1st. I know nothing about FTA rcvrs or how to install. I install Direct for a living and i have a customer tomorrow morning that wants me to take a look at his setup. He purchased a FTA for 19 bucks and he has a big Ant on his house. The rcvr has never been hooked up. Can anyone give me the basic setup for this? Any info will help.
It's a 3 lnb E* dish. Photo attached. 4 lines from dish. The rcvr is a Nuvenio
What's the best D* sat to use to hit FTA birds if possible? I got tons of them laying around. This guy also wants to get German channels. (someone told him he could) Possible?
That is a Dish 1000+ dish....the LNB's are pretty much useless for free to air since they are all circular. FTA uses linear What it sounds like he wants to do is steal Dish Network using a free to air receiver and downloading software into it which isnt tolerated here. If he wants German channels he would need to subscribe to Dish Network
Not sure what his intentions are and really don't care. I'm just trying to help him out. He just cancelled Dish and switched to D and D doesn't have German channels. The E installer sold him the FTA box with intentions of getting German channels legally but never finished installing it. I guess he was under the impression that the 1000 dish could be used for that. I have no idea, hence, me starting this thread.
Holly Springs,
I will vote with Iceberg on his assesment of the situation. The fellow (your customer) is either naive, or he believes that you are.
First of all, FTA reception is totally unique from Dish Network and DirectTV broadcasts. Most of their stuff is circular polarized (maybe not all) but it is certainly all encypted, or at least everything that an ordinary person would desire to watch is. You could detect their signals with the proper LNBF and if they offered any "In The Clear" channels. You could actually view them. Most were the test cards for alignment purposes for DN techs.
It used to be nice for some of us FTA'ers to use DN's test card signals to help locate our position in the sky for aligning our dish and motors. The DN signals were boomers and that made it very convenient when aligning a FTA dish. FTA uses a much larger dish pan (reflector) because the signals are weaker and either vertically or horizontally polarized.
With the stronger, circular polarity signals, you didn't have to fret much over the polarization angle of your LNBF and you could scan or pan the sky pretty quickly and pick up a signal on the move.
This allowed you to get into the ball park area quickly. With just linear FTA signals, you have to sweep your dish much slower since you are trying to detect a much weaker signal. Not only that, but if you don't have the V / H polarization of the linear LNBF spot on, you'll miss it just on that account alone. Compared to setting up DN or DirecTV, FTA is more challenging.
In totally honesty, if an elderly couple asked you to do the same so that they could watch some of the religious FTA programs or ethnic programs on G19 or something and wanted you to install their dish and an inexpensive receiver and set it all up for them, I would say OK. If someone goes out and buys a Nuvenio and wants you to just align the dish for them, I have a pretty good idea of what they have in mind. It isn't anything that you wish to be involved in, not if you wish to stay out of trouble with your employer.
Back to the point regarding the "elderly" folks. Except for this scenario or someone who is not able to physically do certain things on their own, no one involved in FTA eandeavors should be looking to hire someone else to set up their dish and align it. Except for a major C-Band Bud installation or having your friend come over for a few beers to help you play around. These FTA installations are primarily a DIY project for good reason, this is a hobby. Doing everything yourself, including seeking out the information and setting the dish up and running the cables and programming the receiver is all part of why FTA is a hobby.
Good Luck, but be careful what you get into.
RADAR
