Contest - Two Free GEOSATpro SL2 Bullet LNBFs - Enter to Win! Ends 2.2.2009

[Cadsulfide]

Our closest McDonald's is 90 miles away. The local phone company has cable tv, cost us about $500 to have it trenched in, it was awful in terms of both quality and up time. I hated the concept of tiered service that DTV and DN have to offer. I'm technically handy and stumbled into FTA while Googling about two years ago. Bought a Mercury II from Sadoun, and was wowed by what is up there. Up to 10 fixed Ku dishes and 1 c band. I love it, and since the wife can't see the dishes from the house, she is ok with it too. A bullet lnb would be great for squeezing another bird off of one of my 1.2 dishes!

 

[DishDigger]

Me Too

I'll give it a try too. Thanks AV.

I was at work discussing dish aiming with some workmates. I had installed and aimed my own DN system, called DN, and subscribed after giving them all my info. I've helped several people get their systems "tweaked" after time & weather had "re-adjusted" their dishes. One of the guys had borrowed my meter to set his dish and, upon returning it, asked if mine was FTA. I inquired about that, checked on the internet (like some have already done) and asked about the legitimacy of the FTA systems. Being assured it was legal, if installed to be legal, and was offered a receiver for a decent price from a fellow that didn't want to fool with it.: Here I am, enjoying a little FTA and "hooked" on more.
Wanna check my stuff? It's ALL legal & will stay that way, that's why I'm also glad I found this forum and enjoy it so much......

 

[Vacosta]

I was in a small town south of the border where 80% of the houses had C band dishes but only 10% actually used them any more. I got bored and began playing with some old analog receivers and was amazed at all of the programming that was up there. When I came back home, I found out that there was also digital Ku stuff and got hooked. Took me quite a while to finally lock in my first bird but persistance is rewarded very well in this hobby.

 

[jlafount]

Early Days of DirecTv

I couldn't afford a BUD and Directv was an option. I read about FTA and thought maybe that'd be an alternative to an anemic Directv lineup around 2000ish

 

[BabaLouie]

I first learned about the wonderful world of FTA when I was cruising the internet nearly 10 years ago....

 

[rgk]

I stumbled into FTA by accident on the internet and started with a motorized package from Sadoun. My current dish count is 90cm Fortec, 48" winegard, & 10 ft Unimesh. FTA is an inexpensive and addictive hobby.

 

[jayelem]

My family had a C-band dish back in the mid 80's , after moving away minus our BUD and finally getting back into a house in 2001 I started searching the net looking for channel guides for what was currently available unencrypted , shocked about how much had changed since the good old analog days I learned about the free DVB stuff and soon thereafter found SatelliteGuys and the wonderfull world of FTA.

 

[Wescopc]

I was subscribed to Sky Angel for Christian programing, saw a 3ABN advertisement for a KU dish had to try one - then found all of the other programing that was available.
Bob

 

[tvropro]

I would like to be added. I am an old time c bander so FTA was analog ITC years ago. So I have to say the way I was introduced to digital FTA was with all the analog disappearing and going to Mpeg 2, I needed to fill that void and made the upgrade.

 

[yahmon]

I first learned of fta when I saw all these dishes and equipment while on my mail route.

 

[bevshadow]

First learned about FTA from internet

 

[guapoharry]

To Enter: Tell everyone how you first learned about Free To Air Satellite Television and Radio.

I learned about Free To Air Satellite Television and Radio on the Internet. The best guess is: I was looking on eBay and the Internet for TV tuner/capture cards for use with a PC. Then, I discovered DVB PCI cards.

Then, when I searched around for information on this new PC accessory, I saw a reference about "free-to-air digital satellite TV". What is that?

I don't do cable TV. No matter where I lived, somehow the cable companies found a way to p!55 me off. I bought a E* system and installed it myself years ago. Even though I had everything except for movie channels (AT250), often there was still nothing on. This free-to-air satellite sounded like a low cost way to get access to more programming.

I imagine I learned about Sat Guys from a web search. This site was a plus because I could learn about E* and FTA. The eye-patch sites seemed too much like warez sites. Between having the fear of getting a virus from them and hearing about the legal trouble D* pirates got into, getting pay TV for "free" just didn't seem too smart...

 

[equant]

I saw a BUD on freecycle. Didn't know what I'd use it for, but got it. Turns out my friend was a phone-call too late to get the same dish. Even though I "stole" it out from under him, he told me about FTA, and soon after got his own setup. A year later I got rid of cable, and put up the dish. I'm happily watching c-band FTA every day now with a second BUD waiting to go up.

 

[rv1pop]

My first taste of FTA was selling ASR-2000 (Amway!) and Janiel systems (1980 or so). I did not have my own to watch but Hey, money is money. I worked with "The Holy Beamer on the 18 Wheeler"(1986) and then the "Baby Beamers", actually loaning the Seattle Tacoma station a TV camera to use before they got the good ones.
I finally got my own FTA system fromGlorystar, when we started moving around and could not get TBN and Daystar OTA. Now I need to be able to put two Dual LNBF's in the dual holder so I can use one dish for two satellites in 9 rooms.
Thanks, Brian for the design and testing work and getting these out to us.
POP

 

[Cham]

My entry into FTA was after a friend gave me a 10' BUD he didn't want anymore, along with two partially working analog receivers. A few bags of cement later I had a working C-band system and was suprised there were still analog signals out there. A bit more research on the internet I found out about DVB receivers and borrowed one from a fellow ham who had a spare and WOW! I replaced the old feedhorn with a newer dual band unit with Ku which works great. I also added a seperate Ku only dish since a local store had them on sale, and had to motorize it too.

I have a friend that can use LNBs they are just getting into FTA.
Thanx for the great contest!
-C.

 

[stogie5150]

Thanks for the contest Brian!

I guess you could say I was in it all along, I just didn't know it. My parents had a BUD back in the 80's, and it always interested me. Fast forward 30 years later, and with the rising cost of Pay TV, FTA and what we could get free when you count feeds, etc, it was just a natural. Did a little Googling, learned there was a difference between true FTA and hacking, and came across a site called SatelliteGuys with a wild-eyed guy from Minnesota holding court in the FTA section, dispensing information, slaying hackers at every turn. I quickly realized that this was for me!

Plus, as my wife says, it keeps me out of trouble!

 

[Mr Tony]

Tell everyone how you first learned about Free To Air Satellite Television and Radio.

When my dad bought a cabin in Northern Minnesota back in 97 there was a 5 foot Radio Shack C-Band dish and receiver with about 6 months of programming left on it. After that programming went out all we had was one unscrambled channel (TBN) if I remember right. The dish fell in the lake about 3 months later. When they installed the dish they installed it by the lake and years of lake water hitting the shore eroded it away and the dish fell in the lake.

When I first heard about FTA I was subscribing to ExpressVu and at the time the audio channels and radio stations were in the clear. So I bought a "basic" Viacast 2000 receiver that had 10 transponder entry, no motor control, no channel editing capabilities and a quirky way to program it for 60.00 (that was 4 1/2 years ago) to save a few bucks on my ExpressVu bill. I added a 30" dish and an old ExpressVu linear LNB and that opened my eyes up to FTA. I had heard about a bunch of religious & ethnic channels on FTA but didnt know about the others out there. When I first started working with FTA the Equity channels werent on G10 (I think they were at Anik E2 118.7) but were moving there soon. I thought "why would I want multiple network feeds of Pax, UPN and WB when I have them already?"...oh how I was mistaken Got a 2nd dish and fixed that to G10 for those extra channels

and that started the snowball effect

 

[pomernman]

I learned about FTA on the internet looking for some Christian programming when Sky Angel was leaving the satellite market.

 

[Gary Z]

I first learned about FTA back in the 1980's. I could not get cable TV which was only one block away from my house... I then bought a C-band 12 ft Paraclipse. I was amazed I got all the cables channels and then some for free. Then the channels scrambled... so in the year 2003 I got the 3ABN dish to watch 3ABN in KU band.

 

[godfather818]

Hey guys, first of all this is the only and best true FTA site on the web, I love this site learned so much from this site, especially Iceberg's posts and everyone else.

First when I got introduced to FTA was when I went as a guest in my far relative's house. We started watching TV, and I noticed they had 3 or 4 Armenian language channels. This amazed me because at the time I had Dish Network and had only 1 Armenian channel. So I ask them what company it was, they said no company at all. Free! I thought it was a joke at first but later they told me more and I was convinced. Days later, I went online and ordered a 36" Fortec Star dish and Viewsat receiver. It took me 3 days on the roof to install the dish my first time, however it was worth it and thanks to your big help I was able to get my system up and running on 97W. Thanks SatelliteGuys and LONG LIVE FTA!!