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+---- Thread: USALS (motorised satellite) system with Raspberry Pi (or equiv) and USB DVB-S2 tuner? (/showthread.php?tid=322214)
USALS (motorised satellite) system with Raspberry Pi (or equiv) and USB DVB-S2 tuner? - elsmandino - 2017-10-09
I am really interested in adding a motorised satellite dish to my setup, but I don't want to buy a big dedicated satellite receiver.
I am currently running TVHeadend on a headless Openmediavault server.
If I bought a USB DVB-S2 tuner, could either of the following work:
1. I install a second TVHeadend on a Raspberry Pi and connect it to the USB tuner - I then use that version of TVHeadend to make the tuner available to TVHeadend on my server.
2. I move TVHeadend from my server to Raspberry Pi and have TVHeadend access the tuner directly.
I assume that a major that is also going to come into play is the power required to acutally move the satellite motor - how is that going to work?
Any pointers would be much appreciated.
RE: USALS (motorised satellite) system with Raspberry Pi (or equiv) and USB DVB-S2 tuner? - Gary The Brown - 2017-10-11
Hi I have a motorised setup and can probably help you here.
The motor takes it's power directly from the signal cable this is if you are using one like in the image
if you are going bigger than 1.2m then the special motors will have their own power supply but do not support USALS or at least I have not seen any.
both of those scenarios would work but the 1st is a bit overkill if you have the space in your Openmediavault server just keep it all in 1 system and save a load of overkill.
for switching over the tvheadend server to a PI you'll need to consider the limitations of the hardware (Mainly the network and disk speeds) and compare them to the usage you have. If you already have a server with a free PCI(-e) or USB I would say keep tvheadend on there unless you have special requirements.
I would recommend buying a PCI or PCIe card over a usb dongle mainly because not all dongles support USALS. Make sure the card/dongle has support on the linux side as well will make for an easier time with install and system updates, some devices are in the kernel mainline and some require you to install drivers check this before buying and think if you want to have to install the drivers every time you have a kernel update. when buying your device make sure it says it supports USALS or DiSEqC 1.3 and double check it across a couple of sites just to make sure.
RE: USALS (motorised satellite) system with Raspberry Pi (or equiv) and USB DVB-S2 tuner? - elsmandino - 2017-10-11
Hello Gary,
Thank you very much for that response - massively helpful.
Great advice about trying to keep everything in one box if possible - I did wonder if I was starting to over-complicate things by trying to split everything up.
My main priority is stability - my other half tolerates my constant messing with our TV on the proviso that she can watch something, at any time, without my having to tinker with it first, just to get it working. This was one of the reason I first jumped ship from a Windows system.
I did recently buy a Digibit R1 but am wondering whether I should return this in favour of an internal card instead.
Ideally, for maximum flexibility, I want at least four tuners:
Three connected to a fixed satellite at 28.2e and one connected to a USALS motorised dish.
The only quad tuner I could find was the one from TBS but I have been told to avoid them with Linux (for the reasons you have mentioned).
Do you think that I am better off going with two dual tuners instead?
I was hoping that FCB tuners, https://www.electro-sat.nl/vu-fcb-tuner-dual-dvb-s-s2.html?___store=en&___from_store=default, would be available in PCI-e form in the near future but have not read anything to suggest that is anywhere near happening.