The latest in the arsenal of neat TVRO service tools from Jim Roberts, AKA Gourment Entertaining, is a little yellow box known as the Canary. The Canary, also known as a Spectrum Analy"zzz"er by Jim, or the Yellow Peril by the British press, is installed in the line anywhere between the receiver and the LNB. Typically, the technician will remove the Canary from his pocket, and hook it to the IF input at the back of the receiver or dish. A tone will be heard if the receiver is putting out voltage. Then the other lead is connected to the LNB and the tone will go up in pitch if the LNB is working. By this time, the customer's cat has probably left and the dog has stopped barking.
Now the technician knows that the receiver is working and that the LNB is good. The technician can either peak the dish or, by using the arc set tools, can tell when he is on the bird. From the receiver, the technician can determine if the dish is still on Arc.
The Canary makes finding the two new domestic birds that have come on line a snap. Telstar 402R is presently testing and putting out a carrier with no audio or video. Hughes has also just placed Brazilsat A1 into U.S. domestic service and has one transponder in service. The Canary is just the tool to use to find A1. The Canary doesn't care what channel the receiver is tuned to. It looks at everything from 500 mhz to 2500 mhz. This means that it will do C band, Ku band, S band and the new DBS band. If your LNB can see it, the Canary will sing. The Canary is also the tool to use for surfing the "Other Side of the Arc". Just put the Canary in line and it will sing every time your dish crosses a bird. With one or all channels lit, or just a blank carrier, the Canary will sing. It is especially useful in scouting out Ku birds where you may have ti fine-tune in order to find the signal.
The Canary can also be operated in quiet mode. Probes from a multimeter can be inserted into two sockets, and the signal can be measured in volts with tone or in amps which will mute the tone.
Some meters built to peak dishes seem to work well on C band, but are not sensitive enough to do Ku. Other meters that have a wide enough range to do both C and Ku are so sensitive that the smallest movement of the dish will either result in no reading, or in the pinning of the needle, which requires constant adjustment of the meter. This is not a problem with the Canary. C, Ku, DBS, or low output LNBs are all recognized by the Canary with a loud tone.
The Canary is made in Scotland by Resource Technology for Gourmet Entertaining. It is bright yellow which makes it easy to find. It fits easily into a shirt pocket, which is where I keep mine when it is not in use. The Canary is rugged, and has no dials or switches to break or fall off. The price: $99 and well worth it.
For more information, contact Jim Roberts at Gourmet Entertaining, phone (858)273-3666. Jim Roberts can be found on the Internet at http://www.gourmet-ent.com/ and his E-Mail address is robertsmania.jim@gmail.com