FTA channel count summary

[TuxCoder]

I made up a shell script Saturday to give me a quick at-a-glance summary of the "Free TV" page at www.lyngsat.com. See HERE for the script and info on running it.

The following is mainly what I wanted to be able to do. This lists how many FTA channels are listed on that page, per satellite in case you're interested in buying a system but need to be sure your line(s)-of-sight give you enough programming to make the investment worth it. I know some helpful folks here can name off the most popular ones but I'm the kind of person that likes to look at numbers.

I also know there are many more channels available than listed on the lyngsat freetv page but this should maybe give people an idea of what's there per bird. Also the actual channels present vary day to day, so the numbers in this post are from today around 1pm EDT.

Here's the summary of only DVB available on Ku band (maybe the most popular simple setup these days):
1: EchoStar 3
1: Galaxy 11
1: Galaxy 4R
1: Nimiq 2
1: Rainbow 1
2: EchoStar 6
2: EchoStar 8
2: SBS 6
3: SatMex 5
4: AMC 6
4: EchoStar 7
6: AMC 1
6: Intelsat Americas 6
13: AMC 5
15: AMC 4
27: AMC 3
34: Galaxy 10R
34: Intelsat Americas 5

And here's the summary of the total list (C & Ku vs. DVB, Digicipher, NTSC, etc.):
1: AMC 9
1: Anik F1
1: EchoStar 3
1: Galaxy 5
1: Nimiq 2
1: Rainbow 1
1: Solidaridad 2
2: EchoStar 6
2: EchoStar 8
2: SBS 6
3: Anik E2R
3: SatMex 5
4: AMC 8
4: EchoStar 7
6: AMC 6
7: AMC 7
7: Galaxy 1R
7: Galaxy 4R
8: AMC 10
8: Intelsat Americas 6
9: Satcom C3
10: Galaxy 3C
13: AMC 5
21: Intelsat Americas 7
22: AMC 1
30: AMC 4
31: AMC 3
31: Galaxy 11
40: Galaxy 10R
47: Intelsat Americas 5

 

[Mr Tony]

Good job!

Howver, there are about 40 audio channels on Echo 7 and about 60 audiochannels on Nimiq 1 that are in the clear

 

[sksatellite]

As I can tell, none of the current FTA receivers has the ability to stored all these channels, you really need more then one or two to fill it up, BUT, ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN SPENT THE TIME ?

 

[Mr Tony]

As I can tell, none of the current FTA receivers has the ability to stored all these channels, you really need more then one or two to fill it up, BUT, ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN SPENT THE TIME ?

huh?

My Pansat can store all these satellites. I just added a new one last night into the system (Horizons 1)

 

[Tom Taylor]

Over 1000 channels

When I used To reprogram BEC 6600+ receivers for my customers I had over 1100 video and hundreds of audio channels that I had identified and saved to memory. I had satellites from Alaskcom in the West to Gorizont xx and Express 3 to the east. Most of you guys are missing many if not most of the satellites to the east. So many of the channels are news feeds and occasional. AMC 1 used to have all of the newsfeeds. I saw Chips chase a tractor trailer with three trailor's. The last trailer flipped and sparks flew for miles. Ever seen a set collapse? How about Dan Rather throw a temper Tantrum. That is just the mild stuff and that was before blind search. To make this work you need a good receiver with a SENSITIVE tuner and blind search. Like everything else in life, equipment is 20% and technique is 80%. Look for satellites like SBS 6 to be lit up from now to the end of the election season. If was have any disasters, God forbid, before the election, the sky will light up with news feeds. News feeds get VERY interesting when the camera is left on and the reporters chat among each other, just ask Dan. The better you get the more you will see! If i were easy, everything would be scrambled. TV stations have problems keeping track of their own uplink truck transmissions, that is why they buy my receivers. If you haven't checked all the stuff on my web page, do so. Some of the articles I wrote years ago and they still hold true today.

 

[Mark_AR]

The Pansat 2500A will hold 60 satellite positions and 3000 channels.

That should be more than plenty for horizon to horizon satellite reception.

 

[sksatellite]

Ok, this is what I have found out. No matter how many satellite in your receiver will hold, if you program every available TPs, it will real quick to fill up your 3000 channels.
For expample, in ku band along at T5, you will has over 100 channels not count the C band side. At AMC4 KU side, there is over 20 channels on 3 TPs. This also has to count, if only one channel can be view from one TP, but there has 10 are scrambled, these 10 channels are eating up the numbers.
Once I had a Zinwell receiver that can hold 2000 channels, but when I download all the TPs from three satellites, it eat up real quick, Of course, lots of these channels are scrambled or just music.

 

[Mark_AR]

That would stink. I would hope that it would be that you could delete any channels on TP's that were scrambled and that you didn't want and it wouldn't count toward the 3000.

 

[Mr Tony]

The Pansat's allow you to delete channels

You can also scan for FTA channels only

 

[sksatellite]

HoHoHo Zinwell suck in big time. I have see most the newly receivers has FTA only features.