Free Satellite TV Reciever????

[Mike]

I was looking around for TV tuners and found this thing:<p>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815100133<p>I was obviously interested, and went to google to search more on Free to air satellite channels, and found this: http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html<p>Looking through the list there are a lot of good channels!<p>Does anybody know if this really works, and can I just throw any dish on it? I see them all the times at garage sales for a couple of bucks. Could I just pick up one of those dishes, pay 90 bucks for a card, and get basically unlimited satellite channels for free?

[jollyrgr]

See my reply in this thread:
http://206.131.241.58/ubb/ultimatebb.ph ... 1&t=002902<p>As I stated before, there is not that much availble in "premium" channels. This is mostly the very low end cable channels. And I don't think you can just get a tuner card for your computer and point an antenna skyward. It appears that the tuner card does do the receiving but you MUST be careful! There are C-Band and Ku Band satellites. The Ku band can (apparently) be received with a smaller dish but I have not attempted using the 21" or 36" dishes. The majority of the stuff is C-band which requires a 7.5' to 12' dish. This requires sinking a pole about four feet in the ground into concrete. The dish must be moved by an acme screw/actuator which must be controlled by a positioner. (You can roll your own with a DPDT switch and 24 Volt power supply if you want to go real simple.) Most likely it would be cheaper in the long run to get a C-Band receiver/positioner (IRD). <p>It could be real simple to use the old Primstar dishes and I've seen but not tried the Dish 500 dishes. (The Dish 500 dishes are apparently being used for the Ku birds for the FTA Ku Pansats. I just discovered this a few days ago and don't know a lot about using these. I've not had time to research this fully.)<p>Too bad for you. There was a ham fest at the DuPage County Fair Grounds today (Sunday, June 12 2005) which is in your back yard! There was one guy that was selling a C-Band system (minus the dish). By 8:45AM he had already sold this FTA receivers. There were several other sellers that had Primestar and Dish 500 dishes for sale, no receivers. <p>But like I said I don't know how they setup the FTA systems using the small dishes. With the big dish systems I can tune and peak a dish and set it to track the arc; but I'm using an analog signal which is real easy to find. Digital is a bit more work. The guy that installed my Dish 500 (they wouldn't give me the equipment as the installation was "free") used a peak meter. I've installed the big dishes using the analog receiver and a TV out by the dish. Also the Dish and DirecTV systems have built in utilities to tune the system.<p>I'm not trying to discurage you but I don't want you to think it is like putting up a set of rabbit ears and you are getting satellite. "Bird Watching" is an interesting hobby. The mini dishes come in a number of sizes. The 18" pizza ones will probably not be big enough to capture the FTA stuff. You will need a Primestar or at least a Dish 500 sized dish with LNBs. Don't pay more than a couple bucks for these. I have seen these in the trash numerous times and, if you don't mind the stigma of picking trash, you get it free. (I got a 10' dish for free this way. As well as computers, TVs, etc.)<p>Before you get excited about the "unlimited" channels you should review them CAREFULLY! Check especially the Ku FTA unless you plan on putting up a big 10' dish. Most of the channels are non-English or are things you most likely not find interesting.<p>[ June 12, 2005: Message edited by: Jolly Roger ]</p>

[Mike]

Thanks for the reply.<p>According to that list, there looks like there are some decent ones, such as MTV, some movie channels, some local channels, etc.<p>I'm just thinking about this because it's 90 bucks for digital video, which we are going to need for our new projector room, which the cable picture, put simply, sucks. It runs through a VCR (which usually even has better picture than a tuner built into a TV), because the projector has no tuner, and it's still horrible.<p>Maybe I should just pay the 40 bucks a month for DirecTV service, it may be better than the trouble I would have to go through to get this to work?<p>One more question, has anybody used those WinTV 150 or 250 cards? If so, how is the picture, sound and recorded video quality?<p>Thanks again,
Mike

[jollyrgr]

Here is some more info for the FTA satellite channels. Take a look at this link:
http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html<p>The items in GREEN are for Ku birds and can probably received with a smaller dish. The PINK selections are on C-Band and require a big dish. I hope this is of help.

[billon]

I understand that NASA is available using a FTA receiver and small dish via the Dish DBS. Is that true? If I pick up a LNB and Dish dish... and buy a FTA receiver, is it that simple?
Bill

[jollyrgr]

NASA is free via the big C-Band dish. There is a new (As of 7/1/05 12:01AM) digital NASA channel on AMC 6 Transponder 17 (this is at 72 degrees west). While it is still digital it does not mean you can put up a 18" to 36" dish and get a signal. This is a digital signal but it still requires a big dish.<p>NASA still has an analog signal as well. It is on AMC 7 Transponder 18. (This is at 137 degrees west.) This is what the NASA web site says.<p>I've not checked the exact location of this in some time so it might have moved (I get NASA on DISH and rarely surf for it on C-Band ). I don't find NASA nearly as interesting since there are no shuttle missions going up. But this channel was quite interesting when you could see missions feeding live broadcasts to classrooms or whatever the experiments were.<p>But if there is a DIFFERENT signal on Ku that I am not aware of I'd like to know about it. I don't see anything like that on NASA's site. Go here to read more:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/digital.html#dish<p>You are still looking at putting up a large (7.5ft to 12ft) dish. I'd have thought that NASA would have put up a Ku signal as it would be more popular for schools to justify a little dish. Most schools that don't have this signal via cable would be more inclined to put up a small dish than a C-Band monster. <p>I have one because of the pure hobby (and in the past FTA) enjoyment I get out of it. I've seen reporters in the middle of snow storms tell people to stop cleaning off their cars so that it would make the storm seem "more impressive" for their background shot. I've watched one of the "big three" anchors doing a mic check (you know, "testing testing, one two three") and then comment to the sound guy "You know the aliens watching us are going to think that 'testing' is an important word in our society". Some of the fun things are the digs that went on in back haul feeds between the announcers at sporting events. When the Bulls were hot and blacked out in Chicago I'd use the C-Band for my dad and brothers to watch the back haul feeds for the opposing teams. (They hated that the announcers were against the Bulls but at least they saw the games.)<p>C-Band can be fun but as much as I like it, it is more of a hobby than a source of cheap cable. I had to finally break down and go with a simpler method, namely DISH network. But on the things (such as NASA) that I can get on both, the C-Band signal is many times better.

[Chris Smith]

My favorite channel on C band, before they scrambled it, was the FBI training channel. <p>That’s where they told young students,..... “its only illegal if you get caught”...... and “don’t discuss it with others, that makes it a conspiracy”. <p>
Isn’t Freedom of the press [and Airwaves] great?

[billon]

I was using a 1 meter portable dish on C band for NASA. I don't have the space for a 3-meter dish. So, I checked the Dish net web site and don't see the NASA logo in their lineup. Is it still available? I may have to go to DBS... but I have always enjoyed the feeds.

[Chris Smith]

Direct TV, channel 376 for NASA