FTA receivers, who uses them??

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haven't had cable in ten years. I use a dish you buy for an RV. get a few HD channels, and about 10 other channels. Paid $149. at the time, I'm sure it's cheaper now.
Comes with a remote, to programe the rotaiting receiver.
I'm sure you guys are talking about something I'n not using, but thought it could offer a different option. oh and it's completly legal.
 
2darts said:
haven't had cable in ten years. I use a dish you buy for an RV. get a few HD channels, and about 10 other channels. Paid $149. at the time, I'm sure it's cheaper now.
Comes with a remote, to programe the rotaiting receiver.
I'm sure you guys are talking about something I'n not using, but thought it could offer a different option. oh and it's completly legal.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about DirectTV or Dish network which both require a monthly subscription?
 
Before you get into this, check out lyngsat.com for available ku band birds and programming, make sure you are looking at unencrypted ku band. 99% of the fta channels stream now and links are on this site although they look streamed, ie. Low frame rate and low def. You can pick up a Roku streaming device for you tv off your 3Mb /sec or better internet connectionfor $50

Ok, Here is my story in a nutshell, bought a fta receiver at goodwill, 13 bucks. Buy a lensatic compass! I didnt have one and relied on satfinder.com for visual line of site, close but no cigar. Spent another 9 on its remote, and another 6 on a sat finder. Then bought a 6 buck LNB as i was convinced mine was shot. Then another 30 on a bigger 70 cm offset dish. Couldnt aim the dish so the Q was more than 0 although the signal was 99 (?) So i borrowed a buddies birdog sat finder. It tells you what sat you find by name unlike the geiger counter meter. So i identify 1 (91w G17 i believe) and determine which headings are listed and calibrate my headings and elevation on the mount. I reprogram the birdog to find G19 ( the big gun of FTA @ 97w) and align it. still no Q until i force a blind scan on it, then it lit up with 178 channels! Id say 30 are english speaking, 80 are islamic, and the rest are just foreign. And all of 2 are worth watching! Unless you are a Jesus freak ( nothin wrong with that) you will be disappointed in G19. If you can get a motorized mount, then you open yourself to about 40 other satellites and 1000 more channels but the old saying is "if the station is good enough, it wont be free (to air)" still kinda fun to dabble in your own sat downlink.

And you do need a FTA receiver to IKS, as well as a circular polorized LNB (generic triple LNB dish pro 500 is good one) and an internet connection as well as a wizhub (serial to ethernet adapter) or an ethernet capable receiver. You cant hack a commercial DBS receiver anymore. My Sonicview premier was ordered destroyed (existing inventory) by a court order! Seems it had bits of proprietary Dishnet code embedded in its firmware designed to circumnavigate the Dishnet encryption. Oops! If you can find ION free to air on ku band, then you can watch He-Man re-runs on its Qubo channel! By the power of greyskull!
 
Welll got the dish in sat, and built a "sidearm" on the tower and mounted it.

Got the rx today. Bought a little port. TV to do tuneup and hauled it all up to the roof, where it turns out the portable DOES NOT WORK

So BACK to the thrifts store, LOL, and traded that out for a DIFFERENT portable.

THEN I get THAT on the roof and find out I simply cannot deal with the menu in the receiver

......on such a small screen

.....in the bright light

.....that I'm not used to using and have to clue.

So.......I hauled the ENTIRE mess down below, including the dish, and will erect a temp setup in the back yard until I can get the new rx menu figgggggeeeerrrreeedd out

"Can you hear me now?"

The GOOD news is I have an inline "sat finder" and while I was up there, got several returns from different birds, so at least the LNB is responsive.
 
You are on your way. Using the http://www.dishpointer.com/ online, I found the line of site they give you is dead on to your actual bearing. I had a 12 degree declination on the west coast (yours may not be much less) and tried to factor that into their line of site they gave me. I was WAY off. I recommend lining it right up to their recomendation (they already factor the declination in) . I also recommend you bring a angle finder up there and mount it to your arm so as to find a true elevation, so much easier to scan left to right with the known elevation. I took a laser level (leveled) and pointed it at my dish. I took a round mirror out of wifes old compact and taped it to dish about in the middle. Hit it with the laser and lowered its elevation so it reflected back to the LNB cover, right in the middle. I looked at the angle finder and found the angle of the arm was -8.4 degrees lower than the actual dish convergence. The side scale was worthless. much too small to be accurate. So my actual dish elevation number of 44.9 (G-19) is actually 36.5 on the angle finder. ONce I got this down, finding G-19 was pretty easy, although it is just a pinpoint out there. I took a straw and glued it to the back of the dish at an angle so I can look through it down to my roof tiles. I put a little pushpin in the tile as an 'aiming stake' to tell me exactly where G-19 is. I swung the dish off it and just used the straw 'scope' to point the dish again, I was right on it. Ill have a few more pins once I find a few more FTA sats. Once you find one and ID it properly, you can find the next one pretty quickly. Also make sure you are on an active transponder when you go down to check Q strength. I was on an inactive transponder so I never got a Q reading until I did a blind scan (I knew I was aligned by my Birdog meter) What are you aiming for? Ill tell you an active transponder if you are shooting for G-19.
 
After I got the whole mess "down in the back yard" I simply too a junker stub and clamped into my big vise, which is outdoors, then put a TV in the shed out of the light

I got one already, not sure yet even what it was. I wrote down some of the channels / transponders, and we'll see

I hope this one is not an indicator of how bad this is gonna be, LOL

Lots and lots of religious, languages I've never heard of, and weird letter symbols including Korean, Chinese, and Arabic, LOL

Elevation angle might be a problem. This thing has an "offset feed" so the actual angle of the dish has no bearing. Once I get one ID'd that I've tuned in, I can then go back to the www and justify the published el angle against what the dish "is." As you say, the built in scale is pretty small

Or .....it might not be...... The one I snared "might" be Galaxy whatever at 97 W and to get a birdie reading isn't that critical on the "finder."
 
sounds like you found G-19, about 180-200 channels? All turbins...Thats it.
 
I didn't know that's what I had but turns out, yes.
 
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