Free-To-Air satellite service?

June 28, 2004 7:12 PM

I've been considering getting a free-to-air satellite receiver, mainly because it's free but also because it seems to have a decent channel listing. Does anybody in Canada or the northern States have this, and if so, do you feel that it's worth it? More importantly, will free-to-air continue to be free or will it eventually be scrambled? Tell me your experiences.

One last question: can I customize my existing StarChoice receiver so that I can get the free-to-air channels or do I have to get a special receiver (ie pansat, fortec, blackbird, etc)?

posted by ashbury to technology (8 comments total)

wow, I anxiously await good answers to this one. My high school had one of those huge dishes back when we had a really cool computer teacher, and we used to watch the simpsons at lunch off of east coast feeds every thursday, back when the simpsons were on thurday nights. That, and there was a cow auction channel, selling cows 24/7. I've wanted one for myself ever since.
posted by Hackworth at 8:27 PM on June 28, 2004

It doesn't appear much is free to air available to you according to this. You might want to browse around that site for other satellites in your area.

Keep in mind that if you want to grab a signal from a satellite you're not currently aimed at, you must either physically move your dish (not easy) or get a BUD (Big Ugly Dish) with a motor. Expensive and probably not worth the cost.

Finally, most good content is now encrypted and cannot be viewed the FTA receivers.
posted by SteveInMaine at 2:36 AM on June 29, 2004

If you don't get an answer in this thread (and if he doesn't show up at some point to answer your question), you might try contacting MeFi user shepd (contact info on his userpage).

He runs a business that includes free-to-air satellite equipment and seems well versed in the subject — he's regaled us with information on the subject in #mefi many an evening ;)
posted by filmgoerjuan at 9:29 AM on June 29, 2004

Yay. I'm here. :-)

Let me see... Free to air satellite with a StarChoice setup.

Hey, before I go on, let me give you a reason to dislike StarChoice. Shaw cable owns them. Aren't those anti-cable satellite commercials twice as funny now? 8^D

StarChoice receivers are DigiCipher 2, and very much locked to only receiving StarChoice channels (the channel table it downloads has been locked to a certain frequency... the exact details of DigiCipher 2 are still a mystery to most, which is likely why it isn't cracked yet). FTA digital signals (I assume you're talking about digital stuff) are, generally, all DVB + MPEG-2 based, which isn't much like DigiCipher at all.

So, sorry to say, the receiver won't work. On to the dish...

StarChoice, fortunately, does use a Ku-Linear signal, similar to most Free To Air stuff. However, their newer twin-LNB (not two output, but their strange dish that looks like it has... uhh... breasts) won't be of much use to you unless you like a lot of hard work trying to align it. Sorry. I think the LNB will have the same problems as I list below.

Anyways, if you are lucky enough to have a non-twin LNB dish, you are "close to the goal". If the LNB is anything similar to the last StarChoice system I worked on, though, it won't be similar enough to a standard Ku linear LNB to make you happy. I believe the frequency cut off is off, but I'm not sure. All I know is I have only managed to get one or two different satellites (I recall AMC-5) in on a StarChoice dish, and even that wasn't satisfactory.

Okay, anyways, on to business...

You can buy a standard Ku LNB and fit that to your StarChoice dish. I believe their LNBs were an odd size, so it might take some hockey tape.

If you *really* want to do it right, though, just get a new 30 inch (MINIMUM) dish and scrap the StarChoice stuff. Sorry again.

Okay, now you'll want a receiver. There's a *heck* of a lot of choice out there -- I'll narrow it down as well as I can.

What to look for:

- Can the receiver take a CI/CAM? It's nice to be able to add an smart card if you choose to buy programming (illegally if you're in Canada -- sucks we just elected Liberals to screw over my business *again*).

- Is the receiver software upgradeable? (If the company discovers a major firmware bug, it's nice to be able to get a fix)

- Do you want a PCI satellite receiver card for your computer? It's nice to watch it in your computer, plus you can record the raw satellite data and/or MPEG-2 stream. Oh, they support odd MPEG-2 formats like 4:2:2 as well.

- DiSEqC support. 1.0 is the old 4-way satellite switching support. 2.0 is the new one. 1.2 is for working with a rotator (a *NICE* upgrade for hobbyists). USALS is a different (better) rotator standard from DiSEqC, but is supported in far fewer rotators and receivers.

- Blind Search. Lets you get hidden channels. Kind of nice. I once used this to pick up CNN pre-feeds on AMC-5 before CNN got smart. :-)

What will an FTA system do for you?

Basically, there's six big reasons you would get an FTA system. If one of them doesn't match up for you, you probably won't want it.

- It will pick up LOTS of religious channels.
- It will pick up LOTS of channels in MANY languages (Galaxy 10R and Intelsat Americas 5 nee Telstar 5 are popular). That list of Canadian channels is just a list of channels broadcast *FROM* Canada. While it's illegal for you to pay to watch channels broadcast outside of Canada, you are still (thank God) allowed by the television ethnic cleansing department (CRTC) to watch channels that aren't encrypted, but outside Canada.
- You enjoy working with satellite signals as a hobby.
- You have a specific channel you need, for example, the FedEx channel.
- You enjoy radio channels on either ExpressVu or DishNetwork. For this you'll use a standard 18" dish with circular Ku LNB.
- You want to illegally hack the FTA receiver to pick up ExpressVu or DishNetwork. Yep. That's all I'll say here about that.

Of course, you don't pay for any of that, unless you are unlucky and the channel you want is one of the VERY few that are actually encrypted.

BTW: If you go to a satellite store, and they don't know the terms "Ku Linear", "Ku Circular", "DVB", or "DiSEqC", or "Telstar 5", *RUN*, don't walk away. They can't help you. I have just heard of some old BUD dish (as in 6'+) stores that haven't really touched FTA stuff ever. They'd not be the best places to buy stuff, since they probably won't even want to point your dish for you. :-(

Pointing a dish for most FTA satellites is generally a serious PITA for a beginner. You can ask me questions if you have trouble. I will suggest you buy *at least* one of those $40 satellite meters if you plan to do this yourself.

HTH, a bit. I have a list of satellites in Canada I have received from Kitchener, Ontario (YMMV depending on where you are located and how much open space you have to point through). I've just updated it too. You can enjoy the sxc (Open Office) spreadsheet, or the pdf.

I hope I didn't talk off your ear.
posted by shepd at 10:20 AM on June 29, 2004

rats, no more live CNN feeds? that's what I loved about satellite.
posted by Hackworth at 2:03 PM on June 29, 2004

Hackworth, some news pre-feeds are still out there, but aren't particularly reliable like they *were* on AMC-5. It takes searching around, and usually one of those big fat 10 foot dishes that I have at home (where, unfortunately, most of my equipment *isn't*).

Oh well. :-)

(It sure is fun watching them getting their makeup put on, huh?)
posted by shepd at 2:50 PM on June 29, 2004

Oh, wait... you mentioned pansat, fortec, blackbird (didn't notice that).

Blackbird is only for uhh... stuff best left to discussing elsewhere. :-D Let's just put it this way. It's not legal for me to sell Blackbird receivers. So I don't...

The others... well... uhhh...

Yes. I sell them. "Virgin". (I've probably said too much as is).

HTH.
posted by shepd at 3:36 PM on June 29, 2004

Thank you shepd. When I find some time I'll track you down on #mefi and ask you some more questions that shouldn't be asked here. :) You have been a wealth of information!
posted by ashbury at 5:55 AM on June 30, 2004