Free 2 air TV

[SCVJeff]

Actually there are a ton of FTA Ku services scattered throughout the arc. Everything from internal broadcast feeds to DSNG News feeds throughout the country. They are digital, but they (usually) are NOT scrambled, and as long as it's just you watching, nobody cares. Having several DSNG trucks around the country with a TOC phone number on the slate we occasionally get calls from people just curious about the feed (I treat it as a QSL call). I don't remember the name of the FTA auto-scan receiver that I ran across awhile back but this thread reminds me I need to buy a few as they can scan and display all the digital params (as well as picture) faster than even an experienced operator can tune it. Some broadcasters us it as a digital diagnostic tool (it's cheap). C & Ku analog is still out there but less & less.

These feeds have been around on C-Band since the early 70's, and growing on Ku over the last 15 years or so. Some folks use a standard 18" reflector for the Ku receiver as well as a standard TV antenna rotor on a modified polar mount and it works OK.

[Bill Adams]

While there are a lot of KU band signals available I believe that most of the FTA signals are broadcast on a horizontal or vertical transponder and require the appropriate LNB. The satellite TV providers use circular polarization LNB's.

[SCVJeff]

Yep.. They work, but not really well

[diandtom]

I have a Dishnetwork 500 with two LNB and a Direct TV with a single LNB. I tried them both today. I am still trying to find out how to use the receiver. I used the Dishnetwork Dist first as it was already set up. In a few minuites I had Dishnetwork programs that were not blocked. I set up the Direct TV and was in a little different direction but got the same programs. The sat. was Galaxy 12. I did not think Direct TV would pickup Dishnetwork programs but it did. I was amazed how fast and easy to find a sat. Will these Dishes pick up anything else other than dishnetwork ?

[FLYTYER]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by diandtom:
Will these Dishes pick up anything else other than dishnetwork ? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Dishnetwork 500 and LNB combo is designed primarily to receive the Dishnetwork programming on both the Echostar satellites at 110 and 119 degrees without moving the dish. The Direct TV dish and LNB combo obviously is designed to receive Direct TV programming, but it can be positioned to receive one satellite at a time. This is why you saw some Dishnetwork programming using that dish. Think of the "dish and lnb" combo is an amplified antenna.

However knowing the exact position of the other satellites these dishes can be adjusted or set to receive almost anything that is beam to earth. The limitations in your LNB's may prevent some signals from being used by your receiver.

Signals can be and many are transmitted in either vertical, horizontal, or circular polarization patterns. This allows for 2 different signals being sent at the same time on the same frequency. Now your receiver may or may not have the ability for you to set the polarity and LNB type.

To get an idea on what you might receive, see the earlier post by Bill Adams where he provided a link to a very good listing. Also refer to my post above and go to the link I provided that takes you to a good web site that has all of this info neatly presented.

[Ray,IN]

FTA is mostly Ku-band w/ little scrambling. C-band broadcast is virtually all scrambled now. I have junked my C-band equipment. Pondering buying Ku-band FTA equipment, which can be used both at home and in the RV. There is a guy (Brian) on escapees forums, with a great deal of knowledge of FTA, links to FAQ pages, etc.

Oh, those illegal cards for dish/direct? Those companies are ahead of the game, don't waste your money on trying to steal from them. YOU WILL BE CAUGHT AT SOME POINT!
FCC rules say signals broadcast over the airways are free, BUT, de-scrambling scrambled signals without paying is illegal.