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test report

TECHNOMATE TM-5500DAPCI

A FULLY MOTORISED RECEIVER FOR JUST OVER 200 WITH AUTOPOSITIONING AND AN ANALOGUE TUNER? IT CAN ONLY TECHNOMATES LATEST SATELLITE BARGAIN
This is a hefty dual-axis motor which Traditional 36V/5A motorised satellite can follow the older satellites which wansystems have become even more of a der up and down in their orbits to save niche than ever, thanks to the success fuel. Theyre not used for ordinary broadof simple and easy-to-use DiSEqC 1.2 motors. For cast TV, but for news feeds and other the past few years weve only seen new models programming links. Inclined orbit mounts from manufacturers like Echostar and are a rarity that enthusiasts normally put Manhattan, who want the prestige of a luxury together as a DIY project, so this could nd a satellite receiver in their ranges, even if its not small but eager market. Indeed, Technomates very protable. mount is something so unusual well be dedicatThere are things a DiSEqC motor cant do, use than the pre-production model shown here). ing a special test to it next month. such as drive a large dish at a respectable speed, The back panel (detailed below) is crammed The receiver itself is pleasantly bland with its and satellite newcomer Technomate is anxious with connections, although its surprising to see silver lifestyle nish, a central four-digit green for some of the prestige attached to having a what Technomate has had to leave out; theres motorised receiver in its range, especially when it LED display and six buttons for basic channel, no digital audio output and no S-video output. volume and menu control below. A drop-down has unique features. But the enthusiasts who use The receivers already more than 100 cheaper ap on the left-hand side conceals the twin comthis kind of motorised receiver are a demanding than its Echostar and Manhattan equivalents, so mon interface slots. Theres a blanked-off card bunch, and even a marque like Echostar has had its difcult to see why these features have been slot, and Technomate does supply units with an problems keeping them happy with its most left out of a top-tier model. integrated magic CAM for a 20 premium on the recent receivers and upgrades. 209 basic price. Technomate is a relatively new brand, but its The remote control is a slick design, easy to hungry for the kind of recognition a good SETTING UP motorised satellite receiver will draw. Weve been hold, and it offers several useful extra function Technomates menu system is a simple mix of buttons. You move around menus with a central impressed by the entry-level TM-5500D, which text and icons, broken down into Main, combines good performance and features with a control pad (the silver version overleaf is easier to Installation and User sections, and there are keen price. The TM-5500DAPCI is intended to offer motorised satellite BACK TO BACK enthusiasts all the features they expect Analogue tuner Analogue decoder TV Scart supports Composite 36V actuator controls, Digital at a price neither Echostar nor inputs, rated to for reed switch or Scart loopthrough, RGB and video tuner Manhattan can hope to beat. 400mA for DiSEqC optical sensor PAL or Mac composite video output input, 1.2 motors baseband support rated to As the letters suggest, the TM400mA for 5500DAPCI is a combined digital and DiSEqC 1.2 motors analogue receiver, with a built-in 36V positioner and a twin common interface. Its built on the basic chassis of the entry-level model, so its also got DiSEqC Magnetic polariser 1.2 motor control with USALS auto-locacontrols tion. However, theres also LNB loopthrough RS232 serial port Mechanical VCR Scart Stereo UHF modulator auto-positioning for traditional motors, output for PC link via null 12V switch polariser supports audio loopthrough, tunes and a unique system to drive a special modem cable output controls composite video outputs channels 21-69 Technomate inclined orbit mount.
Call up full details of the current channel and transponder
Set up satellite, LNB and switch details on one page
Signal strength and quality meters aid manual positioning
Or save the effort with auto-positioning
Set individual channels with hex or decimal PIDs
WHAT SATELLITE & DIGITAL TV January 2004

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the far eastern and western ends of your dishs movement range, plus a central satellite, and they do a bit of simple maths. Its generally accurefreshingly few sub-menus. Instead, the rate, and you can always ne-tune manually if a coloured function buttons on the remote are position is out, but nding a weak signal at the used to access different options, and the screen far end of your range can difcult with nothing is efciently divided up to display extra choices. Fixed LNB users can pick from a range of LNBs more than a signal strength and quality meter to help you. (universal, wideband, single band or C-band), all Technomate has gone the riskier but potenof which can be customised. LNBs can be tially more rewarding route of driving the dish selected through four-way DiSEqC 1.0, a 12V across the sky, looking for a peak in the signal switch or a 22kHz switch (if youre not using a quality on the transponder youve specied, then universal LNB). going slowly back and Theres a database of forth over the best spot 69 satellites, ranging LOW-COST DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE to ne-tune the signal. from 58W to 169E, plus MOTORISED RECEIVER, EASY TO USE There are pitfalls: you 12 blank spaces to add have to choose a unique new birds, although you AUTO-POSITIONING COULD BE MORE RELIABLE transponder, which isnt can only have 69 active always easy, and the syslocations at any time. It tem works best when youve manually found a is, however, pre-tuned with 3,500 channels, few positions already, so the receiver can narrow although they wont all be available and up-todown the area to search. date. It was most effective with transponders in the DiSEqC 1.2 users can nd the satellites indi12.6GHz region with high symbol rates so some vidually with a dumb DiSEqC 1.2 motor by satellites will have to be tuned manually. You can searching from east to west, or they select a delete positions you dont need, and if your dish USALS motor which will nd any location in its is pushed slightly off by wind, the Global Shift will range once its been aligned on Hot Bird and told allow you to re-align the arc easily. your longitude and latitude. A full range of The auto-search feature of the TM-500DAPCI DiSEqC commands is available, including moveis much more effective, fortunately. You can ment limits, large and small movement steps, instruct the receiver to search several satellites goto zero, reset and recalculate. consecutively, and it will do them in order of Motorised users also have access to an autoproximity to the start location. Its a quick search, positioning system. Most motorised receivers with auto-positioning calculate satellite positions and you can choose to exclude either free-to-air or scrambled channels. New transponders can be by asking you to manually nd the positions at

added and scanned through the advanced search option, and you can add individual channels using either decimal or hex PIDs. Theres memory for 5,000 channels, and the symbol rate range of 1000-45000 means youll get both single and multiple channel per carrier transponders. You can make the most of weak signals with either a mechanical (current controlled) polariser or a ferrite (magnetic) unit, which attach to spring-clips at the back of the receiver. Technomate claims to use a super-sensitive tuner, and we certainly found it capable of picking up some weak signals, generally failing when the signal quality fell to around 20 per cent. This

THE OPPOSITION

I Aston Xena 2000
Motorised with DiSEqC 1.2 and USALS, but no 36V positioner, has 4,000-channel memory across 49 channels, plus Viaccess and Conax CAMs and a twin common interface
I Echostar AD-3600IP Viaccess
An old favourite, with DiSEqC 1.2 USALS and a 36V positioner to navigate 5,700 channels on 100 satellites, plus a Viaccess CAM, but the complex Echonav menus are still controversial
I Manhattan Starlight 6800
Soon to be replaced by the Plaza range, the Starlight has 36V and DiSEqC 1.2 USALS motor control, an Irdeto CAM, and memory for 5,000 channels on 50 satellites
Pick RGB or composite Scart output
Just a single event timer at the present
Adjust colour, contrast and brightness
Movement limits can be set automatically
You can swap software and channels with another receiver

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TECHNOMATE IS A RELATIVELY NEW BRAND, BUT ITS HUNGRY FOR THE KIND OF RECOGNITION A GOOD MOTORISED SATELLITE RECEIVER WILL DRAW
isnt an absolute measurement of carrier-tonoise, but it feels like a sensitive tuner.

ANALOGUE TUNING

All the analogue channels youre likely to want are pre-programmed, but you may want to retune or delete channels as they gradually disappear (although Astra expects to be running analogue channels at 19.2E for 10 years or more). New analogue channels can be added on a menu which shows them in the background if tuned correctly. You can choose between video bandwidth of 18MHz or 27MHz, four levels of video gain, and 30 low threshold levels which go some way to clearing up the weaker signals. Analogue signals can come in from a second dish or LNB using the second input, and you can DETAILS plug a D2-Mac decoder Receiver: Technomate into the third Scart socket, TM-5500DAPCI which can supply either a Price: 209 baseband PAL or encoded No LNB inputs: 1 Mac output, should you digital, 2 analogue LNB loopthrough: yes want those few channels still broadcasting on 1W. DiSEqC: 1.2 USALS
No channels: 5,000 No satellites: 130
NAVIGATION & FEATURES
Channel navigation is a strength of the TM-5500 series in general. The channel list for each satellite can be fully edited, moving channels around, renaming them, and deleting them. There are eight favourites lists (movie, news, sports, music, children, drama, family and miscellaneous). You can choose to view channels by satellite, in alphabetical order, or sorted by free-to-air and scrambled, or into analogue and digital. You can

Common interface: Selectable FEC: yes Symbol rate range:
1000-45000 Teletext: integrated & VBI inserted EPG support: DVB

Polariser drive:

Pulse, voltage, current
Analogue audio de-emphasis: Analogue audio subcarrier range:
5.00-9.00MHz Timer: 1 event, 1 day
also choose to list just free-to-air channels or only the scrambled signals. Digital and analogue channels are treated identically in the channel lists, with only the letter D or A to show the difference. The onscreen channel list shows the currently selected channel in a thumbnail view, except for analogue channels, which are shown full-screen in the background. Theres support for a full sevenday EPG, with a now-and-next onscreen banner, so its surprising that there are no event timers to take advantage of the channels which do have an EPG. Theres a single sleep/wake up timer. Technomate plans to add multievent timers in a future software update. Channels can be individually locked with a PIN, and you can set the menus and banners to either fade out over a few seconds or come and go instantly. The menus can be set in a variety of colours, or even to cycle through the range of colours, which is pretty tacky and very distracting.

PERFORMANCE

Digital channels are clear and sharp through the TM-5500DAPCI, particularly in RGB, although some people will be disappointed that theres no S-video, even through the Scart. As ever, its the quality of the chan-
nel that determines your picture some look fantastic, others look like an internet video feed. You can ne-tune the contrast, brightness and colour levels, but you wont make gold from lead. Sound quality is much the same, and there are even music channels around which low bandwidth broadcasts render almost unlistenable. Still, a digital audio output is expected at this level, especially since theres one on the entry-level receiver. Analogue pictures are pretty good, and the low threshold is fairly good at reducing sparklies. Highquality pictures like the German channels on Astra 1 are sharp but slightly zzy, and contrast is generally good. Technomate has tried to capture a premium market with a budget product. A few unnecessary corners have been shaved off, and the auto-positioning isnt up to scratch. But the general performance and ease of use mean that if you want to nd out what the fuss is about motorised satellite, but you dont want the expense of an Echostar, the TM5500DAPCI has a lot going for it. Hopefully, the inclined orbit mount will make it a unique proposition for enthusiasts I
UHF modulator tuning: channel 21-69 Expansion bus: serial Software upgrade:
Technomates new silver remote is much easier to use and packed with useful feature buttons
Modem: none AV outputs: 3 Scarts,
stereo audio, composite video Supplier: Technomate, 328 Hoe Street, London E17 9PX. Tel: 2440.

Website:

www.technomate.com

Tune in analogue channels in a full-screen view
With threshold control to remove sparklies
Channels lists can be edited for easy navigation
The EPG supports seven-day programme listings