Track-Me Tv experiences

[Gammelvind]

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with Track-Me Tv, previously called Follow-Me Tv. Is it as effective as the promo material suggests?* We are looking for something that will give us good satelite pictures at while on the hook, not particularly interested while under way.
Does the water have to be completely calm for it to work or can it cope with some movement?
Any thoughts comment would be appreciated.

 

[FF]

The folks I know with the unit are pleased , tracks well on anchor in most conditions.

Onlt fellow thayt had a problem was a "racy" rag bagger , where the lack of a forefoot created a very nervous , dodgy boat at anchor.

A second anchor set , cured it .

They don't do well in ROLLY anchorages (behind The Saints), as elevation is not controlled., only azmuth.

 

[Tunaseazure]

We have one on my hatt, works very decent, not perfect as stated above. When it's really rolling it can and will lose the signal but if it's a reasonable day it works very well. It's nice to have tv when you wish. The only problem is once you leave your local area you lose the local feeds. You'll still get the national stuff, for us it's New York. There are suposed to be ways around this but I've never tried them. Bill

 

[botemon]

This is our 3^rd year with FMTV (24 / 7). I cant complain much. Works on the hook good, unless youre really swinging. About each 100-150 miles north or south you travel, you have to adjust the angle. Not a really big deal. I have had the thing apart a few times. There is a pin inside that holds the shaft to the servo motor shaft and it slid out a few times. Not to hard to take apart. The last time this happened, I put a SS hose clamp around the shaft to keep the pin place. Overall its pretty robust, at least in 30 -40 mph blows!
For a poor mans sat system it keeps pointing in the same direction and works as advertised.
Ken

 

[Keith]

I like mine a lot. Not only at anchor, but it's great when you're moving around. Get to a new marina, hit the "find" button, and it swings around and acquires again. Well worth the money, especially considering the cost of the other units.

 

[Gammelvind]

Thanks for the input guys, this may be just the ticket for our needs.

Cheers

 

[GonCruzn3]

I am getting ready to buy mine right now. Where did some of you*purchase your units?

Greg

 

[Keith]

They sell direct: http://www.track-it-tv.com/
Don't know if they sell through any distributors or not. Here are some installation tips.

I installed mine, then just called up DirecTV to come install the dish, etc. The Track-it TV unit MUST be level to operate properly. They send you a little level to use during installation. There are two wires coming from the unit, AND there will be two cables coming from the dish, so allow plenty of wire run diameter... I used 1" conduit where I could, and loom tubing to cover the exposed wires where I couldn't.

The two wires coming from the unit are your 12V power, and a six conductor phone cord. While you probably won't need to cut and splice the phone cord, you'll need one of those tools from Radio Shack or wherever if you decide to shorten that cord. Regular 12V wiring specs apply. You'll need a readily accessible switch to turn the power to the unit off and on. No need to have it powered up except when you're re-aligning the dish, at anchor or underway. Just sitting at a dock you don't want the power on to it, since it will sort of "hunt" just a bit... you don't want A. the power drain or B. the wear on the unit.

Once that's all installed and the satellite dish folks come out, make sure they put a splice on both of the cables a foot or so away from the dish. They can do it a lot better than you can (I bet) and have really high quality splices. That way, if you ever have to remove the dish, it's easy to disconnect the cables. Of course, at that point you'll have to cut the 12V and phone wires, and re-splice them later. That is, unless your installation has all that wire just easy to remove. Mine wasn't! As with any electrical connection, get up there and spray the splices with corrosion block. I also covered* mine with shrink tubing.

The hardware on the dish isn't exactly marine grade. You should probably spray it with something like Boeshield, CRC, or something sticky. Either that or even spray galvanizing. They will rust over time, and you know how dealing with rusty bolts is.

Oh yea, as with any consumer electronics on board, make sure you power it through some type of surge protector for the receiver unit.