Zgemma H7s Guide

intro

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for that. Just moved from an Edison OSMega and that was becoming annoying trying to find it !

Tango One

What's the chances of the zgemma being more sensitive to a aerial gone dodgy? My ebay bought playtv tuner is a have break up issue too,while my sony tv seems OK with the same feed.

Any recommendations for a attic placed aerial on the off chance it has gone bad. I have been using this one.

https://www.satworld.ie/revez-t12-5g.html

greasepalm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121472477#Comment_121472477

Make sure if buying an aerial it is matched for your area.

Are you pointing aerial to right transmitter and nothing blocking your signal.

Did you download a driver for that usb device first.

Tango One

Thanks the aerial should be good for kippure. It had been working alright for a long time lying flat in my attic. Really strange the zgemma has horrible breakup on both muxes while the playtv only badly breaks up on one mux.

Drivers loaded all good

greasepalm

Are you on the correct transmitter location for your area as i had to go through my location is 3 rock.

What are your signal levels like on box i wonder.

Tango One

I'm in Maynooth Saorview site suggest kippure over 3 rock both look fairly close.

Just checked with a compass and think I'm pointing at 3 rock

Yup slightly off realigned and no break up

Alun

Kippure is a good bit higher than Three Rock though so from Maynooth you'd have line of sight whereas Three Rock would be about 300m lower and closer to South Dublin, it's intended audience.

Tango One

The second mux the box was tuned to was channel 23 Mount leinster I believe. Sort it all with a manual tune.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121475878#Comment_121475878

Im in Celbridge.

Ran into the same issue on my first Enigma box.

My Saorview Aerial was aligned for the strongest signal using an LED meter.

I consulted the Saorview map , it said kippure , I put in Kippure and got nothing.

However , previously I was running a Humax 1000s with a separate Triax box for Saorview.

I fired up the Triax box and tuned it , ( It Autotunes based on the strongest received Signal ) and it shows the frequencies in the channel information blurb.

So I noted the two frequencies being used across all the Saorview channels and looked them up on the table on the Saorview Site , and only two transmitters used those frequencies , Donegal and Dublin 3 Rock.

So Celbridge is definitely Three Rock and probably Maynooth too.

Apparently the signal from Three Rock is very strong and swamps any signal from Kippure in these parts.

I hiked the " Ticknock Hill" Ramble once with the dog. You climb up past Three Rock on the way , it is some installation , Im not surprised it swamps Kippure.

Alun

Kippure and Three Rock are pretty much the same distance from Celbridge, and have exactly the same power output at 125kW ERP, so I'm surprised you can't pick up both. Also Kippure is over 750m, and Three Rock 450m.

One possibility I can think of is that maybe you were scanning using an outdated XML file for the various transmitters and muxes, as Kippure changed back in 2020.

I live in Bray and can see Three Rock from my window, but I get an equally strong signal from both transmitters even with the "wrong" aerial (a band specific one for the old Kippure frequencies) pointing somewhere in between the two :)

SteM

Is this still a decent box to pick up or are there better alternatives available? I need a box to replace an old Tiviar with 2 Satellite and 1 Terrestrial tuner.

Gerry Wicklow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121525662#Comment_121525662

It still represents the best bang for buck IMO. It is noticeably faster than the Tiviar. Mine has been rock solid for some years now. Better boxes are available such as the Gigablue or VU+ but these are a good bit more expensive. In practice it's hard to justify the added expense.

Tango One

I recently bought a vu+ duo 4k se bt and so far I see little in the different to my zgemma h7s. It does handle an external tuner better than the zgemma. It seems a little faster and it does have an FBC tuner which is really what I wanted. If you can live with the 2 sat and 1 dvbt tuner the zgemma is great value.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121531549#Comment_121531549

So have I , VU+ DUO 4K SE , the main difference between it and my 2 zgemmas , an inside loading hard drive unit and a back slot drive unit , is that the VU+ box is still alive and not dead with swollen caps.

All I wanted was better build quality , and got it , and if you shop around , they are not that much more expensive than the Zgemma

Amazon.de do regular deals on these and gigablue boxes

Tango One

Yeah I got one from amazon.de warehouse for 270 but some fecker had switched the bluetooth remote for a different one.

Have you setup muiltple images on your vu+. I just have the one and believe you need to flash something to make other slots. I'm on openvix and can seem to flash Willo build either or I'm just doing something wrong. That a side note anyway.

My zgemma is going strong now about 3 years.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121532794#Comment_121532794

Never tried multiple images , its not something that interests me , just using standard openvix skin and picons , and its fine at that.

Ive had Tiviar Alpha Plus , Zgemma , and now this , and one thing I learned the hard way is you start messing with skins and builds and you break the install very quickly.

I did have the dish swapped out for a new one with Unicable LNB and 2 feeds , one direct to the VU+ which gives me 8 tuners , and the other split to other TVs around the house.

So , anything running kodi can use the enigma 2 plugin to get all the channels from the VU+ box and there is always a tuner free for them , and unicable can be split to any amount of other TVs if required , for example the cheapo Walker 43 inch smart TV in the kitchen.

No way was I wasting another 170 or so quid on a Zgemma , it was either going to be the Gigablue or the VU+ , got the VU+ on Amazon.de for a reasonable price.

Tango One

Willo build is amazing on the zgemma, it setups everything perfect. No issue ever with my zgemma from it. I just can't get it to work on the vu+ boxes yet.

I installed a unicable LNB from day one always seen it as sensibly choice.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121482093#Comment_121482093

Ive had a Tiviar , 2 Zgemmas , and a VU+ along with the autotune Triax box since 2013 , every single one of them tells me Three Rock works and Kippure does not for Celbridge ..... so I'll go with the weight of that evidence.

Iceman99

Hi All

I had recorded a bunch of films over Christmas 9n my H7 but when I look now all recordings are gone! Directory is completely empty. I have no idea how that happened. Anyone know of a way to get them back?

TIA

Iceman99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540604#Comment_121540604

OK so i ran a software update and all the channels were gone. So I went to my image backup and loaded my old 5.4 backup, i thought I had a more recent backup. Anyway how do I get it back to 6.4?

swoofer

You moved too fast. Sometimes recordings can disappear and a hard reboot ie button at rear can get them back. Now can you do a hard reboot and see if recordings appear.

Can you say what you mean by a " SOFTWARE UPDATE"

report back and will tell you the next bit.

Iceman99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121541135#Comment_121541135

Hello,

I did try the button at the back but the recordings were still missing, I tried to record something and it said it couldn't and said hd might be full.

Anyway, I have now reflashed back to 6.4. I dunno what happened to my recordings but at least I'm up and running again.

Thanks 😊

greasepalm

Was the storage device actually seen in Menu. Internal Hdd or Externally powered and external Hdd ?

Hoping it shows as ext4 as setup on box.

gabbo is coming

Hi, just bought this box, can someone recommend a known SDD for it please?

I've had trouble with amibo boxes and "device too slow to record" messages in the past

Iceman99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121542609#Comment_121542609

Yes it was there in the menu but the folders were empty.

swoofer

samsung, crucial are good, for 500gb look here

https://www.memoryc.com/storage/ssd/sata.html#Capacity[]=500GB&page=0

gabbo is coming

Thanks and usb Powered is enough? Doesn't need separate mains for hdd?

swoofer

If you look carefully there should be a slot at the rear where you PUSH the SSD into and thats best. If no slot you take off cover and connect SSD, cables are in situ.

I dont ever use USB HDD 's.

greasepalm

Agreed no to passport hdd and to use externally powered ones.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121543805#Comment_121543805

I wouldnt buy again of memory C , had a big order with them for 8TB hard drives to populate a server and the way they shipped them was a disgrace. There was long delays and when they did arrive Half the drives were DOA and the returns process was amateur at best.

They just chucked each drive in bubble wrap and shipped em in a cardboard box , for the record , seagate ironwolfs should arrive in their own individual box with foam protection. Clearly they were penny pinching on shipping and killed the product as a result.

Only bought from them because they are local , wont make that mistake again.

mem c 2.jpg