Getting rid of Directv, looking to get a big dish

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Jeffrey Johnson

New Member
Original poster
Aug 8, 2019
3
0
Pittsfield, PA
I am on the outskirts of reliably receiving over the air channels. Directv has my local ABC channel disputed and unavailable. I couldn't watch my NFL game tonight because NFL channel blacked out the game because it is on the local channel, that they made unavailable. WOW.
Will I be able to get local broadcast channels on the large dishes, and can I pay for some channels too? Like FoxNews? Netflix and other streaming venues take care of different shows for me. So, the main reason for the dish is watching football. Is it worth it?
What dish, receiver, cables... should I buy? And where should I get them? Should I install myself?

Thanks!
 
:welcome to the forum jeffrey
While there is a lot of good programming on the big dish FTA, it will not replace Directv. You can not purchase programming either. Check http://ftalistings.com/ There are other feeds and channels not listed as well. You will not find C-Band dish installers and if you do it's pricey. Definitely better suited for the hobbyist do-it-yourselfer. There are some network feeds available but not your locals :( But if you like the idea you will find a lot of good information and good people here to help you. :) I gave up Dish for a C-Band dish and don't miss it or regret it. No TV bills at this house :)
 
Thank you for the reply. Are the dishes capable of picking up any over the air network feeds?


FOX and NBC can be found on C-Band 99.2 Galaxy-16

CTV (Canadian TV) on 107.3 . They sometimes carry some of the really big games! In full 1080i (master channel)
 
XXX and YYY can be found on C-Band 99.2 Galaxy-16
ZZZ on 107.3 .
Too much specific info in my opinion, so I suspect this post probably should be in the "What's Up There" forum. Loose lips (or keyboards) cause channels to disappear.

I'm not a moderator, though, so we will see what they say, if anything.
 
Too much specific info in my opinion, so I suspect this post probably should be in the "What's Up There" forum. Loose lips (or keyboards) cause channels to disappear.
.

These distribution channels are free to air and common knowledge. It’s not like it’s a wild feed or a usually encrypted channel that had the encryption turned off.
 
These distribution channels are free to air and common knowledge. It’s not like it’s a wild feed or a usually encrypted channel that had the encryption turned off.
The broadcast network's customers are their affiliate stations and if there's enough people encouraging others to go around the affiliates, they'll close the loophole to protect their customers.
 
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I am on the outskirts of reliably receiving over the air channels. Directv has my local ABC channel disputed and unavailable. I couldn't watch my NFL game tonight because NFL channel blacked out the game because it is on the local channel, that they made unavailable. WOW.
Will I be able to get local broadcast channels on the large dishes, and can I pay for some channels too? Like FoxNews? Netflix and other streaming venues take care of different shows for me. So, the main reason for the dish is watching football. Is it worth it?
What dish, receiver, cables... should I buy? And where should I get them? Should I install myself?

Thanks!
You cannot receive pay channels at all because although many of them are up there on the satellites, they are encrypted. As for news channels, many can be viewed on their Internet sites, or at least selected content can be viewed, perhaps with a time delay, but not off satellite. I particularly doubt that you will be able to find the specific "news" channel you are wanting without paying, however there are others available that are easier to watch (particularly online) but they won't let you live in your preferred echo chamber so you probably wouldn't like them. I know from time to time MSNBC pops up on one of the NBC feed channels but that's probably anathema to you, and I think those are on Ku band anyway. As for the networks, the major ones are up there (for now, anyway) but they are making them increasingly hard to receive in real time on consumer-grade receivers. Of the four major networks, one transmits in 4:2:2 format which most consumer grade satellite receivers can't decode in real time, another is going to transition to a similar format later this month and I'm not sure about that one, then another one has a funky sound mapping on most of its transponders (except for one local affiliate) and the final one is only available though one remaining local affiliate that's still on C-band (a better one was available but it went away a few months ago).

Some of these issues can be overcome by running a dedicated satellite TV backend system on a PC using satellite tuner cards, however this is much more expensive than buying a cheap receiver, and also requires much more technical knowledge to operate, and works best if you have multiple C-band dishes that are each pointed at a particular satellite rather than just one moveable dish. And you have to run backend software such as Tvheadend under Linux, or MediaPortal under Windows; there are others but those are two I know of. And then you have to have at least one frontend system running something like Kodi or VLC in order to be able to watch content from your backend. You can run the backend and one frontend on the same computer, but the more complex it gets the more you have to learn, and none of this is a "take it out of the box, connect the cables and start watching" experience; there's a significant learning curve!

I am not trying to discourage you from getting into the satellite hobby; far from it. But when you ask questions like "Should I install myself?", I wonder if you realize what you are getting into. In many areas of the country the ONLY option is to install yourself, since most of the people who used to install C-band dishes have gone out of business and/or retired. If you are lucky and ask around you might find an older guy that used to install C-band dishes back in the day and is still willing to do one, and if you are REALLY lucky there will still be an installer actively in business near you somewhere. Unfortunately the worst part of installing a C-band system is erecting and pointing the dish; there are several considerations there alone. So if you have no idea how to do it, or where to put a dish on your property (it matters), then you really should consider using a satellite installer if you can find one that's still in business or willing to temporarily come out of retirement.

If you wind up having to do it yourself then the first thing I would do is check your local library and see if they have any books from back in the 80's on how to install a satellite TV system. Ignore the parts about equipment (all of that's old analog stuff that won't work with today's digital signals) and available channels (they've pretty much all moved or gone dark), what you want to find is the section on how to aim a dish, including how to erect the pole, etc. If you can understand that and successfully erect and point your dish then the rest is comparatively a piece of cake.

Finally, you should be aware that from time to time even the major networks will scramble their signals, particularly for major sporting events such as NFL football. But what is ironic about that is that sometimes the very same game will be available in the clear on a network from one of our neighbors to the north or south (how's your Spanish?). So don't assume that by getting into satellite TV you will never again experience the frustration of not being able to watch a NFL game because it is scrambled, particularly if it is being aired on the eyeball network - they almost always scramble during games, or at least have done so in the past.

Again, would love to see you get into the satellite TV hobby, just please don't come in with unrealistic expectations or you will be disappointed. We call it a hobby because that's what it is - it's something you have to keep working on until you get it the way you want it, and even after that you may have to change up some things from time to time. In particular, don't expect to buy all the parts today and be watching satellite TV tomorrow, unless you're very technically proficient already. There are dealers on the board that would probably be happy to sell you the parts of a working system, but unless you live near one of them you're still going to have the problem of getting it all installed.
 
You cannot receive pay channels at all because although many of them are up there on the satellites, they are encrypted. As for news channels, many can be viewed on their Internet sites, or at least selected content can be viewed, perhaps with a time delay, but not off satellite. I particularly doubt that you will be able to find the specific "news" channel you are wanting without paying, however there are others available that are easier to watch (particularly online) but they won't let you live in your preferred echo chamber so you probably wouldn't like them. I know from time to time MSNBC pops up on one of the NBC feed channels but that's probably anathema to you, and I think those are on Ku band anyway. As for the networks, the major ones are up there (for now, anyway) but they are making them increasingly hard to receive in real time on consumer-grade receivers. Of the four major networks, one transmits in 4:2:2 format which most consumer grade satellite receivers can't decode in real time, another is going to transition to a similar format later this month and I'm not sure about that one, then another one has a funky sound mapping on most of its transponders (except for one local affiliate) and the final one is only available though one remaining local affiliate that's still on C-band (a better one was available but it went away a few months ago).

Some of these issues can be overcome by running a dedicated satellite TV backend system on a PC using satellite tuner cards, however this is much more expensive than buying a cheap receiver, and also requires much more technical knowledge to operate, and works best if you have multiple C-band dishes that are each pointed at a particular satellite rather than just one moveable dish. And you have to run backend software such as Tvheadend under Linux, or MediaPortal under Windows; there are others but those are two I know of. And then you have to have at least one frontend system running something like Kodi or VLC in order to be able to watch content from your backend. You can run the backend and one frontend on the same computer, but the more complex it gets the more you have to learn, and none of this is a "take it out of the box, connect the cables and start watching" experience; there's a significant learning curve!

I am not trying to discourage you from getting into the satellite hobby; far from it. But when you ask questions like "Should I install myself?", I wonder if you realize what you are getting into. In many areas of the country the ONLY option is to install yourself, since most of the people who used to install C-band dishes have gone out of business and/or retired. If you are lucky and ask around you might find an older guy that used to install C-band dishes back in the day and is still willing to do one, and if you are REALLY lucky there will still be an installer actively in business near you somewhere. Unfortunately the worst part of installing a C-band system is erecting and pointing the dish; there are several considerations there alone. So if you have no idea how to do it, or where to put a dish on your property (it matters), then you really should consider using a satellite installer if you can find one that's still in business or willing to temporarily come out of retirement.

If you wind up having to do it yourself then the first thing I would do is check your local library and see if they have any books from back in the 80's on how to install a satellite TV system. Ignore the parts about equipment (all of that's old analog stuff that won't work with today's digital signals) and available channels (they've pretty much all moved or gone dark), what you want to find is the section on how to aim a dish, including how to erect the pole, etc. If you can understand that and successfully erect and point your dish then the rest is comparatively a piece of cake.

Finally, you should be aware that from time to time even the major networks will scramble their signals, particularly for major sporting events such as NFL football. But what is ironic about that is that sometimes the very same game will be available in the clear on a network from one of our neighbors to the north or south (how's your Spanish?). So don't assume that by getting into satellite TV you will never again experience the frustration of not being able to watch a NFL game because it is scrambled, particularly if it is being aired on the eyeball network - they almost always scramble during games, or at least have done so in the past.

Again, would love to see you get into the satellite TV hobby, just please don't come in with unrealistic expectations or you will be disappointed. We call it a hobby because that's what it is - it's something you have to keep working on until you get it the way you want it, and even after that you may have to change up some things from time to time. In particular, don't expect to buy all the parts today and be watching satellite TV tomorrow, unless you're very technically proficient already. There are dealers on the board that would probably be happy to sell you the parts of a working system, but unless you live near one of them you're still going to have the problem of getting it all installed.
Thank you for the detailed info. For a living I fix robots and CNC machines. Installing isn't a problem but sometimes easier time wise to pay for that part. I will be looking into some books. I will also look into the technical aspect of the receivers and computers. I mind paying for programming and such. If I do buy a system I always like knowing on the front end what to do to avoid unnecessary inconvenience. Thanks.
 
Thank you for the detailed info. For a living I fix robots and CNC machines. Installing isn't a problem but sometimes easier time wise to pay for that part. I will be looking into some books. I will also look into the technical aspect of the receivers and computers. I mind paying for programming and such. If I do buy a system I always like knowing on the front end what to do to avoid unnecessary inconvenience. Thanks.


Do you have a Home Owners Association? If so, you may need to get special permission to install a big enough dish.

Get it in writing!!!
 

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