Dish Network Dish

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thisBUDsforyou

SatelliteGuys Guru
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Dec 9, 2007
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I've been offered a Dish Network dish not used in 2 years. Would this be any good for FTA?
 
Hmmm doesn't sound like I can get much with this. Would I have to switch out the LNB to get even this much? Remove the circular LNB and put in a linear one? In the meantime I've ordered the 36" dish and LNB that 3ABN offers.
 
I'm not going to give details because some people would get mad and say "oh no! they will scramble everything!!!" ... but there are some decent freebee channels that have been "in the clear" for awhile now on at least one of the dishnet birds.. You might find something that you enjoy watching for free (at least temporarily)

As far as switching to a linear lnb, that's not going to help. The linear sats are just not powerful enough to work well with your little dish.
 
I'm not going to give details because some people would get mad and say "oh no! they will scramble everything!!!" ... but there are some decent freebee channels that have been "in the clear" for awhile now on at least one of the dishnet birds.. You might find something that you enjoy watching for free (at least temporarily)
...
You mean there are more channels on the 110 and 119 Echostar sats than the ones listed in Iceberg's FAQ (link posted above)?

thisBUDsforyou,
You can get a good 90 cm (36") dish from 3ABN for $50 shipped. I ordered one on their internet site but missed the note that it takes 2-3 weeks to get it, so I'm still waiting. If you want one and want it sooner give them a call to order. Linear LNB is $15. I'm getting, from another source, the Invacom QPH-031 LNB which can do linear and circular.
 
I ordered the 3ABN dish this morning. I was thinking maybe the D* dish wasn't worth bothering with but based on the discussion above I think I'll swing by and pick that up after all. I'm also planning on ordering the MercII on special from Satellite AV for $85 so I'll have a one sat system for $150 ($65 for dish and LNB from 3ABN + $85 for the sat rec). Thinking about a motor as well but maybe I'll hold off on that until I see what I can get - there are many trees in neighbors yards that may block LOS to some birds but I'll bet there's a spot somewhere on my lot (65' X 160') where I can see something. G10 may be especially tricky - I'm at 74W (Philly suburbs) and G10 is at only 23 degrees elevation from here.
 
You mean there are more channels on the 110 and 119 Echostar sats than the ones listed in Iceberg's FAQ (link posted above)?

thisBUDsforyou,
You can get a good 90 cm (36") dish from 3ABN for $50 shipped. I ordered one on their internet site but missed the note that it takes 2-3 weeks to get it, so I'm still waiting. If you want one and want it sooner give them a call to order. Linear LNB is $15. I'm getting, from another source, the Invacom QPH-031 LNB which can do linear and circular.
not on 110 or 119.. but yes there are more channels on dish that are currently open to view freely (have been for some time now.. some have come and gone though) .. you'll have to look for yourselves to find them though, as I don't want to upset the crowd that thinks Dish doesn't know what they have encrypted and what they dont.
 
Sprang for the motor after all.

Called Sat AV for the MercII special and asked if they would give free shipping on a motor as well and the lovely young lady went away for a while to ask then she came back and said yes so I get the MercII plus the Geosatpro GS120 for $150 shipped. I'm guessing that's not a bad deal. Boy this is a slippery slope.
 
G10 may be especially tricky - I'm at 74W (Philly suburbs) and G10 is at only 23 degrees elevation from here.

as long as you have a good line of site that way you shouldn't have issues. I use to have a dish aimed at Hispasat (30W) which was at a 9 degree elevation from Minneapolis
 
Called Sat AV for the MercII special and asked if they would give free shipping on a motor as well and the lovely young lady went away for a while to ask then she came back and said yes so I get the MercII plus the Geosatpro GS120 for $150 shipped. I'm guessing that's not a bad deal.
That is a very good deal :)

Boy this is a slippery slope.
understatement of the year :) Yes FTA can be a slippery slope. Once you get hooked there are lots of things to get :)
 
I was thinking of getting the Visionsat IV-200 for the PVR capability, but decided on the MercII for now because I can run that into the back of my OTA PVR. I have a Philips DVDR3575H for terrestrial OTA ATSC and it is absolutely wonderful. It has a 160GB hard drive so has Tivo-like capabilities for the one-time cost of the machine. (A review is here Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Philips DVDR3575H/37 (160 GB) HDD Recorder at Epinions.com). So I plan to run the MercII into the back of the Philips which will give me pause live TV capability for satellite. Then maybe later when the HD with PVR sat receivers come down a bit in price I'll get one of those.
 
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