to answer question #2: I had a ten foot dish back in the glory days of satellite tv (lots of free pro and college sports and lots and lots of wild feeds) and would like to someday get back in.

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I got interested in my first FTA system when I found that I could use my bell reciever for a few channels on 97W. I then bought a real FTA reciever to get all the other free channels on 97W that the bell reciever couldn't pick up. I used to have a cband dish with analog reciever and used to like watching all the feeds before I got a digital FTA box and ku dish.

I got a bud when thay frist came out and after a 6 or 7 years we got away from it . I got tired of direct tv when back to over the air tv and fta working on getting the bud to working again.

• What would you tell a friend or co-worker to interest them in owning a Free To Air satellite system?

Free TV! But you need some technical skills to set it up, and English language channels are limited and scattered at present. You will need a motorized system or several dishes to make it worthwhile.

• What got you interested to purchase your first Free to Air satellite system?

In our rural area the OTA TV channels are limited to PBS and CBS.

We had a pizza dish sat TV subscription, but for us, the quality of programming is not worth what they charge. I timed the total commercials on a one hour segment of a popular general interest "basic cable" channel, and out of the 60 minute time slot there were 32 minutes of commercials. That was the last straw. I canceled our subscription.

I had read about the free TV channels and network feeds available via satellite TVRO systems on the Internet, mainly on this site. I ordered the needed parts, and set it up. We got in on the tail end of the good times on G18. After we lost the good channels on G18 I bought several more Ku dishes from eBay and the local Craigslist, and rescued a 10-foot Winegard C-band dish from the scrap heap.

Right now most of the American network TV FTA channels are on C-band, in my opinion. We have plenty of good channels, and there is always something worth watching.

If the FREEDBS effort bears fruit, I will setup at least two FTA systems for family and friends. Maybe more if I win this contest!

Same here. I'm in.

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wow, thanks for making this drawing available.

• What would you tell a friend or co-worker to interest them in owning a Free To Air satellite system?

I'd tell them that there is a lot of interesting programming which they can receive for nomimal hardware expense and no monthly charges, including lots of sporting events and a wide variety of international programming using a dish not that much larger than Directv.

• What got you interested to purchase your first Free to Air satellite system?

I had an old primestar dish and wanted to be able to see some sporting events outside what was being shown in my local area. Once I got it working I was hooked.

What got you interested to purchase your first Free to Air satellite system?

First off I do not like cable and how they overcharge and extra fees. Maybe if I can pick the channels I watch things would be a tad different. Also what really got me hooked onto FTA is the wild feeds!. Watching a live game from the source its the way it should be. Thanks for the contest!

I set up a few FTA systems for folks for 2 reasons
-they wanted to see one college hockey team play. All their home games are on FTA
-some former co-workers I set up systems for so they could see their homeland channels. They were from the middle east and wanted a little more variety than what Dish/Direct could offer. Set up 3 or 4 systems and they love it. Sure the picture isnt the best (them 97W channels can be crammed on there) but its "home"

story has been told numerous times. I wanted to save 7 bucks a month on my Bell ExpressVu system by getting the radio channels (that were ITC at the time) for free. I guess it snowballed from there

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Winegard 76cm dish, SG2100 motor, Sadoun dual KU LNB/DirecTv dual..... Fortec 6 foot dish with GeoSatPro dual C-Band LNB aimed at 99W... Primestar 84e aimed at 91W.... WSIDigital 4 foot dish with Sadoun dual LNB aimed at 105W with 2nd LNB for 101W.... GeoSatPro 36" dish, SG2100 motor, Sadoun dual LNB
Coolsat 5000 on motorized....AZBox HD Elite on 99,motorized,105....Viacast DSR1500 on 99....GeoSatPro DSR200c on 2nd motorized.... Directv D15 DVR on 101W.... Pansat 1500 to aim dishes.... few receivers not set up yet
Other 6 foot Fortec dish with GeoSatPro dual C-Band LNB "ghetto moved" to various C-Band satellites
Third 6 foot Sadoun dish with GeoSatPro Prime Focus KU LNB on it for maximum rain fade combatting

I got interested several years ago in what was "up there" on satellites these days. It had been a few years since I had my C-Band system since I had moved. I googled around and found Satelliteguys and became a member. I setup my system in the Summer of 2005...and what an excellent year to do this being sandwiched in between two major hurricanes that year. I was a blindscanning fool and loving it with all the REAL news from the two hurricanes.

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Stumbled into the hobby by accident while searching the internet. Three dishes and receivers later and I'm still looking for excuses to install another dish. For FTA to become more mainstream I think the receivers need to have fewer bugs. Everyone I've tried has some functional issues and the manuals tend to be worthless. The challenge of overcoming the different issues is part of the fun as a hobby but tends to discourage most people.