Using Big Dish?

[kcmo]

I have a 10' dish set up for C and KU band. I haven't used it for a few years, since I went to DirectTv. I fired it up the other night, and it still works fine, just not much left in the clear. I was wondering if I can use this dish with a FTA receiver. I'm mainly interested in picking up news feeds. Am I going to find much of that on FTA? Thanks in advance.

 

[PSB]

Yes you can use it, get a blind search receiver and it will find all the channels for you!

 

[Mr Tony]

yes you will

There are TONS of feeds on KU Band...and a heckuva lot more on C-Band

check out http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html
Anything that says DVB you can get with a FTA receiver
Pink is C-band
Green is KU band

There are a lot of sports feeds once college season starts back up

News is on IA6 (use to be T6)

6 Anchorage, AK Tv stations on AMC7

lucky ducky....you got a C-band dish...

 

[kcmo]

Sounds like I'm in luck. Thanks for the info. I'm hoping to get it put together soon.

 

[PSB]

Cool! let us know how it all works out for you, maybe it will encourage lurkers to get their old C-band dish back in service!

 

[kcmo]

Having problems with the set up. I used the old C/ku band receiver to move the dish to T5. Nice strong signal (about 90) and receiving clear programming on T17. Moved the C Band cable to the PanSat 2500a, set up as standard, lnb of 5150, off, off, skew 45, and search FTA and scrambled. Nothing - Getting a signal of 25, quality of 0.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? Thanks.

 

[Mark_AR]

I don't have any idea using a BUD. Does a C-Band LNB need a 5V switching voltage to go to the LNBF??

Instead of unplugging it from the old receiver, run it through the receiver into the PANSAT.

I don't know that much about this stuff yet. I've only had mine for 3 days now.

Wheres -BERG???

 

[sksatellite]

You need your old receiver to swithing the channel, simply use a high frequency two side splitter, add a dc block on digital box side before plug it to the sat-in.

 

[Mr Tony]

There is an item that allows you to run a C-Band using just the FTA receiver.

I'll see if I can find it

 

[kcmo]

Still no luck, so I tried something different. I have Direct TV. It raining pretty good here, but I still have signal strength of about 80 on it. I saw on lyngsat where there is some music on on the Direct satellite. I hooked the cable from the Direct TV dish (single lnb, 18" oval dish) into the Pansat and still have low signal and 0 quality. Was I wrong in assuming that something would show up here? I have yet to get any quality reading at all on the Pansat from either the BUD C/KU lnbs or the Direct lnb. I get the C and KU signals with my old receiver on the BUD and Direct TV on the Direct receiver. I am totally baffled as to where my problem lies.

 

[PSB]

There is nothing available on the DirecTV satellite thats any use to a FTA receiver : ( Dishnetwork have a few music channels and a clear TV channel or two (legal), but DirecTV use a different system, man you are trying hard, you may end up having to start with a small 30" dish and work your way back!

 

[kcmo]

Thanks for the reply. Maybe I'm not totally lost yet. Here's the next question. I have a very old 1 meter KU band dish. It's so old the tuner used a rotary dial to tune in the transponders. I know the LNB is shot and I don't remeber what sort of mount it used.
If I can find a way to rig a Dish or Direct lnb to it, should that work? I haven't given up on the BUD yet, but I'd like to see something, just to let me know the receiver is working ok. Thanks again for all the help.

 

[PSB]

Maybe you could, I have done it a few times as long as you can get the exact focal point for the LNB, it may take a bit of messing about, you may need a ku band LNB to pick up the FTA Ku band channels.