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DRAKE EXPECTATIONS
INTRO
Explore the skies with Drake's ESR-600
multi-everything satellite receiver-positioner
COPY
If you're looking for an inexpensive, simple
to use satellite receiver for Astra viewing, keep looking... That's just about
the last thing the Drake ESR600 has been designed to do. With a motorised dish
the ESR600 can sweep the Clarke Belt for the dozens of KU-band and C-band
satellites, add a second positioner and it will track moving satellites in
inclined orbits. This is satellite TV for grown-ups, with the time,
inclination, and the dish to explore the skies...
It might be easier to say what the ESR600
cannot do. For a start it won't endear you to your bank manager; on its own the
receiver costs a little over £800, a full system, including a 1.2 metre dish
will set you back in the region of
£1125. It's hopeless for watching things, like the BSKYB movie channels,
or UK Gold, because it has no on-board decoders, not even Panda/Wegner stereo
audio, though it does have a full set of socketry for external unscramblers.
Similarly MAC transmissions, or any digitally configured material will be
unintelligible but that leaves several hundred other transmissions which the
ESR600 will have no trouble with, whatsoever.
The ESR600's very extensive feature list is
headed by a 150-channel memory which stores all the usual audio and video
parameters for each channel, plus more exotic data, including antenna settings,
such as position (elevation and azimuth), tracking speed, signal levels and LNB
voltage. In addition it's possible to assign on-screen idents for both the
satellite and channel being received. All this is shown by an extensive
menu-driven on-screen display and control system which, incidentally, is one of the receivers few weak points.
There are two problems, the first is that it is unusually sluggish and
unresponsive and sometimes it takes two or more button presses to make it
respond to a command. Secondly, the menu operating system is entirely dependent
on the remote handset; loose it, damage it, or let the dog chew it and all
you'll be able to do is switch it on and off, and change channel.
Back to the features: the ESR600
can process 625-line PAL and SECAM, and 525-line NTSC video signals; it has a
full set of audio modes, including stereo, there's an IF loopthrough on the
back panel, enabling additional filters to be connected to the receiver's front
end; it can control both magnetic and pulse-driven polarisers; VCR recordings can be made using an on-board
4-event/14-day timer and the contents of the ESR600's memory can be transferred
to another receiver, to aid installation, or protect the data in the event of a
fault.
Installation shouldn't be a problem for
knowledgeable enthusiasts and the instructions contain plenty of useful
information for those who are keen to do the job themselves. The receiver's 150
channels are factory-programmed for
most of the main C and KU-band TV satellites visible across Europe, and it's a
simple enough job -- even for a newcomer -- to re-program or reassign channel
allocations. The back panel is populated with a full set of standard connectors
for LNB input, RF bypass, audio and video output, LNB switching and
actuator(s). In contrast the front panel is unusually sparse with only three buttons,
a 3-digit LED display and some LED to
show what's going on. It's certainly not going to win any beauty contests, the
design is typically American, dull and utilitarian, but inside, where it
matters the ESR600 does have what it takes.
Dual actuator operation is one of the
ESR600's more unusual talents. For this a second actuator is required, to
control both the elevation and azimuth of the dish. This has two advantages,
firstly it can be used to fine-tune alignment for geosynchronous satellites,
stationed along the Clarke belt, and secondly, it will allow the dish to follow
satellites on an inclined orbit, which move relative to a fixed position on the
ground, normally describing a figure of eight pattern in the sky. The ESR600
can be programmed to learn a particular orbit, or tracked manually, with
adjustments automatically timed to occur at intervals of between 10 and 60
minutes. Needless to say this kind of set-up requires more sophisticated dish
hardware, it will be of relatively little interest to most users, but it's good
to know you can do it, if you want to...
On-screen results are most impressive with
better than average sensitivity and noise threshold, producing a clean,
well-defined picture, under most conditions, but the wide range of adjustments means it can cope more easily with
extreme signal conditions, and it can
produce a watchable picture where lesser receivers will have given up
trying. The ESR600's only operational weakness is its audio system. At best it
is uninspiring and doesn't really do justice to stereo transmissions, though as
we suggested earlier, this receiver will be more at home picking the bones out
of an unscheduled news feed on an obscure C-band satellite, than trying to sort
out the Dolby Surround soundtrack on the Simpsons.
There are cheaper and simpler ways into
multi-satellite reception but if you're going to do the job properly then
you're going to need a receiver like the ESR600. It's virtually bomb-proof,
with the kind of facilities, and sufficient scope for expandability, that will
keep it ahead of the game for some time to come.
FACT FILE
Receiver: Drake ESR600e
System price: £810 (receiver), £1125 (receiver & 1.2m motorised dish
etc.)
Address:
Alston Barry international,
Units 4 and 5, Win-Born Building, Convent Drive, waterbeach, Cambridge CB5
9PB. Telephone(0223) 860965
VERDICT
Sound **
Picture *****
Ease of use ***
Features ***
Value for money ***
Efficient and versatile multi-satellite receiver, capable of excellent
on-screen results, let down only by unexciting audio facilities
Buying Satellite Rating: 95%
System: ESR-600e receiver with 1.2m motorised
dish . Features: 150 channels, multi-voltage supply, PAL/NTSC/SECAM compatible,
on-board positioner with dual actuator control, 4-event/14-day timer, IF
loopthrough, memory transfer, multi-lingual on-screen display, magnetic and
pulse-control LNB Audio: stereo,
variable sub-carrier tuning, programmable de-emphasis . Sockets: RF bypass, LNB
in, stereo audio out, baseband out, video out, SCART AV, SCART decoder, IF
loopthrough, positioner, LNB polarity . Dimensions 85(h) x 350 (w) x 348 (d)
mm
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(c) R.Maybury 1993 1406
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