Lexium fast align7100

TEST REPORT Satellite Meter LEXIUM

Lexium • DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 compatible
• Fully programmable

FastAlign 7100
• AutoFind and QuickSweep
technologies
• USB Interface

Pro Digital
Satellite
TELE-satellite Magazine
Business Voucher
www.TELE-satellite.info/12/01/lexium-FastAlign7100
Direct Contact to Sales Manager

Meter

Professional
Te ch nolog y

110 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 111

TEST REPORT Satellite Meter LEXIUM

Lexium’s
New Satellite Meter
Powerhouse ■ TELE-satellite author Ron
Roessel using the FastAlign 7100
Pro Digital Satellite Meter to adjust
his BUD after hurricane Irene
passed through his location. The
FastAlign's features made this an
easy and fast task.

WS International is a com- Lexium product line has had Naturally, we were very in- each surrounded individu-
pany that was founded back quite a bit of success over the terested in finding out more ally by Styrofoam to provide
in April of 2001. They are a past several years and WS In- about this new meter. WS In- the ultimate protection. Even
global wholesale distributor ternational is always working ternational was kind enough the eight Ni-HM 2700 mAh
of FTA satellite receivers and to add new and better prod- to send us a sample so that rechargeable batteries are
related satellite equipment ucts to their product line. we could take a closer look at in their own Styrofoam com-
(LNBs, satellite meters, an- In keeping with that phi- the new FastAlign 7100 Pro partment. The package in-
tennas, motors, etc.). They losophy, WS International and find out exactly what it cludes the FastAlign 7100
have offices in Marietta, Geor- has recently introduced a has to offer. Pro signal meter as well as
gia (outside of Atlanta) and new digital satellite meter to The Lexium FastAlign 7100 a 16 VDC power supply, the
Pacoima, California (near Los their line of Lexium products. Pro comes packaged in a eight rechargeable batteries,
Angeles) and distribute their The new FastAlign 7100 Pro bright blue colored box. When a blue colored carrying case, 12-01/2012
products around the world. professional satellite meter you open the box it’s easy to a handy shoulder strap and LEXIUM FastAlign 7100 Pro
Excellent
WS International markets boasts the latest technology see that great care was taken a 34-page English language Dish Installation Tool
their satellite receivers and in the industry and is high- in protecting the signal meter user manual. 240V AC char-
satellite meters under their lighted by the new AutoFind in the package. The meter as gers in addition to spare AA
own Lexium brand name. The and QuickSweep features. well as the accessories are rechargeable batteries and


spare 110V AC chargers are find the 16 VDC input jack as meter for the first time. The “Charged Stop”. This is a very
available for purchase from well as a USB interface. meter weighs in at about 1 Lb interesting feature that let’s
WS International or their local Before doing anything else, 7 oz (645g) with the batter- you keep an eye on the prog-
distributor in Europe & Africa. the rechargeable batteries ies installed. When the power ress of a charging cycle.
The signal meter itself can need to be installed into the supply is plugged in to the Now that the meter is fully
easily be held in one hand and 7100 Pro signal meter. The signal meter, not only does charged, we can start putting
is 149x97x60mm in size. It battery compartment is lo- the status LED illuminate red, it through its paces. Turn-
comes in a black housing and cated on top of the meter but progress of the charge is ing the meter on is a simple
sports a 23x97mm LCD dis- and is accessed by opening also shown on the LCD dis- matter of holding down the F4
play on the front panel. A set the top cover. All eight re- play. There’s a timer to indi- function button for about two
of four blue-colored function chargeable batteries supplied cate how long the meter has seconds. The very first screen
buttons along with a single with the meter need to be in- been charging and there’s to appear asks you to decide
status LED can also be found stalled. The inside of the bat- also an indicator to show the whether or not you want the
on the front panel. There’s tery compartment is clearly voltage level of the batteries. backlight for the LCD display
also a small speaker on the marked to help prevent the When we plugged in the pow- turned on. Simply push the
left side of the front panel. On batteries from being installed er supply, the timer started at F1 button for “Day” (back-
the rear panel you’ll find the incorrectly. The manufac- 00:00 and the voltage level light off) or the F2 button for
LNB “F” input connector along turer recommends charging was at 10.5V. Although the “Night” (backlight on). If you
with a looped-through output the batteries for at least five manufacturer recommended don’t make a choice within ten
connector. There you’ll also hours before using the signal an initial charge time of five seconds, the meter automati-
hours, we let the signal me- cally turns itself off.
ter charge overnight. At the There are four menus built
end of the charging cycle, into the meter: Additional
the LED turned off and the Functions, Manual Search,
display showed the message Auto Search and Motor 1.2.
■ Keeping track of the charging cycle The left and right arrow but-
tons (F2 and F3) can be used
to move between the differ-
ent menus. The “OK” button

■ The satellite meter is fully
recharged, the LED turned off
and the display showed the
message “Charged Stop”.

114 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

(F1) is then used to select the meter. The FastAlign 7100 Pro the popular satellites in Eu- Editor menu inside the Addi- 1 entries with the American sat- exactly which way to turn the
desired menu that you want comes preloaded from the rope, Asia, Middle East and tional Functions menu. Once ellites that we needed. Since antenna to find the target sat-
to work with. factory with only 27 satellites Africa. you are in the Editor menu, we wanted to find GALAXY 17, ellite. There were no guessing
We decided to start with that include many of the more If the satellite you want to you can among other things we programmed this satellite games involved.
the Additional Functions popular American satellites as align your antenna to is not change the satellite name, as well as the two surrounding The Lexium meter’s Quick
menu. From this menu you well as a few Asian satellites. in the list, you simply need to edit transponder data, select 2 satellites GALAXY 28 at 89W Sweep technology allows the
can choose to edit the pa- However, soon regionalized edit one of the existing entries the correct LNB LOF frequen- and GALAXY 25 at 93W. meter to react to satellite sig-
rameters of the satellites lists will be available from the using the front panel function cy (OFF, Universal, 10750, Now that the Lexium meter nals very quickly. There is no
stored in the meter’s memory manufacturer’s website www. buttons to add the satellite 5150, 5750, 10600, 9750 and has the correct satellite infor- lag time from when the satel-
or modify the settings of the LEXIUM-DVB.com covering you need. This is done in the 11300), set up any necessary mation, it was time to realign lite signal reaches your dish
DiSEqC protocols (1.0 and 1.1 3 our C-band dish. We turned antenna to when it is displayed
can be set up here; there‘s the satellite meter on and on the meter. This allows you
a separate menu section for selected DAY mode since the to move your dish at a faster
setting up DiSEqC 1.2), enter sun was shining brightly out- rate across the satellite arc
in the orbital position of the side and we therefore didn’t without having to worry about
satellite as well as turn the 4 need any backlighting on the overshooting the target satel-
Auto Search feature on or off. LCD display. We then used to lite. The quick response of the
The USB port on the back of left/right arrow buttons (F2/ meter will prevent you from
the meter lets you link the me- F3) to find the Auto Search missing the satellite you want
ter with a laptop or a PC. This screen and pressed the OK to receive.
link will allow you to perform button (F1) to start the Auto But we weren’t finished. Our
1. While searching for GALAXY 17, the meter first found GALAXY
these editing functions on 28. We continued moving the antenna until… Search. The FastAlign 7100 test center also has a smaller
your laptop or PC with loader 2. …the meter locked onto the GALAXY 17 satellite at 89W Pro was now actively search- 90cm Ku-band antenna point-
software available from the 3. Confirmation that our 90cm antenna was still pointed to ing for satellite signals. ed to GALAXY 19 at 97W that
manufacturer at www.LEXI- GALAXY at 97W. The C-band dish was slow- fortunately wasn’t affected
4. The Lexium FastAlign 7100 Pro satellite meter helped us find
UM-DVB.com or www.wsidigi- GALAXY 3C in no time at all. ly rotated on its mast while by Hurricane Irene. Never-
tal.com. The software allows keeping an eye on the satel- theless, we wanted to “make
lite meter. It didn’t take long sure” that everything was still
the user to change and/or up- paces. The worst hit antenna for the meter to lock onto a OK with this antenna. First of
date all parameters including was our 3.0-meter C-band signal; the green “signal lock” all, we used the Lexium meter
DiSEqC port settings, LO fre- mesh dish. The strong winds LED on the front panel illumi- to confirm that this was the
quencies, transponder names, created such a great amount nated and it instantly identi- case. The green “signal lock”
and parameters. of torque that the entire an- fied the satellite as GALAXY LED popped on and the meter
The AutoFind technology tenna assembly spun around 28. Since we wanted to align showed that indeed our 90cm
that is built into the FastAlign on top of the mast. So much to GALAXY 17, we knew that antenna was still pointed to
7100 Pro satellite meter is an for the mounting bolts that we had to rotate the antenna GALAXY 19 and that Hurricane
automatic satellite recognition were supposed to keep the just a little more to the right Irene’s wrath did not bother it
technology that recognizes antenna in place. This seemed (west) in order to find GAL- at all. But we wanted to go a
the satellite that your antenna like a good place to start. AXY 17. And, sure enough, a step further and see how long
is pointing to and then dis- Once the dish was placed few seconds later the green it would take for us to find the
plays the name of that satel- back into a position that was “signal lock” LED on the front GALAXY 3C satellite at 95W.
lite on the meter’s LCD display close to what it was before panel illuminated once again Both satellites were already
from the preprogrammed list the storm, we connected the and the Lexium meter report- preprogrammed in the me-
of satellites stored in the me- Lexium FastAlign 7100 Pro to ed that we had found GALAXY ter so we had to do nothing
ter’s memory. Directly above the C-band LNB. The C-band 17. As mentioned before, the more than connect the meter
the name of the satellite is antenna was pointed to GAL- display shows not only the to the LNB and start mov-
also a signal quality bar graph AXY 17 at 91W before Irene satellite name but also a sig- ing the dish. The mounting
that can be used to fine tune greeted us so the goal was nal quality bar graph mak- screws were loosened on the
the antenna for best possible to realign the antenna to that ing it a snap to fine tune the antenna and the realignment
signal. satellite. But before we tried antenna. After adjusting the began. The dish was moved
The timing of this test re- to find GALAXY 17 with the antenna for the best possible slowly east and within just a
port couldn’t have been Lexium meter, we first had signal, all the mounting hard- few seconds the Lexium me-
any better. Hurricane Irene to program this satellite as ware was retightened and in ter chimed in letting us know
passed through our test cen- well as a few of the surround- just a few minutes our C-band we had found GALAXY 3C. It
ter here on Long Island, New ing satellites into the satellite antenna was back in service. really doesn’t get any easier
York just a few days ago. She meter since these were not The Lexium FastAlign 7100 than that.
brought with her quite a bit of preprogrammed in the meter. Pro satellite meter not only The Lexium meter’s user
wind that resulted in many of As mentioned before, some identified the correct satel- manual specifies that the me-
our dish antennas being blown of the preprogrammed satellite by name, it also told us if ter can be used for about four
out of alignment. This proved lites stored in memory were we were on a different satel- hours on fully charged batter-
to be the perfect opportunity Asian satellites so we decided lite by also identifying it by ies. In our tests we were able
to put the meter through its to reprogram some of these name. We therefore knew to use the 7100 Pro for the en-


tire duration of our tests with- In this way, you can continue satellite just as quickly as in satellites makes antenna in-
out having to recharge the to work and not have to worry Auto Search mode. And let’s stallations quick and painless;
batteries. Of course, if you about the meter dying in the not forget DiSEqC 1.2 mode. the installer will know exactly
plan on using the signal meter middle of an alignment. In this mode the meter can which way to move a dish if
to drive a DiSEqC 1.2 motor, Other niceties include a be used to drive any DiSEqC the meter names a satellite
you can expect the operation- user-settable timer that will 1.2 compatible antenna mo- other than the target satellite.
al time of your meter to be shut the meter off after a tor and will allow you to easily The FastAlign 7100 Pro
somewhat less because of the certain amount of inactivity. align a motor driven antenna. takes a lot of the guesswork
extra load created by an an- It’s a nice feature that helps Overall, we were quite out of satellite antenna instal-
tenna motor. Since these are save your batteries in case impressed by the capabili- lations. What more could you
AA rechargeable batteries, you should forget to turn the ties of the Lexium FastAlign ask for?
you can always carry around meter off after a job. The Lex- 7100 Pro satellite meter. It Customers interested in
a spare set of conventional ium meter can also be used in performed as advertised by this product can contact WS
AA batteries just in case the Manual Search mode. In this identifying satellites by name International via www.wsi-
rechargeable ones die and mode the meter will only iden- as the antenna was swept digital.com to request contact
there’s no opportunity to re- tify the selected satellite but across the satellite arc. This information for local distribu-
charge them in between jobs. it will lock onto the desired automatic identification of tors in their region.

Using the Lexium
FastAlign 7100 Pro in Europe
Thomas Haring

TRA 19.2° east or HOTBIRD
13.0° east, although there
are some less popular sat-
ellites in the list. These in-
clude HELLAS SAT at 39°
east, EXPRESS AM22 at 53°
east, BONUM1 at 56° east,
INTELSAT 904 at 60° east
as well as ABS1 at 75°.

1
Before we began to add
some other more standard
European satellite posi-
tions, we first wanted to
test the capabilities of the
FastAlign 7100 Pro with the
existing data.

The ABS1 satellite at 75°
east is fairly weak and more
difficult to receive in Europe
2 would be a good idea to and the FEC of 7/8 (seven of
send our test sample to the the eight data bits are infor-
TELE-satellite test center in mation bits with only one bit
Austria so that its function- an error correction bit) that
ality can also be checked nearly every transponder
1. The FastAlign 7100 Pro The way the Lexium out in Europe. has presents quite a chal-
mastered the reception of the
ABS satellite at 75° east; other FastAlign 7100 Pro is deliv- lenge. Quite a few other
signal analyzers were not up to ered from the factory, it’s The preprogrammed sat- signal analyzers “overlook”
the task.
clear that it’s focus is on ellite and transponder list this satellite during antenna
2. The analyzer also had no
trouble with the HELLASSAT bird North America. But since in the Lexium signal me- alignment since the tuner
at 39° east, one of the 27 satellite Lexium is planning to market ter does not include any more often than not can’t
positions preprogrammed in the
original version of the FastAlign this product in other regions of the popular DTH satel- read and process the weak-
7100 Pro. of the world, we thought it lites in Europe such as AS- er, error-prone signal fast


enough. Before you know it,
you’ve turned the antenna
past the ABS1 satellite at
75° east.

But that’s not the case
with the Lexium FastAlign
7100 Pro! We started slowly
turning our antenna from
60° east and after only a few
seconds the green LED on
the front panel of the Lexi-
um meter lit up announcing
that we had found the ABS1
bird at 75° east! The Lexium
also had no trouble locking
on to the EXPRESS AM22 at
53° east; it recognized this
satellite instantly and fully
automatically.

But we weren’t finished;
the meter now had to prove
itself on the popular DTH
satellites ASTRA 19.2°
east, HOTBIRD 13° east as
well as ASTRA2 28.2° east.
Since these satellites were
not preprogrammed into
the meter by the manufac-
turer (the European version
of the FastAlign 7100 Pro
would undoubtedly include
these satellites), we had
to manually program them
into the Lexium. This task
was actually accomplished
quickly and easily thanks an indispensable aid for Eu- We here in the TELE-sat- 7100 Pro and we can’t wait
to its simple and logical ropean users. We were now ellite test center in Austria to see the European version
operation; the four front- able to quickly align our actually enjoyed checking of this signal meter.
panel function buttons also multi-focus antenna pre- out the Lexium FastAlign
helped. cisely and effortlessly to the
ASTRA 19.2° east, ASTRA2
In just about two minutes 28.2° east and HOTBIRD
TECHNICAL
DATA
the Lexium meter became 13° east satellites. Distributor (North America) WS International, Atlanta, Georgia and
Los Angeles, California, USA
Home Page www.wsidigital.com or www.LEXIUM-DVB.com

Expert Opinion e-mail sales@wsidigital.com
Product FastAlign 7100 Pro Digital Satellite Meter
The Lexium FastAlign 7100 Pro satellite meter
Frequency Range 950 to 2150 MHz
is an excellent dish antenna installation tool.
It’s a handheld device that instantly identifies Signal Level -65dBm to -25dBm
the name of a satellite that the antenna is poin- DiSEqC Compatible yes, 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2

+ ting to and also displays a signal quality bar
graph for quick and easy antenna fine tuning
LNB Supply 13/18V, 500mA max
Ron Roessel LNB Switch Control 22 KHz
adjustments. It runs for hours on a single TELE-satellite
Test Center Demodulator QPSK
charge and can be used day or night thanks to USA
Signal Input “F” type with looped-through output
its backlit display.
USB Interface yes

It has room for only 27 preprogrammed satellites. If you want Power Source Eight 1.2VDC 2700mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries

– to enter a new satellite, you must edit an existing satellite
memory location. There’s also no car charger included in the
Battery Charger
Dimensions
120V/60Hz input; 16VDC/750mA output
149x97x60mm
package. Weight 0.645Kg (1 Lb 7 Oz)


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