New to FTA and need an equipment setup

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rrob311

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Nov 25, 2010
941
16
New England
I just canceled my Dish service because I don't have a lot of time to watch TV and want to save money. I am looking for a good motorized dish setup so I can connect to as many satellites as possible. I would like a receiver that can automatically control the sat.motor. I am not sure if they have this but I would like that. I would also like a receiver that I can plug my OTA antenna to and hopefully they have receivers that put the OTA channels in the lineup with the satellite ones like my old dish receiver. I am not looking into C band yet because I don't know where I can put a larger dish. I have the old Dish Network Dish 500 dish on my house still. If anyone can point me in the right direction for equipment it would help a lot. I really would like to get regional news from different cities. I am not sure if this is possible with FTA but I will buy other receivers in order to do this. I just want a good HD FTA setup for now. I have 4 tvs in the house right now and NO channels. I have a few trees that could be causing signal issues but other than that the sky is clear where I am and I want all the channels I can get.
 
I just canceled my Dish service because I don't have a lot of time to watch TV and want to save money. I am looking for a good motorized dish setup so I can connect to as many satellites as possible. I would like a receiver that can automatically control the sat.motor. I am not sure if they have this but I would like that. I would also like a receiver that I can plug my OTA antenna to and hopefully they have receivers that put the OTA channels in the lineup with the satellite ones like my old dish receiver. I am not looking into C band yet because I don't know where I can put a larger dish. I have the old Dish Network Dish 500 dish on my house still. If anyone can point me in the right direction for equipment it would help a lot. I really would like to get regional news from different cities. I am not sure if this is possible with FTA but I will buy other receivers in order to do this. I just want a good HD FTA setup for now. I have 4 tvs in the house right now and NO channels. I have a few trees that could be causing signal issues but other than that the sky is clear where I am and I want all the channels I can get.

Rob,

You have a lot of options here, as far as FTA receivers go. However, you should not expect to use your DN antenna for this endeavor, it won't work for the free (true FTA) linear satellite signals. The dish itself is too small and won't amplify the satellite signals from the FTA satellites sufficiently and the LNBFs on the dish are designed for circular polarized signals. The bulk of the FTA channels are linear polarized signals of lower power. This requires you to use a larger dish and a different LNBF designed for linear polarity signals.

If you are in a pinch regarding financial concerns, this may not be the benefit you are looking for. The hobby of FTA, although it is free (no subscriptions to pay) can be expensive. You must buy all the equipment and set it up yourself. You can use the cabling from your existing DN setup, but that is about all. So, prepare yourself for this, it might not be what you expect.

First of all, you will not get the programming that you were used to with DN. There are very few "movie" channels on FTA. Those we do get are few and sometimes don't remain open for long or they are not of the quality that you might desire.

FTA is more of a "hobby" than it is a replacement for DN or DirecTV. You will be required to work at this endeavor. It will demand a lot of your time to keep it operating.

I don't mean to disuade you or steer you away from FTA, but I do not want to mislead you. You must know everything that is involved before you get into this hobby, once you jump into the pool, you will have to swim to stay afloat. It isn't a free ride, just because the word FREE is in FTA.

That being said, we can probably help you if you are certain that you wish to pursue FTA satellite television. There is a lot of wonderful programming up there that should satisfy most people who aren't too much of a couch potato. Since the good Ku band FTA channels are dispersed or sprinkeled over many satellites across the horizon, you would probably desire a motorized dish. With a motorized dish you have one antenna that can be rotated to find all the good channels from all the satellites. This costs more for equipment and you will be required to spend the time to learn how to set this up. It isn't simple for beginners. But, it is a lot of fun for a person with the right mind to do so. If you are not up to a motorized dish at first, you can use a single, fixed point dish to get one satellite and try it out to see if you really like it well enough to warrant the purchase of a motor and obtain more satellites.

Once you get into this hobby, you will find it addictive and you may find yourself spending more money than you expected. So, you must spend very little money at first so that you can simply test the waters to learn for yourself if you truly like it. I don't think anyone will argue this point, even if we want you to join our "FTA" club - so to speak. No one would want to rope you into this venture only to find that it isn't your cup of tea.

I know that you mentioned HD as one of your criteria. Obtaining HD signals from the FTA channels is going to require some additional expense as the receivers that must be used to process HD signals are higher priced than just a simple SD receiver.

Just so that you don't get too involved and too overboard monetarily, I am going to suggest the lowest price system I can think of that is user friendly and simple to operate. Once you have learned the ropes and feel that FTA is suited to your desires, you can move upwards.

Here is my personal recommendations:

Receiver: Coolsat 5000 (or 6000)
LNBF: Invacom QPH-031
DISH: Winegard DS-2076

The approximate price for this equipment would be $50 for a used Coolsat 5K/6K receiver, ~$70 for a new QPH-031 LNBF and ~$80 for a new winegard 76 cm dish = $200.

The Coolsat receivers (the 5000 and the 6000) are no longer manufactured, but you can find them on EBay as used equipment. They are the best starter receivers ever made. I still own 7 or more and I won't part with them. They are really sweet! But, they don't process HD or DVB-S2 signals. They will get you started with minimal front money, though. I got my feet wet in FTA with them and I still use them because they are so good.

Now, you can go to our Gold Sponsors (see the top of the page) and write to them and they will offer an entire kit for FTA at a very reasonable price. You can trust all of them. I have purchased from each one (and others). They are all great to work with and they will work with you and they will help you with set up advice and questions. Most of the sponsors are also members of this forum and they often chime in in cases like this.

Here is a nice site to check the channels that you might be able to receive: SATHINT - Satellite Charts, Packages, Footprints

Do some research of your own and browse around here on this forum before you buy anything. Get comfortable with the jargon and become acquainted with the members here and observe their notions and recommendations on the receivers of choice. Then let that information digest in your mind and make your decision based on good facts.

I hope I have presented the world of FTA to you sufficiently so that you realize what it is about before you jump in. I would like you to join us in this hobby, I only watch FTA and I am satisfied and I think it is better than many other choices that are available. My Mother has cable TV and my FTA system beats that without question, and I don't have to pay the monthly subscription. She doesn't either, my brother pays it as it was a gift for her from him. I'd like to talk her into switching to FTA, but that would be rude to my brother's gift, so I just leave it the way they have it.

RADAR
 
Thanks for taking the time out of your thanksgiving day to answer a lot of my questions. I am really interested in obtaining local news stations from cities across the country. The only movie channels I would want would be HBO and Showtime for boxing. I have enough credit to buy a setup. I just don't want to buy the wrong stuff. I am not interesting in religious programming or foreign languages. Do any of the receivers have an OTA antenna input like my old DN receiver? I would like to be able to at least plug my local news station into my receiver. I am pretty technically inclined so the learning curve doesn't bother me at all. If there are enough channels on c band I will eventually obtain a larger dish. I am saving 1300 a year by shutting off DN so I have some room to work with.
 
Thanks for taking the time out of your thanksgiving day to answer a lot of my questions. I am really interested in obtaining local news stations from cities across the country. The only movie channels I would want would be HBO and Showtime for boxing. I have enough credit to buy a setup. I just don't want to buy the wrong stuff. I am not interesting in religious programming or foreign languages. Do any of the receivers have an OTA antenna input like my old DN receiver? I would like to be able to at least plug my local news station into my receiver. I am pretty technically inclined so the learning curve doesn't bother me at all. If there are enough channels on c band I will eventually obtain a larger dish. I am saving 1300 a year by shutting off DN so I have some room to work with.

Rob,

Saving $1300 a year will allow you to purchase the top of the line FTA equipment with leftover monies for other devices.
If you require OTA signals, you will have to scrutinize the receiver you are looking at. Either that, or run a separate cable to your TV for just OTA channels. Most TVs have multiple inputs now anyway. You can take either the HDMI or the S-Video and Audio signals from the satellite receiver into the TV and use the RF input from your OTA antenna to get the job done if the receiver you buy doesn't support it to your liking.

There are far too many receivers out there for me to describe each one. I don't use my FTA receiver for OTA channels so I am at a loss to inform you of these specifics. Like I said, I just run my OTA antenna direct to my TV and just switch the TV from the SAT input to the OTA input when I need.

RADAR
 
With the money you'll save not having to sub, you could get a subscription to Netflix for movies or buy a few Blu-Rays a month, plus invest in a nice selection of new hardware! Between FTA and OTA (Over The Air), you'll be in business! :)
 
Ya with OTA I can only get channel 9 news and PBS and a couple ion channels. I would really like to get news stations across the country and some hd ones for live sports(nba finals, super bowl, etc) But if I am only going to find religious programming on FTA I don't really want to spend the money. I saw a bunch of the DMX channels listed on some of the FTA channel lineups and was wondering if that will come in stereo through the satellite.
 
Welcome to the forum rrob. I don't want to burst your bubble, but you won't be able to get the big money sports events on fta. Very rarely you may find a few wildfeeds from things like the Superbowl, but most of that stuff involves encrypted signals, or transmissions in formats like fiber-optic that don't even use satellites. FTA isn't a replacement for the pay services, but that said, I haven't missed much of that stuff, and it's been 3-4yrs now since I had any pay-tv subscriptions. There's almost always something to watch on fta, but you won't find HBO or Showtime for the big boxing matches, movies. (occasionally some of those pay-channels may drop the encryption for a few hours, or days, but it usually doesn't last long so you can't count on being able to watch something on one of those providers channels.) But half the fun of having fta is "blind-scanning" the sats just to see what you can find. There aren't many "local" news shows or regular channels like that on satellite either, you will can find live newsfeeds from all over the place, once you learn where to look. And , sorry, not many full time HD signals on KU yet, some sporting event feeds, newsfeeds, the NASA channel has one HD signal, and some PBS channels from satellite are in HD. Not sure about the DMX channels, but somebody else can help with that. There aren't any subscription services for 'cable' type channels in the US (yet?) other than some religious services, or foreign language providers. Check our sponsors sites, top of the pages, for some package deals on equipment. You can buy just a receiver or dish, or the entire setup (including any splitters, switches or cables you might need.) I'd start out with a simpler setup so you can learn more about what is up there, receivers are always being replaced by newer, better ones so you can always upgrade. I'd suggest a 90cm or 1meter dish , should be sufficient for most everything on KU band, and post back here if you find a specific receiver you want to ask about. We have some equipment reviews in another section here also, and you can always use the Search feature to see what others have asked/said about specific parts or receivers. Good luck with the hobby, it's tons of fun. Right now I'm watching a basketball tournament from Alaska! (on c-band though).
 
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Well I picked up a generic 39inch motorized dish setup from mxmart and I got a sonicview 8000hd receiver. The only bird I could point to with my current setup is 61.5w and I dialed in about 10 news stations with half in Yuma AZ and the other half in Cleveland OH. Why am I able to receive these channels and nothing else? why are they there and how long will they be there? it doesn't list any information for them and all of the other channels on this bird are subscription only. I got a different mount so hopefully monday I can raise the dish and point it further west and get to the goods.( in the freezing cold of course)
 
61.5 is not the best FTA satellite out there, content wise. You can't hit anything West of there? If you can, try birds at 97W, 101W, and 125W to name a few. FTA channels are spread out across the sky. If you can go East, you might try 30W. You should be able to hit that bird easily from New Hampshire. There are always some nice surprises from Cuba on there (new release movies) :) ...
 
rrob311 said:
Well I picked up a generic 39inch motorized dish setup from mxmart and I got a sonicview 8000hd receiver. The only bird I could point to with my current setup is 61.5w and I dialed in about 10 news stations with half in Yuma AZ and the other half in Cleveland OH. Why am I able to receive these channels and nothing else? why are they there and how long will they be there? it doesn't list any information for them and all of the other channels on this bird are subscription only. I got a different mount so hopefully monday I can raise the dish and point it further west and get to the goods.( in the freezing cold of course)

61.5 is used by Dish Network for their subscription services. Those stations that you've picked up should be considered temporary at best, probably part of a test DN are conducting or something.
 
I only have ku right now with the quad lnb but I found a couple weak signals east of 61w but haven't been able to lock anything in yet. 61.5 is pretty powerful. I got a bigger j mount so I will be able to raise the sat. tomorrow and get the westward birds. I have a pretty open view of the eastern sky but I am near a hill so I am not sure. It seems that I got a couple weak signals. When I go to the receiver menu in the sonicview8000 do I just try a blind scan? what if the satellite is not listed? how do I input the satellite number IE: 30w?
 
I started out about 7 years ago with a coship 3188A receiver and a fixed 36" ku dish. Now I have evolved to (4) pansat 9200's, a 10' c and ku big dish, a 7.5' c and ku big dish, my original 36 ku dish with an sg-2100 H-H motor, two dsr-905 4DTV receivers for my subscription tv through www.programming-center.net.
 
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