Gekko Test and Review

[el bandido]

We need to be critical so we will know all of the receiver's weaknesses, but things like how long the motor moving message stays on, and how sensitive the signal bars are supposed to be are personal preferences. You have to make a distinction between preferences and things that do not work correctly.
The signal bars on the Raptor could use some work. Sometimes they take forever to come on, but they do show up eventually, and I have adjusted my dish more than once by listening to the beeps and not looking at any signal bar.

I had a list of things that did not work correctly with the Raptor. Several things that I thought were broken or did not work correctly were written down to be posted. Most of the items on the list were never posted because the things actually worked correctly after I understood them, or I was making mistakes and the things worked when my mistakes were corrected.

These receivers are not designed to need an almost continuous rebooting as you have mentioned. Rebooting or having to reboot to restore normal operations are the signs of an error.
True, these receivers will have an occasional freeze up that requires a reboot but it should not be often under normal conditions.

Eisha's TS fixit addon seems to solve some of the problems that were mentioned earlier about the recorded TS files not being able to be transferred from from the Optibox to another receiver. my Pansat 9500 has been able to play TS files that were made on the Optibox aftern the fixit addon has been ran, but no such luck getting them to play on the Openbox S12. Have you had any luck getting files to play after using the TS fixit? If you had luck with the Openbox, what firmware file is installed on it?

[Jim S.]

I haven't tried playing .ts files on the Openbox yet. I might try it out tonight.

Now as to the rebooting all the time: I don't see any way to avoid it, if you want to do blind scans. I'm not the only one with the problem either, I've seen it mentioned as happening on the Anaconda. And it's not user error, I know I'm not mis-keying the frequency limits. I don't know why there aren't more reports of it. Maybe if you don't even try limiting the scans, it doesn't ever happen? I think I'll try that idea out tonight too. I've switched my universal LNB to a standard temporarily for testing, in hopes that it won't start so far below 11700 if it sees that the LOF is 10750 instead of 10600.

[el bandido]

What satellite file are you using?

[Jim S.]

FDU_1B, downloaded from here. I saw there was another one uploaded to one of the other areas recently, I'll try that one.

Not touching the limits didn't work. I scanned 93W Ku, it found the usual feeds. Then I went to 91, and it flew through it instantly finding nothing.

[el bandido]

Have you done a factory default?
Do a factory default and use the satellites that are in it. You should have 61 satellites after you do a factory default.

[SatelliteGuy]

I haven't tried playing .ts files on the Openbox yet. I might try it out tonight.

Now as to the rebooting all the time: I don't see any way to avoid it, if you want to do blind scans. I'm not the only one with the problem either, I've seen it mentioned as happening on the Anaconda. And it's not user error, I know I'm not mis-keying the frequency limits. I don't know why there aren't more reports of it. Maybe if you don't even try limiting the scans, it doesn't ever happen? I think I'll try that idea out tonight too. I've switched my universal LNB to a standard temporarily for testing, in hopes that it won't start so far below 11700 if it sees that the LOF is 10750 instead of 10600.

I agree with you on this as I too am experiencing exactly the same problem. With almost every blind scan I must reboot the receiver.

[SatelliteGuy]

I like the picture-in-graphics menu, the multi-channel picture menu, I like that it doesn't overwrite edited channel names when I scan, the tuner sensitivity seems fine, network access is a nice feature. If it seems like I'm being overly critical sometimes, it's because I don't understand why some things made it to release time without being caught. Hopefully some of it will be fixed with future software releases. The box certainly has lots of potential.

Again, I feel exactly the same way about the Anaconda. A great receiver, but has some problems such as the blind scan.

[el bandido]

I agree with you on this as I too am experiencing exactly the same problem. With almost every blind scan I must reboot the receiver.

What does the receiver do at the end of the blindscan that causes the need for a reboot?

[SatelliteGuy]

It flys through horizontal and then hangs at 81.2% vertical. I'll try to get screenshots of when exactly this happens over the weekend when I have more time.

[el bandido]

Ok. Then it takes a reboot to get out of that. Thanks for the info.