Any way to get DW TV FTA?

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NGeorge

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
May 23, 2004
174
20
Olympia, WA
Hey All;

I'm finally getting settled back into a new place w/ my best friend, and am going to be pulling out the KU band dish to try and see what's up there FTA. My best friend lived in Germany for years, and has one request... Deutsche Welle TV in German. I ran past the Dish Network options, and although he likes ProSieben as well, he really only cares about DW-TV--is there any way to get this FTA, or as a subscription by itself? Dish requires a minimum package to get it for $10, and I have DirecTV and plan to keep it that way... besides, if I have the FTA dish up I might as well put it to use. The local PBS station shows a couple hour chunks every now and then of their English news, so I'm hoping there's a feed up there somewhere.

Any ideas? I've read a number of things about the availability of German TV in the US that have me down, but I'm sure I've seen a non-DISH feed of DW-TV in the past--I just never had a reason to watch it until recently. He just wants to watch occasionally to keep up on his German... we've both decided $27.99 for the package is a bit steep, and Dish's ala carte options are dumb. I've seen references to an old Dish package that included DW and ProSieben for 15 bucks, no minimum package requirement, but I think that is old info since their site only references a package that includes Kino+--trying to get that would be the next step if free (or very cheap) DW-TV is absolutely unavailable.

--Nat
 
on KU Band AMC5 has it sometimes. NYN2 has a feed of it once in a while

on C-Band its on there...the whole channel is on AMC1

check out thelist above...it has the frequency info
 
Yeah no-go on the C-Band system... unless the satellite really blasts through and I can use one of those old 3 or 4 foot "G5" systems that they had for a while.

As for it being on KU "sometimes", how often is that?

Also might as well ask about ProSeiben--that ever up there?

BTW, thanks for the quick reply :)

--Nat
 
size matters

You might try to get some feedback from the guys watching C-band on 4' dishes.
That's 120cm.
See if they can get signal from 103º west.
Depends on where you are in the US, too.

Oh... :( ... based on the 7/8 FEC, the answer is probably: no.
 
DW has 2 channels on Intelsat 9 at 58.0°W

DW-TV and DW-TV Latin America

Good signal on my KTI 5. footer C-Band dish
 
You might try to get some feedback from the guys watching C-band on 4' dishes.
That's 120cm.
See if they can get signal from 103º west.
Depends on where you are in the US, too.

Oh... :( ... based on the 7/8 FEC, the answer is probably: no.

correct. I can get it stable on the 6 footer but once in a while it stutters
 
two solutions, pick one :)

correct. I can get it stable on the 6 footer but once in a while it stutters
Thanks, Ice. That was going to be my next question: 6' dish.
Those 6' Fortec Star dishes are pretty inexpensive, and not all that big.

DW has 2 channels on Intelsat 9 at 58.0°W
DW-TV and DW-TV Latin America
Good signal on my KTI 5. footer C-Band dish
Looks like that signal on 58º west, might be a little stronger for the southern half of the USA.

So, with a 6' dish, you would have two satellites to choose from (assuming you have a clear line to both).
But again, the FEC is 7/8, so that's going to be a little more trouble.

NGeorge - I don't think you mentioned where you were located in North America.
And what sort of property or line-of-site limitations do you have?
 
just locked DWTV today (about 1/2 hour ago when dinking around with the 6 footer) at a 65 quality on the Pansat 1500....watched for 10-15 minutes with no pixeling
 
I'm located just south of Seattle, WA, so that puts 58* pretty much out of the question. I'm moving into an apartment, top floor, with a nice big balcony with a view from about 75* to 125*... Before signing the lease I had a talk with them about the dishes (told them it's a hobby & have been wanting to get back into it)--for an upscale place they are very dish-friendly... no more than 3, on weighted tripods "try to keep them under 4 feet--anything bigger probably won't fit anyway".

The DirecTV dish is one of the 3, so that leaves 2 more to play with... one is going to be my 31" Foretec Star w/ the motor mount installed... that should pretty much cover anything I want to watch on the KU front. That's why a 3 or 4' C-Band dish at a fixed location wasn't totally out of the question for something special--like german channels.

At any rate, with 2 or 3 dishes and lots of plants around them, that balcony is gonna be pretty packed :)

--Nat
 
If all else fails, there's DW-Radio on circular Ku at 82°W. You should be able to get that on an 18" dish. There's also DW-TV streaming video at Home | Deutsche Welle . It works surprisingly well over my relatively slow DSL, but is kind of like watching TV on a postage stamp.
 
Well I took a look on Lyngsat. It says DW Radio 1 and 2 are in fact not scrambled... is that a mistake? Anybody care to check for me?

If in fact they are still in the clear this could be enough of a solution... especially considering I can just throw up another small dish for it.

--Nat
 
Well I took a look on Lyngsat. It says DW Radio 1 and 2 are in fact not scrambled... is that a mistake? Anybody care to check for me?

Lyngsat is wrong. I just scanned 82 yesterday and the only free channel is the "whats on HD" channel....and that doesnt come in on a regular box since its in HD
 
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