What's Inside a Winegard / Dish Playmaker Satellite Antenna?

Today we're opening up another portable satellite dish to see what's inside. In the past we've looked at a King Dome, VuQube, and some Dish Tailgater units. This one is a Winegard Playmaker, another entry into the field of "gadgets you bring to the sportsball game to watch sports while you watch sports".
Unfortunately I wasn't able to do much hacking with this dish, as it doesn't play nice with USB the way the Tailgater did. I also had no luck upgrading the firmware. The one bonus of this design vs the others is its use of standard stepper motors. It would be relatively easy to convert this to use a Raspberry Pi or other microcontroller for a custom antenna project.
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[@catalinalb1722]

Perhaps the usb stick needs a specific partition type.... FAT16 or so

[@lutomson3496]

this will still work with the dish wally reciever around $300 new, on my RV I have an in motion KVH antenna not selling it for a few bucks still works great

[@richards7909]

Check there’s only one partition on the usb drive. As others have said, it might be a size issue. You might be able to use a bigger usb drive but place a single small partition on. Another trick is to use an SD card reader with small capacity SD cards :)

[@devinsullivan6160]

I like the longer format video better. Glad for an update though

[@gardenfork]

I was wondering if the thumb drive needed to be formatted with an older format. Also as has been said, a smaller drive might be needed. 😀 Eric.

[@ericlotze7724]

0:50 They have some with *clear domes* and they are awesome looking.

[@bobboberson1928]

I don't have much interest in sat dishes, but I like to tinker with stuff, so your videos are interesting and entertaining, keep up the good work.

[@michaelladue5655]

Dude your awesome!

[@tekvax01]

isn't that screw just a torx bit? or does it have the raised bit in the middle, so you need a torx with a hole to get onto the screw hole? Lots of places sell those security bits now. including iFixit.

[@karlramberg]

Torx is used in all industry now

[@RT-qd8yl]

Yeah, that's just a regular Torx. Security Torx is very common for the power section of microwave ovens to keep consumers out. I've got a really nice chrome plated impact set that was given to me by an appliance manufacturer we do lots of work for.

[@James-cd8ih]

So if you look at the top right of the board under the barcode, there are some pogopoints with large holes around them that is a "Tag-Connect" port and is most likely a serial interface of some kind. Tag-Connect the company offers a list of common pinouts for that port. If they have gone as far as to use the connector, I don't see why they wouldn't also be using the standardized layout unless they were trying to intentionally obfuscate its use.

[@saveitforparts]

I did notice some pads for different connections, I'm not familiar with Tag-Connect though. I'm definitely still a noob when it comes to the more obscure flavors of interface, I can just about figure out a serial port (sometimes), but JTAG, UART etc are still mysteries to me.

[@gamersplaygroundliquidm3th526]

are u formating the drive to the correct fat/nfts file system and ,make sure the partition on the drive isnt to big

[@abrahaocampelo6139]

O Melhor do mundo!

[@mike97525]

😎😎thanks

[@gamersplaygroundliquidm3th526]

you should be able to get a coaxal power injector for the v8 meter/finder you're using even while in use im talking...

[@TilmanBaumann]

Typical reasons for USB drive issues: Larger than 4G No DOS partition and filesystem

[@jb2590]

I would love to get my hands on one of these at a decent price. seems people selling them are a bit crazy on the prices for some strange reason.

[@saveitforparts]

I keep an eye on my local Craigslist / Facebook Marketplace / etc and I only grab the ones that are $50 or less. I did end up with one busted one that way, but I think I can fix it!

[@mikerhodes9198]

Sometimes devices need to read off of small drives like no more thsn 20 megabytes. They stall on large drives. Just try getting one and try again.

[@screener545]

Make sure the usb is fat32. Likely the issue.

[@JTSobie]

So I've watched your satellite videos, and have been doing some thinking. I understand these dishes are waterproof, so they should be able to be in rugged outside conditions. Some units can be used as a 'radar' imaging device. With those two things combined, it should be possible to dig a hole and make a ground-penetrating radar? ;-D Also, I'll give you one of my old large-capacity USB flash drives. If a 256MB one isn't big enough, I could part with my 512MB one. As others have said, partition size and allocation table type might be the culprit in the firmware update issues.

[@saveitforparts]

I still want to do a ground penetrating radar, but I think we'd need lower frequencies to penetrate any solid materials. These higher microwave frequencies are easily blocked by trees or even heavy rain. Maybe I can come up with something that goes through sandstone if I learn more about this stuff! I actually traded away this particular dish... and then got another one by this manufacturer. I'll have to see what I can do with it!

[@ericlotze7724]

3:53 …sooooo Open Source Baby Satellite Tracker Pod?

[@thegodgen]

you sound like uxwbill lol reminds me of his videos subbed

[@patchvonbraun]

I wonder what the aiming precision of these things is? Probably not sufficient for a larger reflector, even if the mechanicals would work...

[@saveitforparts]

The Tailgaters I was playing with can do approximately 0.2 degrees of azimuth, but not super reliably. I've been playing with that a bit, and should have another video about it tomorrow!

[@patchvonbraun]

@@saveitforparts Those dishes are about 45cm give or take, which at 11.7GHz operating frequency means a 4Deg beamwidth. You generally want your pointing system to be better than beamwidth/10 (just a rule-of-thumb).

[@skylius]

@@saveitforparts I'm actually a DISH Network technician, these playmakers and tailgaters are insane for what they do all things said. However yeah they're not worth the buck new in my opinion, they're actually decently unreliable but I guess if you're in an RV it makes sense, sometimes people buy them because they don't want a dish mounted physically and it just causes more pain then a normal LNB and reflector on mast kinda thing

[@McRocket]

If you don't mind the question... what do you have written on your hands at 1:50 and 2:55? ☮

[@saveitforparts]

Looks like my shopping list(s), I tend to use the back of my hand as a notepad :-P

[@McRocket]

@@saveitforparts 😁 ☮

[@samsen3965]

Can you get internet and ISP through these dish recievers? If so how much is the subscription cost?

[@saveitforparts]

You could swap out some hardware and use them as Wifi antennas, but a regular rooftop dish would probably work better for that. They wouldn't work for satellite internet, no transmitter module.

[@GuyWithASolderingIron]

the usb drive was not recognizes maybe becose it was formated wrong but you traded it away so just so you know for the future that some devices are picky

[@DetroitMicroSound]

........CNC plasma table.....Too bad an ArcDroid wasn't hiding inside one of those pods. 😄

[@beautyofmandoori]

How much the price of this antenna and where I can order?

[@saveitforparts]

I just find them on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.

[@catalinalb1722]

Would buy one for the price you have it there, but here in Germany the price starts at 100€

[@Smytjf11]

I kinda really want a phased array radiotelescope for no other reason than I can and I don't currently have one

[@anfroo9660]

Satellites are more interesting then satellite dishes.

[@KO6BXL1]

first

[@mansoaptheif]

I don’t understand does this guy actually accomplish anything in his videos besides static and missing drivers that scrap every “project”

[@albertesquivel7620]

Nerd 😂