Newbe

[oldman62]

Hi every one!

I’m ret. navy man 27 yr. ret in 93' Lived in city tell two mo's ago moved to the country.
I have three dish’s 1 is a c-ban I think. 1 is a starband was for his internet and TV.
And one was for TV also. I get a lot of phone Calls from Company’s trying to sell TV programming
At a $100+ a mouth.

A old navy buddy tolled me to look a fta TV first and look at viewsat for a rec.
? What is fta and viewsat

What do i need?

 

[FTABman0]

to The satellite Guys oldman62!!

My brother a 6 year Navy Man! He served his Military (Start) career in 84 on the USS MIDWAY aircraft carrier then onto the USS TRIPOLI LPH-10 - Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ship to finish his Navy days!


Had 15 years in the US ARMY all over really after that and retired a fuel man for aircraft as SFC at WV-ARNG Army Reserve Parkersburg as an E something or other head over the Fuel Farm there! I could never keep track of what he was most of the time but very proud of him! I am proud of him!

Back problems got him!

I Salute you!

Your dish that is C-Band what makes you think it is, over 6 to 12 foot? If yes that is a C-Band dish! Got a camera, shot a picture of it and post it for us to see, we can tell you if it is a C-Band dish or not!


Starband is the smaller of them DBS service and Internet, OK now we know what you got kind of, what are you wanting, scratch that, hoping to get Free To Air?

Free To Air, FTA means just that, Free signals that are unencrypted or it only receives signals that are not scrambled!

Viewsat is a FTA Receiver; let’s get to trying to help you get started on the right path here.

You are going to need a FTA receiver right off! They will work with the C-Band dishes and sounds like maybe you got that side covered,

You need a KU dish for Free To Air since the recommended size for the hobby is 31’ 80CM or larger.

Visit our Gold Sponsors above for bundle deals on complete systems to get you started.



What is up there can be found here at THE LIST so you can look and see if this is what you want to get into or what can be seen would be worth the price of the gear needed to watch.

I have gotten people into the FTA hobby that just does not like it at all because it was not what they wanted. FTA is not for everybody, it takes extreme patience, and more patience and that is just the setting up of the system.

Another thing is that most people that hear about the hobby thinks they can ditch their cable or other TV watching providers thinking the same programs are on the FTA systems, Misconceptions or misunderstandings and you can not! Although there are some things on FTA you could expect on cable a lot is not!


But there are so many things to watch and some programming stays and goes and new things are added all the time! This is why it is a hobby! You never know what you will find on it to watch and there is plenty!

I recommend a motorized system either from Sadoun or SatelliteAV; get you started right just fine! We are here to help so any questions you have setting one up, to general questions about the legal use of the equipment are always welcome here!

Glad to see a new guy aboard! Navy Humor!

K E V I N

 

[oldman62]

pic

.

Here is pic.

 

[turbosat]

You have a c-band dish , and the smaller one looks like some kind of directv or dishnetwork dish, not close enough shot to tell much more about that. It might be usable for some free to air,depending on the type of lnbf. (the pay-services use circular polarization, the satellites we watch most fta on use linear polarization). Get up close to the little dish and see if you can read off model numbers or names, maybe somebody here can tell you more about it.

 

[oldford]

You have a c-band dish , and the smaller one looks like some kind of directv or dishnetwork dish, not close enough shot to tell much more about that. It might be usable for some free to air,depending on the type of lnbf. (the pay-services use circular polarization, the satellites we watch most fta on use linear polarization). Get up close to the little dish and see if you can read off model numbers or names, maybe somebody here can tell you more about it.

That's a Starband dish with a DBS add-on kit. Most likely pointed at 129W with the DBS lnb getting 119W.

Regards, Eric

Starband for Eastern Maine.

 

[oldman62]

So what is a good FTA rec.

 

[phlatwound]

So what is a good FTA rec.

A few, off the top of my head:

SD (Standard Definition):

Pansat 3500
Coolsat 4000, 5000 & 6000
Fortec MercuryII (aka "Dynamic")
Visionsat IV200 (has PVR capability)

HD (High Definition)

Coolsat 8000 & 8100
Diamond 9000HD

Not a whole lot of 24/7 HD FTA stuff up there. Check out the Equipment Reviews section, some of those receivers have been wrote up in there.

Check out The List to get an idea of what programming is out there to watch.

SatelliteGuys.US - TheList