Low Cost Satellite TV Systems Revisited
On the 3rd of December I reported on two sellers of extremely low cost satellite TV equipment for travellers marketing their systems via eBay Australia (you can read the full report here).
At the time of writing that report I had only seen photographs of the equipment offered. I have now been able to closely inspect the components and the level of service provided by the supplier.
The Good
The majority of the kit consists of good quality components. The Strong decoder is an excellent unit that has many advanced features including:
- Picture Pause and Zoom
- Games
- JPG photo slide show (from photos on a USB drive)
- MP3 player
The satellite finder and compass supplied are of average quality and both worked fine.
The tripod is one of the best that I have seen. It is sturdy, able to be pegged down and folds up easily.
The Bad
The dish supplied is a Strong 85cm – unfortunately it is quite thin and very easily damaged. Not a good option for a system that will be repeatedly disassembled and stored for travelling.
The Ugly
What is the worst thing you could do with all this good quality equipment? How about toss it into two large boxes with no packaging material, and ask Australia Post to deliver it to the purchaser. When the first carton arrived (for some reason the two cartons arrived a day apart) it was obvious that the lack of packaging had caused damage in transit. The tripod (constructed from steel) had moved within it’s carton and punched a large hole in the strong decoder box. This in turn had dented the metal case of the decoder by almost a centimetre. The second box containing the dish provided no protection to the lightweight material and a fist sized dent had been pressed into its form. Clearly there had been no effort at all put into packaging the components for shipping.
After some panel beating the dish looked slightly better and it was time to try setting up the system for the first time.
The first time the coax cable was attached to the receiver unit, the crimped-on end fell off. Closer inspection revealed that the wrong connectors had been used. These were all replaced and the set-up process continued.
We reached for the instruction sheet (just two A4 sheets) only to find that the instructions supplied instructed us on how to erect our new plasma TV bracket!
Fortunately I have setup satellite TV systems a number of times and know the procedure well. Within about 15 minutes we had a TV picture. To get this picture we needed to sort through the 478 channels that had been programmed into the decoder – 458 of these the decoder could never receive.
Conclusion
A wise person once said “The bitter taste of poor quality lasts well beyond the sweetness of a bargain”.
While the price was very good and the general quality of the equipment was quite reasonable, almost everything the supplier touched was rubbish! The packaging, the instructions and the cable ends were all totally unacceptable. I have no doubt that a first time user of satellite equipment receiving this package in the post would have no chance of ever assembling the kit and receiving satellite TV without a great deal of help form a very experienced person.
For the record the eBay ID of the supplier in this case was “telsatmelb” and their eBay store is called “TELSAT COMMUNICATION MELBOURNE”
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Tags: Electronics, Satellite, TV
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December 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
[...] Update – 20/12/2008 – I have now seen and setup the equipment purchased for a friend. You can read the conclusion here. [...]
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Thanks for giving us such feedback. We are the only Supplier in Australia who supply these portable carvan kit for such a lowest price.We have years of experience in the sat industry.We offer techinical support to all our customers.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:48 am
Telsat – No need for thanks – I suggest that you may want to get an english speaker to read the post before you thank me any more.