What can I do without a satellite dish?

[jamesm14]

Hi all,

Sorry for the stupid question.

I was given a HUMAX FOXSAT-HDR by my grandparents as they've got a new one - I don't have a satellite dish on my house at uni so I was wondering if there was any point flashing it, and if there would be any use in taking it?

We already have a torrentbox running Transmission, Plex, Sonarr, Radarr etc through a VPN, but it's fairly unreliable. Is this something I could swap out with the Humax box?

I had a scan of the packages list on the wiki but couldn't see anything like that.

Cheers,
James

 

[Trev]

Sorry for the stupid question.

yes, that's the one. You did ask.

I was given a HUMAX FOXSAT-HDR by my grandparents as they've got a new one - I don't have a satellite dish on my house at uni so I was wondering if there was any point flashing it, and if there would be any use in taking it?

Not much use without a dish, and nothing will make it work on an aerial and the catchup (other than recording) etc. facilities are not very good anyway. Other than that, it's a pretty good sat box.

 

[jamesm14]

Aww that’s a shame.

Are the specs of the box known? As in the cpu architecture etc? Has anyone had any success putting something else on it other than modded firmware?

Cheers

 

[MartinLiddle]

Are the specs of the box known? As in the cpu architecture etc? Has anyone had any success putting something else on it other than modded firmware?

I would guess the CPU is MIPS architecture and will be a Broadcom SOC. The modded firmware adds features to the standard firmware in many cases using standard Linux packages such as SAMBA; hence if the source code is available and the memory/CPU requirements are not too onerous there are quite a lot of things that have or could be implemented.

 

[grahamlthompson]

Aww that’s a shame.

Are the specs of the box known? As in the cpu architecture etc? Has anyone had any success putting something else on it other than modded firmware?

Cheers

Like all such devices it uses a dedicated cpu so all it can really do is work as a satellite receiver. If you have a suitable low level location it's not that difficult to fit a dish yourself. Loads on e-bay for not much money.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-WAY-QU...353396?hash=item2393f7e9f4:g:6FEAAOSwa3BaHZuk

 

[jamesm14]

Like all such devices it uses a dedicated cpu so all it can really do is work as a satellite receiver. If you have a suitable low level location it's not that difficult to fit a dish yourself. Loads on e-bay for not much money.

Could a dish be put inside and pointed through a window? I've used the dishpointer website and my window points towards the Sky Satellite. My room is in the attic and although there's a sizeable gap between the wall and the roof, it's a 6 story house and I can't see my landlord being keen on me balancing something outside above the heads of people walking in and out the front door

Edit: As an aside (I had slightly forgotten to mention this) - this is Plymouth about half a mile from the sea front with nothing breaking the wind as it travels up the hill - outside is probably not an option if I don't get it properly installed which my landlord will never go for.

 

[grahamlthompson]

Could a dish be put inside and pointed through a window? I've used the dishpointer website and my window points towards the Sky Satellite. My room is in the attic and although there's a sizeable gap between the wall and the roof, it's a 6 story house and I can't see my landlord being keen on me balancing something outside above the heads of people walking in and out the front door

Edit: As an aside (I had slightly forgotten to mention this) - this is Plymouth about half a mile from the sea front with nothing breaking the wind as it travels up the hill - outside is probably not an option if I don't get it properly installed which my landlord will never go for.

You can mount a dish at ground level on say a paving slab provided you have a clear view to 28.2E and likely cover it with a plastic dustbin or put it in a polyglazed greenhouse. As to the window a lot depends on the glass, no chance with double glazing especially if it's modern low energy glass.

You can get tiny camping dishes that you can clamp to lot's of things. They also have a flat connector you can trap in a window opening and close the window.

https://www.reichelt.com/gb/en/?LAN...t0hD5DNz5MlR6nInrk0cc19cKoFv6N2BoC4lEQAvD_BwE

 

[Black Hole]

IIRC the Foxsat has even less raw "poke" than the HDR-FOX. Why anyone would think it might make a useful general compute device when the main facilities (satellite tuner, video decoder) are moribund escapes me. Use a Raspberry Pi - far more oomph.

 

[grahamlthompson]

Because most do not understand the differences between a cpu with a general instruction set designed to use in a PC backed up by lots of RAM and NVRAM , and the devices that use pre-programmed chips that make smart devices like Washing Machines, pvrs etc affordable to most of us.

Frankly in a forum, and not for the first time, you should at least try and explain this in terms that less technically aware members might understand. It's not clever, it just shows a basic lack of imagination in helping less technical members to at least get a idea of the issues involved.

There are two sorts of posters.

Those that think I know more than the poster and try and look clever.

Those that realise that the poster hasn't the basic knowledge and at least try to explain as simple as possible terms what are the restrictions associated with a specific device.

I leave it up to other readers which camp you fall in,

 

[Black Hole]

Can't I fall in both camps according to what mood I'm in? I think I've done an awful lot of explaining, and I'm not keen on explaining the same things multiple times. Regardless of this being a discussion forum, I think it is only polite to check out at least the pinned posts for basic info before diving in.