Televés multimetter fsm 500

[vma]

Hi,

Last week I scored, once again, a field meter on eBay: this time it is a Televés Multimetter FSM 500. It arrived today in mint condition.

In fact, after cleaning it, it looks like new. The bag will be washed and hopefully will look as new, too.

I understand there is a whole family of FSM models:
FSM 100 --> Only analogue picture and measurements and small screen
FSM 400 --> ?
FSM 450 --> Analogue picture, analogue and digital measurements, bigger screen
FSM 500 --> Analogue and Digital measurements and picture (MPEG2 on DVB-T/C/S - DAB as option), constellation only for DVB-C
FSM 650 --> Analogue and Digital measurements and picture (MPEG2 on DVB-T/C/S/S2/DA B, constellation for DVB-T/C/S/S2

There is actually very little information about the FSM series.

I have the latest firmware upgrade (V2.21), which I used to upgrade my meter, which came with V2.10. Initially I had trouble getting the RS232 connection running and even thought the port might be broken. Turned out that the RS232 does not work wile BER measurement is active.

The CONFIG menu has an INFO option, from which one can choose an option to enter a serial number to activate options. My device says it has Option 1 (DVB-C and some advanced options) and Option 2 (DA B, but the DAB menu is greyed out, so I am not sure if the device really has DAB.

Not that it makes any difference, as DAB has been completely replaced by DAB+.

So what are my opinions so far (after 2h test):

- Screen is small and has low resolution compared to newer devices
- Spectrum suffers a bit from the low screen resolution
- Spectrum refresh rate is a bit slow, but can be considered borderline "realtime spectrum" - much better than Kathrein MSK33
- Spectrum has adjustable RBW (Resolution BandWidth) - that is pretty cool, as well as configurable SPAN
- The FSM500 can demodulate FM radio, analogue TV and MPEG2 transponders for DVB-S/C/T
- DVB-T and DVB-C have AUTO Tuning - the parameters are determined automatically. This requires setting the respective parameters to AUTO, which I initially did not know and led me to curse on the lack of this function - it does exist after all. Not sure about DVB-S: did not test it, but now I have the device doing the "Battery Regeneration" program, which lasts 15 hours and should not be interrupted
- Constellation is only available for DVB-C, but supports up to QAM256. It is very usable - I like it.
- COFDM features Echo Measurement - nice
- Teletext is only available for analogue channels - not so nice, should have supported digital channels, too

Do I like it? Yes I do.

But here comes the usual consideration: for Satellite DX the number one field meter, in my modest opinion, is still the Emitor Satlook Digital NIT, Digital Color or Digital Color HD. They have the easiest GUI, the fastest spectrum refresh rate and one of the best AUTO TUNING (some call it blind scan).

Here is the updated list of my field meter colection: My current field meter collection

I have manuals and firmware files for most field meter ever made - if you need something, ask me!

Regards,
Vitor

PS: I am looking for any info, manual, firmware file, software tool for the Televés Multimetter series, especially the FSM 500.

 

[John]

Hi,

Last week I scored, once again, a field meter on eBay: this time it is a Televés Multimetter FSM 500. It arrived today in mint condition.

In fact, after cleaning it, it looks like new. The bag will be washed and hopefully will look as new, too.

I understand there is a whole family of FSM models:
FSM 100 --> Only analogue picture and measurements and small screen
FSM 400 --> ?
FSM 450 --> Analogue picture, analogue and digital measurements, bigger screen
FSM 500 --> Analogue and Digital measurements and picture (MPEG2 on DVB-T/C/S - DAB as option), constellation only for DVB-C
FSM 650 --> Analogue and Digital measurements and picture (MPEG2 on DVB-T/C/S/S2/DA B, constellation for DVB-T/C/S/S2

There is actually very little information about the FSM series.

I have the latest firmware upgrade (V2.21), which I used to upgrade my meter, which came with V2.10. Initially I had trouble getting the RS232 connection running and even thought the port might be broken. Turned out that the RS232 does not work wile BER measurement is active.

The CONFIG menu has an INFO option, from which one can choose an option to enter a serial number to activate options. My device says it has Option 1 (DVB-C and some advanced options) and Option 2 (DA B, but the DAB menu is greyed out, so I am not sure if the device really has DAB.

Not that it makes any difference, as DAB has been completely replaced by DAB+.

So what are my opinions so far (after 2h test):

- Screen is small and has low resolution compared to newer devices
- Spectrum suffers a bit from the low screen resolution
- Spectrum refresh rate is a bit slow, but can be considered borderline "realtime spectrum" - much better than Kathrein MSK33
- Spectrum has adjustable RBW (Resolution BandWidth) - that is pretty cool, as well as configurable SPAN
- The FSM500 can demodulate FM radio, analogue TV and MPEG2 transponders for DVB-S/C/T
- DVB-T and DVB-C have AUTO Tuning - the parameters are determined automatically. This requires setting the respective parameters to AUTO, which I initially did not know and led me to curse on the lack of this function - it does exist after all. Not sure about DVB-S: did not test it, but now I have the device doing the "Battery Regeneration" program, which lasts 15 hours and should not be interrupted
- Constellation is only available for DVB-C, but supports up to QAM256. It is very usable - I like it.
- COFDM features Echo Measurement - nice
- Teletext is only available for analogue channels - not so nice, should have supported digital channels, too

Do I like it? Yes I do.

But here comes the usual consideration: for Satellite DX the number one field meter, in my modest opinion, is still the Emitor Satlook Digital NIT, Digital Color or Digital Color HD. They have the easiest GUI, the fastest spectrum refresh rate and one of the best AUTO TUNING (some call it blind scan).

Here is the updated list of my field meter colection: My current field meter collection

I have manuals and firmware files for most field meter ever made - if you need something, ask me!

Regards,
Vitor

PS: I am looking for any info, manual, firmware file, software tool for the Televés Multimetter series, especially the FSM 500.

I like the collection Vitor ....
I have the FSM400 and also the FSM500 in my herd of sat meters as well as others. I can painfully remember the repair cost that i had from the UK Televes Service dept when the 500 had a major problem when doing a firmware upgrade using a USB to Serial adapter - - it didn't like it and sent the meter into 'dead' mode . I should have the manual / disc somewhere Vitor, i'll try and dig it out of all the other bits and bobs that's collected over the many years .

 

[a33]

I did some simple googling... Is this also relevant material?

Home | Televes

Default Description

www.preisner.de

Greetz,
A33

 

[vma]

Thanks! That's where I got FW V2.21 from, too.

Regards,
Vitor

 

[John]

Thanks! That's where I got FW V2.21 from, too.

Regards,
Vitor

Vitor, your forum message differs from my email notification message so i'm assuming you have edited. I used that FW file from the Televes site on my FSM-500 when it went into fault mode so i'm wondering because we both tried it and you also found it not to work that it might be corrupted ?.

 

[vma]

I edited my post 1 minute after writing it, but if you have email notification then you got the first message.

Sorry about that, I will explain:

I keep a rather huge archive of all files related to field meter I can find - including the field meter I still don't own!

So, when I got the FSM 500 I searched all files I could still get online. And I looked at my archive and found that I already had FW2.21.

Both updaters are different: the one I had is an executable that supposedly does the upgrade, while the one you linked (and which I had already found) is actually a setup for the updating application, which gets installed in C:\Program Files (X86)\...

First I tried the one I already had, since the dates inside the ZIP were newer. But this updater never found the FSM 500. It just gave an error after some time.

Then I tried the one from Preisner and this one, after installing it, has some instructions: one was that the meter might not be in BER mode!

So, to be honest I am not 100% sure if the first updater is broken or if I had the meter in BER mode (I probably had).

Also, in my original post, I mixed up both updaters - the one that gave me problems was the one I already had, no the one from the Preisner link.

Hope this makes it clear!

Regards,
Vitor

 

[John]

I edited my post 1 minute after writing it, but if you have email notification then you got the first message.

Sorry about that, I will explain:

I keep a rather huge archive of all files related to field meter I can find - including the field meter I still don't own!

So, when I got the FSM 500 I searched all files I could still get online. And I looked at my archive and found that I already had FW2.21.

Both updaters are different: the one I had is an executable that supposedly does the upgrade, while the one you linked (and which I had already found) is actually a setup for the updating application, which gets installed in C:\Program Files (X86)\...

First I tried the one I already had, since the dates inside the ZIP were newer. But this updater never found the FSM 500. It just gave an error after some time.

Then I tried the one from Preisner and this one, after installing it, has some instructions: one was that the meter might not be in BER mode!

So, to be honest I am not 100% sure if the first updater is broken or if I had the meter in BER mode (I probably had).

Also, in my original post, I mixed up both updaters - the one that gave me problems was the one I already had, no the one from the Preisner link.

Hope this makes it clear!

Regards,
Vitor

Thanks for that Vitor, mine has the latest FW as installed by Televes Service dept and i won't be touching it again.. it's mainly just an ornament at the moment but can't bare to part with it as it's a nice bit of kit but the Promax i now use is in a different league

 

[dinix]

Hi, sorry to dig up this thread.
I purchased an FSM650 recently, but right now there is not any firmware, software or manual online for this device, and this current version is 1.00
Can you help me?

 

[vma]

Hi.

I am sorry, but I only have FW2.21.90001 for the FSM500 and FW1.06.9/FW1.04.0 for the FSM450.

I do have the User Manual, though, which I attached.

Regrads,
Vitor