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hi everyone

jeff cote here with boatingtechtalk.com

so thanks for joining us today we're

going to be talking about satellite

tv and specifically we're going to be

talking about the intelian

i3 india 3. so

a lot of us not all not everyone but

certainly

some of us want to have tv on our boats

and if you're one of those folks

and voters that are looking to have tv

on your boat

one of the options that you have there's

basically two main

providers there's more but there's kvh

and intellion and today we're going to

be talking about italian

this is the i3 they've got the i2 the i3

and the i4

the bigger the number the bigger the

dish size in this instance this is a 37

centimeter dish inside i know the box

looks massive

inside the dome is going to be about

this big but there's going to be a lot

of crunch zones right this is an

expensive piece of equipment

and what we'll be talking about in this

box this

you still need a satellite tv provider

like for example dish or directv in

north america or in canada bell express

view to actually

be the provider of content this device

allows you to have a boat underway

and still be able to as your boat is

turning at an anchorage or going to

going to a marina or going to a

destination what you can have with this

is this will actually

keep facing the satellite on the horizon

in a home or in a cottage it's pretty

easy

you know the home is not moving the

satellites are where they are

but on a boat we don't know we're going

to be facing where's our boat heading

where are we anchored

doesn't matter we're swinging an anchor

well you need a device that is actually

keeping pointing at the satellites

generally here in canada where we are in

vancouver

they're about 30 degrees over the

horizon

the elevated angle so it's not they're

not directly above us but of course as

we go more and more

south you know that angle of elevation

goes

like this like this like this remember

the satellites are not directly overhead

they could be

of course you could be one of those

people that have a side directly

overhead

but in most cases we're actually on

especially where we are at 49 degrees

the angle is about this so about 30

degrees

and it's worth noting because here in

british columbia

washington state or even alaska

we have some pretty serious geography

where

the mountains and there are fjords there

are some pretty big mountains in around

where we're boating

it's not uncommon to have mountains that

are a thousand meters

even 2 000 meters in around anchorages

so there's certain places where you

cannot have satellite tv

it's just not possible your the mountain

is literally blocking the satellite

but whenever a satellite is available

and you have the ability of seeing it

over the horizon and again around where

we are about 30 degrees

this is a good solution the further

north you go

is probably going to be deciding which

antenna you're going to focus on

this antenna is good to about where we

are to the north end of vancouver island

if you're going to go

further than that you're again further

away from the satellite

and because of the angle of elevation

especially if there's a lot of

precipitation which there is a lot of

precipitation where we are in

british columbia alaska and even parts

of washington

then a bigger dish might make sense but

in this case an i3 is probably a really

popular choice

for boaters i would say anywhere from 10

meters

to even 20 meters this is a choice

so 10 to 20 meters a lot of people are

going to be choosing so that's maybe

about 30 to 60 feet

now of course you could have a 45 foot

and have a bigger one i'm not saying

it's not

size of your boat that decides the dish

it's really more based on cruising

and can you accommodate a dish of this

size

also worth noting satellite tv is not

satellite communications

they're two separate things so that's

why you'll see a lot of boats sometimes

that actually have two dishes

one on port one on starboard and that's

actually one is satcom the other one is

sat tv

also worth noting it's possible to buy

these domes as

dummy domes and quite often for reasons

of symmetry to make sure the boat looks

symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing

we'll have maybe this

dish on one side of an arch and on the

other side we'll actually have a dummy

dome there's nothing inside

and what we put inside or maybe gps

antennas maybe even a cell booster

antenna

maybe a wi-fi antenna and we'll simply

use a dummy dome

for symmetry so that when you look at

the boat from the front or from the back

it looks perfectly symmetrical

which is good and we'll put other

antennas into that dome and it cleans

the arch

so it's possible to actually have both

satcom and satv

or just simply sat tv and a blank or

dummy

dish that you can put other antennas in

okay

again i mentioned earlier this works

with directv

dish and bell what's really we'll talk

also about the minbox this device what's

interesting about it is it actually does

both

standard definition and high definitions

for

dish and for bell for direct tv

um it's only sd okay so

something to consider of course

intellion allows

hd coming from directv but you've got a

different dish for that so this dish

does only actually sd

or standard definition with directv okay

with that what we're going to do is

we're going to magically have this box

open it's just simply too big for us to

actually try to do it on camera

so i'm going to get started and we're

going to have this box just

open magically for all of us we're back

okay magic alright so

this is the italian i3 unboxed

by the way the crunch zone and the

amount of cardboard or not cardboard but

styrofoam

that was protecting this i mean you saw

it before this box is

you know huge this is the italian i3

so i'm going to move it a little bit off

to the side it's

not light by the way and also this is a

tidbit

i'm not going to be opening it right now

because i'm scared of making this dome

scratching i don't have a

beautiful towel but inside of here when

you actually and this is

a big piece of information

there is actually styrofoam inside of

this so when they ship this box

there's actually you have to remove the

styrofoam inside

so to make sure that the antenna itself

remember this antenna inside that's

about 37 centimeters

in aperture or diameter that antenna

inside is actually protected with

styrofoam so you actually have to and

i'll just move it

you can you can see there's a little bit

fasteners everywhere that you have to

undo so you would do this over like what

we'll do is we'll put this on top of a

cushion uh we'll do this on top of a

towel cushions are great because

got a little bit of they give we'll turn

it around make sure we

we always want to keep this perfectly

clean and scratch free

and the reason for doing so is because

it's outside and

anything outside that is perfectly

smooth is going gonna more likely stay

clean

anything that's got scratches is gonna

have

give a chance to dirt and bird poop

to kind of uh stick to it so you don't

want that so

make sure that dome is perfectly

perfectly

smooth as it looks like probably shiny

on the video right now

so what i'm going to show you is when

you open that box you're actually

you're going to see your ex actually

comes with two cablings and the cablings

are right here

all of that and even a third one um

when you're actually connecting this

dish

and you want to have both hd and

sd content you're going to actually need

another product that is sold separately

which is

i'm going to introduce and i'll have a

different video but i just wanted to

talk about it this is called the

membox from italian this box does not

come with this package it's a separate

product but i want to make sure that i

talk about it

in this video because it's essential if

you actually want the ability to

see both sd and hd content

so here's a little shot from directly

above

and you can see the different type of

connection points the rf

output the rf input the auxiliaries

the system selector and then you have

all these different so i'm going to give

you a little shot from the side

here power nmea rs-232 is right here

again rf inputs are over here

some indicator lights

and again some rf outputs over here

and then lastly this is again from the

other side so you can see

it's not too big and this is the italian

mimbox

so this is something separate you can

buy it it's not included because not

everybody

wants sd or hd content so if you want to

actually be able to switch satellites

this is what allows you to switch

satellites effortlessly okay so this is

the

min box from intellium now when you're

buying the i3 you'll notice of course

we've got the manual

we've got the cabling but this is also

well protected and

this is what's called the antenna

control unit

acu and this is what you would see from

the front so

maybe up on top of the satellite

receiver that you would have on your

boat you would have this device

it's not too big right so a set-top box

is probably over double the size of that

so it'd be something

on top of the set-top box from one of

your providers

and you'll see the different connections

again power ethernet

nmea you've got a little fuse pc

interface

and the receiver and the antenna right

here so

this is absolutely essential you need

this box and this box needs to be

powered and working to actually that's

what's the brain that's controlling this

dish right here

i have was talking to um

someone about this and they were

suggesting that sometimes when you're

buying in

a satellite tv like this you might want

to not have

everything visible right you want to

have a clean look on your boat so

remember what's really possible is to

actually have this dish

and get a set top box from your

satellite provider either dish directv

or bell and make sure it's rf so that

you can hide all this stuff and it's a

way so you can actually control your

dish

and once everything is set up the only

thing you need to actually interface

your tv

is turn on your tv and also easily just

change channels and all of this is going

to happen in the background

okay some installation tips on this

system right here

you're going to want to make sure that

it's not in parallel

with a radar so you don't want to have a

radar be at the same

level of this so you want to have this

above or below ideally

above is better because remember the

satellites are not directly above us

they're actually depending on where you

are at latitude

they're actually maybe at this angle of

inclination right

so you don't want to have a radar that's

right here and then this is shooting

through and

coincidentally you're trying to shoot

and the satellite's over the horizon

and you're losing signal i've been

called to service calls i remember when

i was actually on the road

in my little truck at the beginning i

had boaters that

were depending on which orientation they

were docked at the dock because their

radar was slightly above it

they would actually get blockage and

they would actually have to turn about

180 around so that the

satellite dish what had an unobstructed

view

of the satellites the other thing too we

talked about earlier some people are

actually worried about you know okay i

have a radar in the center but i

want to have this to port or starboard

but it's going to look funny if i don't

have something else on the other side

you can buy this dome as a dummy dome

and you could literally

install mushrooms sort of gps antennas

in here we've done that we've

installed cell booster antennas in here

even wi-fi antennas in here

you could do whatever you want it's

basically a blank space and it's out of

the elements and it could make a radar

arch look a lot better

the other thing too is when you're ever

routing

these cables throughout the boat and

this is the power cable

but when you're routing these coaxial

cable throughout the boat

especially from here to here you

definitely don't want to kink these

cables so

handle with care and under no

circumstances

and it's possible especially as you

uncoil it you never want that loop

sometimes it can get a really tight loop

and if you get close you're going to

actually really damage the cable and

it's going to have to be rerun

even if you're also installing and only

care about

you know sd and you don't care about

actually having both sd and hd

one thing to think or remember is maybe

it's a good idea to run two cables even

if you're only planning to use one we do

the same thing for ip cameras

when we're doing runs on boats or and

i've seen cameras

everywhere i often will run two cables

not because i need

to but because if one ever goes bad the

other cable is just there as a spare

something that i commonly say is one of

the rarest thing that we have in life

besides money is time and

time is valuable so if you're going to

do something and it's gonna take you

maybe six hours eight hours

ten hours depending on the size of your

boat to run a cable from

somewhere to where your tv and where

your acu is

well might as well run two cables or run

a spare so even if you're gonna do two

maybe do three

so that's something to think about this

is also remember this is actually

powered

not by 120 but by actually dc so you

don't need an inverter now your tv is

probably going to need

most of us have ac powered tvs and so

we're going to need an inverter to power

that but you don't need to the other

thing too that's interesting about this

device

is that also when you're an anchor and

you're steady you're not moving

intellion has this feature that allows

you to

actually not have the dish constantly

turning right you can hear it if you've

got good earring you can actually hear

that dish

constantly tracking and so they've got a

feature to limit tracking when you're in

a location where the dish doesn't have

to work so hard

and that's good because it means that

the boat is especially if you've got not

a huge boat

and you can hear the sound it makes the

dish quieter

which is good yeah so again this is only

for satellite television this is not for

satcom

the both dishes look the same but

they're different i'm going to check my

notes here i want to see

also yeah really good one too is that

there's wireless connectivity actually

it's got built-in wi-fi that enables

this acu

to be connected to pcs and laptops

actually do

certain things to it which is actually a

good feature in the past we'd have to

actually go on serial ports

and that made it a lot harder so that's

a good one the other thing too and i

mentioned this multiple times i've said

nmea and you're probably thinking nmea

isn't that like

navigation stuff nmea stands for

national marine

electronics association and there's a

protocol called 0183 and if you connect

a heading sensor to this box

they actually know where your boat is

pointing and if they know where your

boat is pointing

that's going to help the dish know make

sense of its orientation so it does

it can help to actually bringing heading

information

into this box the mobile app called

aptus aptus

by the way pronunciation for me is not

great so if you want to laugh feel free

mom dad brother do it all the time i'm

used to it

pronunciation is definitely not one of

my skills and like i said the other

thing too is that they have this

exclusive sort of wide range

search wrs whiskey romeo

sierra it's an algorithm that allows you

to find the satellites a lot quicker

which is good because when you start

your dish and maybe you haven't started

for a while you didn't have it

awoke the whole time on your trip and

you're now suddenly a new place it's got

to find itself where am i

where's the satellite so this is going

to allow you to do that the other thing

too is that

with this mim box which does not come

with this package disclaimer

you can actually have multiple tvs on

your boat

accessing the signal from this satellite

which makes

some boats actually have a tv in a salon

and maybe one

in a cabin or we have boats they've got

two a tv per cabin two cabins

and then or maybe even one on the fly

bridge right and they maybe have a

little salon there too

so again you can have multiple tvs that

can interface with this

mimbox that's about it i want to say

when you're going to be installing this

give yourself time

everyone says that everything is easy

and then we all feel dumb for not doing

it quickly

the reality is nothing's easy on a boat

it just isn't

give yourself the time you know

manufacturers are all going to say it's

simple they want it to be simple

don't be hard on yourself if it takes

you longer than you think it should have

it always does and make sure that when

you start this project

you give yourself ample time ample time

to do it properly because if you rush

through this to get it done

generally you might get really

frustrated the other thing too that i

want to talk about

these dishes can actually also be

mounted on mounts

there's different manufacturers

including sea view

that is out of washington state that

allow to sort of maybe

elevate this above a radar or below

so you have these sort of like little

pedestal columns or mounts

and the other thing too is you can again

see on sea view some of them will

actually have

this be above the radar the radar so

they're literally having everything in

line

with the boat and we do that commonly

and so you're going to have sat

tv radar and so we're making sure that

they're both not in line of one another

you don't want to have a radar shooting

its beam directly into this because it

could actually damage it

so if you've got further questions on

this italian i3

please feel free to reach out post your

comments down

on the youtube below further questions

or you're curious we also have

this product on our website and we have

a whole category just on

sat tv and i want to thank everyone for

spending some time with me and

discovering this intelligent i3 so

thanks for watching

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