I am new to FTA, and about to buy

[delandy]

I am new to FTA, and about to buy but am not sure what I am supposed to look for. I presently am on Bell ExpressVu with an 18 in dish. I have been doing some research and so far think I would probably be happy with a Pansat 250SM. But there is so much confusing info out there (keeping in mind that I know nothing about this and there is a lot of technical talk) for someone who has no idea about this kind of stuff. I know someone who has a setup with the 18 in dish and says he gets good reception, but on here I am reading about a bigger dish??? I am willing to listen to opinions on what I should buy as a begginer. I do want to make sure I have something that is fairly new on the market.
Waiting to hear....

 

[updatelee]

there is a sticky showing what you can get with an 18" but honestly you'll want a 30"+ depending where you live. Ive got a 39"

 

[boomer_106]

I am new to FTA, and about to buy but am not sure what I am supposed to look for. I presently am on Bell ExpressVu with an 18 in dish. I have been doing some research and so far think I would probably be happy with a Pansat 250SM. But there is so much confusing info out there (keeping in mind that I know nothing about this and there is a lot of technical talk) for someone who has no idea about this kind of stuff. I know someone who has a setup with the 18 in dish and says he gets good reception, but on here I am reading about a bigger dish??? I am willing to listen to opinions on what I should buy as a begginer. I do want to make sure I have something that is fairly new on the market.
Waiting to hear....

If you're a sports fan, consider buying a HD receiver.

 

[Pepper]

Your "friend" with the 18 inch dish is most likely a criminal.

 

[turbosat]

If you aren't aware of it, if your friend is using a small dish and free to air box, he most likely is using hacked software in it to capture scrambled, pay-tv signals. Strictly illegal. Real free to air programming comes from different satellites, that require a bigger dish than that, and a different type lnbf on the dish. Get a good legal setup and you won't have your tv turned off every day or so like those hackers do.

 

[tdti1]

I would go with a 1-1.2 meter dish and a Traxis 3500, this is for ku-band only, if you want c-band go with a 10'-12' c/ku setup, if you want sub a 4dtv is a plus if you want only free channels then a Pansat 2700 would be good since it can control skew, I'm not sure about the 250 model.

 

[Anole]

Three of the supporting advertizers at the top of this page sell FTA equipment retail.
GoSatellite
Sadoun
SatelliteAV
All have package deals with pretty much everything you need to watch FTA on Ku band.
See any of those sites, or give us other offers from anyone else, and we can discuss your choices.
The packages from SatAV include installation supplies, so count that and shipping when comparing.
And I'd go for a 36" dish over a smaller one, so make sure any other offers are similarly equipped.

You can see from my sig what receivers I like.