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[turbosat]

waited too long

Having had a bud for 20+yrs I watched as all the premium programming got scrambled, and with less and less to watch on analog, I finally gave in and started searching on the internet. I knew that most of the channels were 'going digital', but thought it too complicated to get into. Ordered my first receiver in 2006, a Coship 3188 blind-scan, and was amazed. And sorry I'd waited so long too. But the equipment has gotten much better since then, scanning for wild feeds and other stuff is a lot easier than in the early days of fta.

 

[anik]

I first heard about home satellite dishes back in the 80's (maybe even earlier), but couldn't get one until we moved to where I live now in the back around 1993 or so. My first system was a used analog-only, C-band only system with a LNA(!). Over time I gradually modernized everything except the dish itself. As for FTA, I used to sometimes listen to a show called Friday Night Live, first on a satellite audio transponder and later via streaming audio over the Internet, and that was where I first heard of FTA - however I didn't really understand it until my son briefly set up a system (his wife hated the large dish in the yard, so after a couple years and a hard winter that destroyed the positioner arm he took it down, but it was long enough for me to learn how to set up an FTA receiver). I think he had used SatelliteGuys.us to learn how to set up his system, but I don't honestly remember which of us originally discovered the site first.

 

[squid385]

I found this site and fta a while back when searching the internet for some decent clean TV programming. I was feed up with the junk programming on pay satellite and the cost. Since then I bought a coolsat 6000 on ebay and a 36" dish with a linear lnb from 3abn. Set it up and locked on to 123w on the first try. Of course, I found all the info. I needed on satelliteguys.

 

[schlever]

Had a BUD on the farm as a kid. Got back into a year or so ago when I got a house of my own.

 

[mred]

I've been aware of FTA for a long time. In the late 80s/early 90s, my dad worked at a place that had a BUD, and we once spent a Saturday there watching a backhaul of a crucial college football game. In the late 90s/early 00s while in college I worked part-time at a distance education facility, and I often saw wildfeeds of local newspeople on location (I remember one doing impressions of the anchors while waiting around).

I'd been thinking about getting a system for a few years (reading this site and Lyngsat on occasion), but never got around to it. Last year, a member here who happens to live relatively nearby put up a ku dish/lnb and fta receiver for sale. It was a good price and no shipping necessary (always good for dishes) so I jumped on it. I ordered a motor and put up the system last summer/fall, and I haven't looked back.

 

[shultz]

I first got into fta alittle over 3yrs ago, after i finally had enough of Comcast's bs and switched to E*. I had a problem with one of E's receivers at the time, and after doin a google to see what that problem might be, i found this site. I read, and read, till the boss finally told me "why don't you try something like that", so i did! Now i got dishes popping up all over the place

 

[SatPhreak]

A few years ago I installed a Bell dish for a friend and he gave me the old Starchoice dish that came with his house. Since I used to have c band before and knew about feeds, I started to wonder what I could pick up with this new dish. I did a search and found that with a bell ird and a proper dish aimed at 97 that a few channels would show up on the ird. After verifying that 5 or 6 channels came in (including one that was mostly english), I then ordered a pansat 2500a to get the rest of the channels on 97 and found a used 30" dish so I could aim at other sats. I kept the SC dish on 97 and 101 and used the 30" for aiming at any other sats to see what was on.

Then I got a motor for quick sat changes.

Then I got a new receiver.

Then I got a larger dish.

Then I realized that I was addicted.

 

[JAS]

I got into FTA back in the late eighties or early nineties. I had an old motor home, a 1972 Dodge Travco. Was on my way to Texas for vacation. Every year I went to Texas but took a different route just to see the Western part of the country. That year I had started out from The San Francisco Bay area over to Reno then took Hwy 50 (the loneliest highway in the US) Picked up 93 South along the Nevada Utah border and down to a rest stop just outside of Pioche, Nevada, Sitting there at one of the rest stop tables (there were only two tables and a portable potty at this rest stop) were two old cowboys. They had a 5' dish sitting in the back of their pickup truck, a generator running and were watching TV. This was all to my amazement because I didn't even know what satellite TV was back then.

I just had to go talk to them. I thought they might be spy's or something. You know end of cold war and all. I got over there and they were watching Dr. Gene Scott! I knew who he was because he was on my cable at home. Can you imagine two crusty old cowboys sitting in the middle of nowhere watching Dr. Scott on TV. I ask them all about their setup and was told that they rented the setup when they were going on a cattle drive. I asked "How do you put that on a horse?" and was told they put it in a wagon. They looked at me like I was some kind of ignorant fool. I guess I really was because these two cowboys knew all about satellite TV and me the electronic and computer whiz didn't even know what it was. They told me that the dish was really to small but it could receive the stronger C band satellites and great for KU band but not much was on KU band. So after explaining C and KU bands to me. Leo started flipping through the channels while hollering "Bob move the dish a little more to your right". Wound up on G4 where a movie was playing. I asked if free movies were on there all the time and was told no this was a back haul. Stumped again I asked what's a back haul. They explained back hauls and wild feeds to me. I thought "no doubt about it! I got to have one of these".

I asked how long are you guys going to be around here. Bob told me that the cattle drive did not start for two weeks. Leo said they were going to hang around the Echo Canyon State Recreation Area, do some prospecting and watch TV until they had to meet up in Elko for the cattle drive. I ask where they would be in say 8 days because I want to come back and learn more about satellite TV and all the free stuff (FTA) they were getting off satellite. So they told me that they would meet me at this same rest stop if I was serious. Serious as a heart attack, I responded. So with a set date I continued on my trip.

Got to Texas and did a downright shameful thing. I lied to my parents. Told them I could only stay a few days because I had to get back to work early. Actually, I only stayed two days. It was two and a half days from the rest stop to my folks house and the same back. That was 7 days total. two and one half there two visiting two and one half back. I could have stayed and visited another day but I didn't want to be late.

Stayed with Bob and Leo until they had to leave for the drive. Learned a lot from those old cowboys. Even learned why they were watching Dr. Scott. I thought they were religious. Could have been, but they were watching and waiting for the clips where Dr. Scott walk, roller skate or rode bicycles with them young women in short shorts and tight T-shirts.

When I got home I found a place and ordered a 12' Orbitron dish ( figured if them women looked that good on the cowboy's 5' dish it'll be great on a 12'er.) a Uniden UST 4500, you old timers know UST stands for Usually Solder Twice, feed horn and LNB's both C and KU.

Somewhere along the way I bought a 922 4DTV box and subscribed to some programming. I had been using my setup for wild feeds and back hauls up until two or three years ago when everything started going digital and the few programs I did subscribe to were no longer available as Ala Cart. Just started watching over the air local programming until a few weeks ago when my County Commissioners decided the county could not afford to update their TV retransmission towers to HD. So, where I live will have no over the air transmission in a few weeks.

Then at a yard sale awhile back I found a Twinhan 102g and a Pansat 3500S for $50.00. I talked them down to $30.00. And back on my way to FTA again. I have spent the last few weeks reading, reading, relearning things I already knew and learning new things too.

This is my second start in FTA. What goes around comes around I guess.

The biggest and most important thing I learned from the crusty old cowboys is:

No matter how intelligent you think you are. No matter how ignorant you think someone else is. You can learn something new from anyone.


Jas

 

[Mikhel]

I don't know if those old days of BUDs count as FTA (i think it does ), but I surely was really happy when in 1985 my dad bought a C-Band Parabolic Dish, in those years it was really expensive, in the order of various thousands of dollars, i was 8 at the time and it was my birthday present, but of course my dad was the one into it, and still is at the moment. Our first LNA was a Monterey (i guess that is what it was called), then a Chaparral a couple of years later when the first one went bad, and upgraded to a Gardiner because of the low noise on a 6 feet dish (a whooping 32ºK LOL... by the way I still keep it in my storage room), and our first receiver was a Toky, with it's bunny logo (that one i gave it away), and later a Uniden which still works.

Back in 1985 there was only one channel in the city i am from (Ensenada in Baja California in Mexico, about 2 hours south of San Diego California), and we were always 'glued' to the radio listening to baseball games, man it was great to watch the Yankees live in a game other than a World Series Game.

The years passed and the amount of feeds were scarce, so we decided to install DirecTV via an aunt in LA, I think a lot of people in Mexico did that back then because we can't legally subscribe, the account was at her name, but when an uncle gave me his 'old' Pansat 2500a a couple of years ago, it was then that I 'discovered' FTA as we now know it... and we cancelled the directv system.

I get a kick everytime we find a new feed, or a Yankees game during the regular season... and by WE i mean my dad and me, who still to this very day we spend a lot of time together enjoying what we can find. And I guess that's what sometimes makes me wonder what drives people to steal the signal from Dish and direc tv, the mere fact that i grew up with almost nothing to watch, then having a lot of free channels in C-Band, and even now, with the SatMex satellites having over 80 channels, something 'good' has to be on tv on at least one channel.

Still.. the pure joy of having my old man when i decided to experiment with the pansat and our really old Chaparral LNBF on a 10 feet BUD (circa 1992-1994), and having to learn by trial and error, later i found satelliteguys and a couple of other sites with a lot of info regarding wich transponders to look for and so on... it has been a blast.

Now... i've been looking for dual output C-Band lnbf's to further my 'experiments'.

Cheers...

Mike

 

[Tron]

I've been into film and video technologies since I was 10, and once I was in my teens, I started hanging around local television studios to get to know 'the man behind the curtain' and how broadcast facilities worked. I was first exposed to FTA back in the late 80s, when I was in Master Control at WGNO-TV. The engineer was videotaping a live satellite feed of the Pan-Am flight 103 bombing onto 1" analog videotape. The raw video was like nothing I'd ever seen before (and a lot of it was like nothing I want to see again), so I asked him what the source was. He showed me their rack of satellite receivers, which, at the time, where all analog. We started talking about satellite reception, and he noted that news feeds were available to anyone with a dish and receiver (they were unencrypted). So, I started collecting C-Band equipment (LNAs, LNBs, feedhorns, and even an old analog receiver), but never managed to put any of it together in a functioning system.

I was re-introduced to satellite TV in 2005, when a friend told me about pirate 'FTA.' I always knew Dish and DirecTV were up there, but I figured all the free stuff and news feeds had disappeared long ago. I started to do research, and that is when I discovered that there were plenty of free channels up there for viewing without resorting to hacking. I purchased a used Channel Master 1 meter to get started, and the rest is history

 

[avg1joe]

I love looking through the classified ads. When I was a kid I would see ads for free C-band dishes but could never convince my folks to get one. Over the years I've periodically read about the channels and feeds available with a big dish. Many years later I stumbled upon KU-band information and realized you didn't need a huge dish to get started. Not long after I found satellite guys which has been a wealth of information as I set up my first system.

I still don't have a place where I can put a big dish though.

 

[ussexplroer]

I was working at HP in boise idaho when I remebered

I was working at HP in boise idaho when I remebered about the big c-band dishes when I was a kid. Going to friends houses and scanning through the large amount of channels. Compared to the town local cable company. This would have been in late 80's or early 90's. So I was sitting at work one nigh while running tests and decided to check out if there was anything new. I did my dishnetwork and direct tv thing. More loyal to dish network but at that time didn't have anything. I was amazed to find out about DVB being a standard like dish network. That types of receivers and a interesting history on a site about the first black/gray boxes for you know what. I was amazed on how in foreign countries tv was good, free and all you had to do is purchase boxes. I must have looked and read several articles on different websites about motors, dishes, lnb's, receivers and different standards. To bad the only thing stopping me was money. Well a few years later and some bucks left over from a tax return. I got a great deal on a satpro's dsr-500 receiver and never looked back. Now with a big dish in storage, motorized ku, several small ku dishes in storage and a few receivers. I'm set for now. Um somebody say HI DEF? lol

Later,

Josh

 

[MikeinBaja]

When I retired and moved full time into a community of mainly retirees, I quickly became the local "sat guy" when they had problems - since I had put up a few DTV & DN dishes over the years for my own use. After all - I work cheap for my neighbors (parts and a 6 pack) and they never need to wait 30 days for me to show.

FTA became a natural next step as I kept dinking around with sat stuff with my newly found spare time and my parts pile grew.

 

[Ramy]

My dad bought a C-Band dish and from there I played with it all the time looking for new channels and live feeds of sports and newscasts.

 

[funkypc]

I had browsed lyngsat before to look at what free channels were available but never found much that seemed worth a 10 ft dish. Then, while browsing, I found this site and came upon the concept of wild feeds, and being able to use a 30" dish for KU. That week I bought a cs5000 on ebay, set it up with my 60e SC dish on 97W, and found JCTV.

 

[hungry1]

I learned about FTA while searching the internet for an alternative for Skyangel DBS, which was, at that time, about to "transition" to IPTV.

 

[jbmiller]

in hawaii we had ota christian tv and thats all i watched. when i came here in wisconsin in 1996 no ota christian tv i went shopping with my wife and i stopped by the magazine rack and there in front of me was orbit magazine
and there i learned about satellite tv. and there i saw tons of christian networks, i hurried and bought the magazine and my wife said go ahead and get one. i found a local satellite installer and there was my 1st c band 7.5 foot kti dish and toshiba receiver. and we were in heaven watching tbn, world harvest cornerstone etc. now i live in an apartment have a glorystar dual lnb ku band system for amc4 and galaxy 19 for my christian tv. be nice to have a dual lnbf bullet for 2 rooms wow that would be alsome.
john

 

[Pismire]

We bought a used 12 foot system when I was a kid. Dad and I installed it and I became more interested in the free feeds than the paid channels we had. Dad liked it too as I always found him a basketball feed. Oh the good ol days. Would love to win these lnb's. I have just the dish for them.

 

[eurosport]

My parents had a C-band system in '88 when they retired here in Florida. 2 years later I moved down here and got my own. We had a sub on the VCIIplus and loved the wildfeeds. After a few years we went to the little-dish system as things were dissapearing from C-band....or so I thought! The BUD sat idle for a couple years until I bought a used Pansat 2500a at the local flea-market and used it with my 1.2m dish. Took a few tries and some research to discover that I needed a linear lnbf on that dish (tried an old dtv lnb at first...duh) Then after some internet research I found out that C-band was still alive and well...just digitally now! I went from one dish to five (2 C and 3 Ku) and I'd love to add these bullet LNBFs to yet more dishes! :up

 

[GreatFTA]

I have heard of FTA for years when I used to get Skyvision catalogs. I was really curious about it. Three years ago I heard from my friend (who installed satellite systems as a side job) about one of his customers wanting to sell his entire system cheap. I went to that person who wanted to sell his system and lo behold, it had the FTA receiver included!!!
I ended up with 4DTV dsr 920 receiver, Pansat 2000v receiver, and a Colorotor feedhorn with C and Ku lnbs.
After I learned the ropes of hooking up the system and setting up the FTA, I really got hooked!
Since then, I got two FTA systems running (one more in the works), a 4DTV system with FTA receiver for C band FTA, 6 FTA receivers (Pansats 2000v, Pansat 2700a, Diamond 8000, Coolsat 8000, Quali-tv QS1080, and Satpro DSR 500), and a Trimax 1100 meter, several Primestar dishs, bunch of lnbs.... :
Plus my Directv subscription system...
GREAT friends on this site... :up
And the sega continues...