplicably don't!

Johnsat

500 is a bit tight for two good meters, i got the smart s10 sat meter a couple months ago tvsatstore has it on special for 299 for the next month! Im currently looking at the terrestrial meter they have which is the horizon thats also on special for 299 for the next month and i cant seem to find it cheaper any where else unless some1 can tell me where i can get it cheaper??