Configuration Ideas for first FTA setup

[freak3dot]

I live in Indianapoils, IN. My home currently uses an OTA antenna (MANT940) which is routed to a central location and then ditributed to every room.

I have a dish 500 and a DTV tripple phase dish in the garage. I also have plenty of RG6.

My question is how would you configure such a system if you were me?

I was thinking of running a second RG6 cable to each TV location for the satallite feed but later realized that this isn't nessesary. If you had the time and cable would a second cable at each TV be worth it or would you combine OTA and FTA on one cable?

Which satellites would you point your dishes at if you were in my situation? 110 & 119? other satellites?

Which receiver is great for a beginner? I perfer to use a PCI card in my computer because I lean toward my PC replacing my entertainment center by building everything into one box. However, I think I may still want a receiver for TV2 or blindscanning.

Which switch should I use for all those LNBs? Are there certain switches that are compatible with LNBs or is it a matter of the switch must be compatible with the receiver?

Thanks,

freak3dot

 

[Anole]

Gee, where to start?
1). those dishes are not suitable for general FTA use.
2). check out The List to get an idea what is on FTA
3). start out with one stand-alone receiver to get your feet wet.
4). generally, a PCI card will be a real killer up-hill battle for your first setup, though it won't be so bad later on.
5). eventually , you may want a motor, or multiple dishes/lnbs, but it's way too soon to make such a decision.
6). Sadoun and SatelliteAV both have nice packages with (or without) motor, dish, and Mercury II receiver.
7). forget about wiring your house; that's putting the cart before the horse.

 

[qwert1515]

What are you trying to receive?

EDIT - Anole added more to his post
EDIT - "2). check out The List to get a general idea what is on FTA" (I think he means TheList )

 

[freak3dot]

What are you trying to receive?

I think first I should say that I am not trying to do anything against forum rules. I am looking to receive FTA unencrypted content.

At first, I wouldn't mind getting a few "religious" channels and a music channel. If I get anything, that is a start and I can start learning about FTA.

 

[Anole]

Okay, technically these are FTA, but I've grown tired of promoting them:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-mpeg2-faq-s/34131-what-can-i-get-18-dish-dish-500-a.html
It just encourages folks to put up a dish on 119ºw, and that's not a good idea as a starter dish, in my opinion.

After someone has a 30..36" dish up and is getting FTA reception, then the above link is an amusing use of the little dishes one finds laying around.

If anything, a post/link which describes how to get a real FTA channel on one of those little dishes would make more sense to me.
Again, it's more a novelty , but it's at least a promotion of FTA channels.
Here is an example of WhiteSprings on a 20" dish.
Most of the SuperDishes left over from DishNetwork, would be a point and shoot project, as they already have an FSS LNB.
Dish on the left, LNB directly on the arm: http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/119309-gathering-parts-pieces.html

 

[freak3dot]

7). forget about wiring your house; that's putting the cart before the horse.

If wiring my house is the cart in "putting the cart before the horse", then what is the horse? I may still run a second RG6 to each tv for future use in other applications such as internal channels.

I have read many of the stickies on this forum and at least the ones I found are too broad for me to apply directly.

 

[Anole]

the horse is . . .

. . . get some experience with FTA.
See if you like it.
Decide which satellites are more interesting to you.
Maye you'll want a motor?
Maybe you'll want a T-90 multi-LNB dish for instant switching between birds?
Perhaps you'll go with a few fixed dishes for your favorites, and a motor for feeds?
Knowing answers to these questions will help you choose proper LNBs , switches, and other equipment?

Will you add C-band?
Those are the 6..8..10 foot dishes for 3.5-4ghz reception.
Will you want to subscribe a 4DTV receiver on Cband?

Which rooms in your house will have access to FTA?
If you look in the BUD section of the forum and take note of some of the work by Linuxman, he's got multiple systems in his house, and each has multiple dishes!
There may be some duplication, but he's got redundancy.

I've got a retired TV station engineer buddy who has multiple Dish receivers in his house.
They're all wired into modulators and distributed throughout the home on channels 6, 7, 8, and 9, along with the few OTA channels from the area.
It's a different way of hooking up a multi-channel system.

So, if you're just starting out, it's hard to know what equipment you'll eventually have or want.
For now, start small.
Get a dish, get a receiver (and probably a motor), hook it to one TV, and see what you find that suits you.

 

[mastermesh]

When I started, here's how I did it...

Step 1. Got a receiver... I got a pansat 3500 sd... sd card makes it nice to swap bins and edit channels on computer... used pansat to get stuff off my 18" dish (old leftover direct tv dish from previous homeowners).. got gol tv and a few dish newtwork promo channels.. set up the 18" as is, just focused on learning more about how to adjust azimuth, elevation, skew, etc.

Step 2. Got a ku reception dish. I opted for a winegard... also got lnb... I went invacom quad.

Step 3. Got motor... I went with sg2100..

Step 4. Spent a few days on the roof getting everything set up... tweaked, tweaked, and tweaked some more... finally got it all going, and loved it...

Step 5... had many steps since then... now I currently have a dvb world box on computer and some other stuff going on... so that the computer acts as a digital vcr for me...

5). eventually , you may want a motor, or multiple dishes/lnbs, but it's way too soon to make such a decision.

Actually, you probably will want a motor... they are nice to have, and not to pricey... plus, the fact that they do skew for you makes them definitely worth getting! If you do go stationary, I'd say you probably want to tune in to 123 degrees west and leave the dish there. The RTN stations there are awesome... but honestly, the ability to move the dish to get other stuff is nice.... also, for lnbs... get a invacom quad... being able to tune in both whatever dish network leave unencrypted + whatever ku stuff you can find is nice. The only thing invacom quad can't see is the special cubavision on 58 w that you need a universal lnb for, but that's just a duplicate of a channel on 30w, so is not really necessary...