Is KU FTA circling the drain?

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LoTech

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jan 22, 2009
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Whitesburg, Kentucky
While there are a good many FTA channels available on C-band, it seem like KU's offerings get smaller and smaller all the time. A few years ago when I got started in FTA there was a good number of entertainment channels available on KU; especially 123W. Now we're down to basically the History Channel, RTV and Tuff national feeds, some NBC, and the PBS channels. I used to watch KU FTA for about half my viewing. Now it's down to just every now and then. Anyway, I was just feeling nostalgic about when Equity was pouring out channels.

-LoTech
 
Yeah, losing Equity's channel line up really was a big bummer. I also liked and hated to see White Springs going bye bye too. :(
And the History Channel has almost nothing worth watching anymore. There's like 3 or 4 shows they air now, the rest of the week it's BS alien & tin foil hat stuff.. But, it's free.. Thank goodness for C-band.. :)
 
Equity was the big thing on KU Band for a while. Heck on 123W we had Equity and the nets (the nets that are on 99W C-Band use to be on 123W KU)

But there are reasons why folks leave KU
Equity...bankrupt
Ohio News Net...Internet feed (saved oodles of money)
White Springs...really dont know what happened
Fox 64 Beaumont...lost the affiliation of Fox and upgraded to digital OTA so it was no longer needed on satellite
Also channels come and go

And KU Band has rain fade and if you are a network would you really want your signal going out in bad weather?
 
I went back in the internet archive to 2005 and looked at what was on KU. And other than what I posted above other channels of note that we talked about that are now gone
KUEN on 79W...its a secondary PBS in Utah. It also had a bunch of distant learning stuff
New York Network..race track feeds
Speaking of Racetrack feeds there were the ones on 95W...yes they were scrambled but once in a while they were in the clear. They actually used Dish receivers for the system and they sold the channels to Dish who handles it all directly now

The HIts2Home while not DVB was on 99W KU. That was cool as the audio was free

Other channels I remember
-UonTV...think Youtube but it was on satellite. You submitted videos and paid to air them. Sadoun (former sponsor) had a 30 minute infomercial on their store which was cool to see...but their (UonTV) lack of programming made it fail
-Chuck Harder...he ran Peoples Radio Network. Here is info from wiki Chuck Harder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (dont turn this into a political thread...I will remove those posts)

Dont forget the free stuff on DBS we had. At one time we had the following free
-40 audio only stations and 30+ radio stations from Canada on 91W Bell
-45 or so audio only channels on Dish
-Nasa
-Angel One
-Ion
-a PBS from Ohio on 129 DBS
-the Dish home channel. Its a 6 channel mosaic that we could view

Sadly all of that got scrambled
 
Also GOL TV on DBS.

Three that were on 97 (which made me buy my second dish back in 2006 - sliding fast down the slippery slope of FTA addiction, only 1 1/2 months after my first dish!): GNF Movies, GNF Music, and the recently departed MHz Worldview. 2006 was a great year for FTA!
 
*sigh* I've been thinking about taking my C-Band dish down and investing in a movable Ku. Sounding more like a bad idea now.
 
As far as my viewing is concerned I do not see KU band dieing. The only thing I watch on C Band is 58 West for NHK every thing else is on 101 or 97.

I remember when I first got into FTA satellite reception. I was trying to find the 110 satellite using my Dish Network receiver that I had bought in 1997, this was 2003, and instead found something else. The Dish Network 3000 receiver simply showed full signal but stated "Wrong Satellite" and all of sudden I was watching a Canadian News Channel.

After that I found Lyngsat and this board and did a lot of reading. It wasn't untill 2007 that I took the plunge and bought a Pansat 9200HD and I haven't been disappointed yet. (With the programming, not the receiver!)

For me FTA is a hobby, and because of that I think there will always be something interesting to watch.

End of my rant.
 
*cough* 30w *cough* ;)
Fashion tv was on that one for a short while,although it was never mentioned as a legit sat on ftv website.
I enjoyed watching midnite haute.
Some of the spanish channels have english movies with spanish subtitles,which aren't too bad.
They will even throw in an old american tv show with no commercials from time to time.
 
A couple of years ago I was able to get 15w during the winter(no leaves on the trees)
I saw a bullfight on one of the channels.I really needed a dish bigger than 1meter for that.
 
And that proposed FTA "service" , freedbs has not updated their site since June 07. Some of us thought (for awhile) that would bring in FTA a lot of new viewers and interest...
 
*sigh* I've been thinking about taking my C-Band dish down and investing in a movable Ku. Sounding more like a bad idea now.

Why would you ever want to get rid of C-Band? With the exception of 97W and 125W you can get almost everything that is on Ku on C-Band, with the exception of the news wildfeed or ball game wild feed now and then.
 
And that proposed FTA "service" , freedbs has not updated their site since June 07. Some of us thought (for awhile) that would bring in FTA a lot of new viewers and interest...
As far as I know everyone who was involved with the project except for one guy has left. Now the one guy who is left is trying to make it an online only deal, not anything that broadcasts on satellite.
 
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