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Tryin' to keep the cost down for now - Christmas and all. Can I just swap out the LNBs?

dragonchef said:

Tryin' to keep the cost down for now - Christmas and all. Can I just swap out the LNBs?

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Check out this thread about using a DirecTV dish to get linear FTA.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/94189-retrofitting-phase-iii-ku-maybe.html

The thread above was for receiving really strong FTA signals on really small Phase III dishes.
You might find the LNB-mounting brackets we came up with to be useful.

But this recent thread deals with the bigger DirecTV dish.

And when you're ready to buy a proper dish, this thread would be enlightening.

I was looking for another thread where a new member had put a Standard FTA LNB on his DirecTV Slimline dish, but he hadn't gotten around to posting pictures.

donato said:

i have a question if there is a way to use my old DirecTv receivers to get FTA channels.

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No, you will need a fta receiver. The receiver is for DSS, you need DVB. Dish Network receivers are DVB but they are pretty much useless for fta too. The companies program them specifically for their services and nothing elese. Look on ebay for fta receivers, used ones are going cheap!!!

pictures

A new member, Look Up, has posted his pictures and discussion for adding a suitable LNB to his DirecTV AT9 dish.
See that thread for kudos and considerations of using such a small dish.

Convert DTV to FTA, or DN to FTA? Well, yes and no. If you want the performance we enjoy, like blind-scanning and other advanced features, forget-about-it. I always hoped to get some use out of the satellite IRD 'junk' I collected, some with UHF remotes. So, I googled and searched, until a few years ago when there appeared talk about limited success -- being able to receive FTA only, even set the LNB LO for Ku, DiSEqC functions, but only those channels with a 20M symbol rate would work, like the current Galaxy 25 transponder bouquet which includes Al Jazeera English. A couple years later that limitation was finally solved. The overall result was a poor man's unit -- usable for FTA only with no blind scan, no serial port or ability to add one, and erratic or wrong signal/quality readings. That's right, a DTV DSS unit can be made to do DVB, like a DN or original FTA unit can -- purely a firmware issue. [Think Twinhan 102A.] But, only a very few older IRD models could be converted, models with the exact same processor as the Pansat 2500/2700. What it amounted to was a complicated J-tagging process to erase all proprietary firmware, effectively turning the box into a useless orphaned brick of components -- a box of rocks, and then reflashing with original Pansat firmware rewritten to match an entirely different animal of tuner, larger flashROM and CPU in/out port mapping, remote control and front buttons, ect. Far more involved than merely flashing an exchange of firmware basic to the CPU. It was a proof of concept project, that eventually succeeded for the most part, by coders without malicious or criminal intent. It laid to rest the rumor and controversy about what could or wouldn't work, forever. The fixed symbol rate issue was only imagined to be hardware related. As DN eventually uplinked some channels with a higher symbol rate, that assumption came under stronger scrutiny.

It's all very interesting if you have the curiosity, mind, time and patience for it. Otherwise, use the time to make money and then go on eBay and buy a cheap FTA unit, dead or alive. Even J-tag it back to life if necessary. When I started out in FTA I bought a DVB Viacast unit for more than what a new Pansat 2700 costs today, sat switch and serial cable included. The Viacast was a very solid and basic commercial machine, but no blindscan and slow as heck - still fun though. It was a relief to finally own a Pansat 2500 that could find unknown feeds and actually let me see quality readings long enough to position the dish. The Viacast couldn't do that, it had some wierd time-out in the menu. Also some scrambled channels would cause it to lock-up solid. Real fun when the first channel it sees in the line-up after a transponder scan is scrambled. People who start out with something insane like that and survive to graduate to today's standards are a proof of concept success by themselves.

-sidha