Free to Air newbee

[Bulbman2]

I have cancelled my dish service. They do not want their dish back. I am trying to save some money on monthly service and I wonder if the dish network dish will work with a free to air receiver.

I currently have a great uhf antenna cm4228 and a pre amp for local hd service.

I would consider a hd fta receiver if they have built in hd ota tuners

Has there been an increase in fta hd programming?

With all of the above information would you guys suggest the best fta receiver.

Because I am saving $50 a month on dish service I feel I can spend a few bucks on a fta system

thanks


John

 

[Mr Tony]

The Dish dish will get some free channels like NASA, Angel One, the oh so fun Dish 101 channel and the audio channels (CD & Mono) but other than that, to get the normal free to air stuff you would need a 30" dish and a KU Band LNBF. Here is a pretty up to date list of what you can get with a 18" dish or Dish500
http://www.satelliteguys.us/308435-post1.html

The Coolsat 8000 & Pansat 9000 both have HD OTA tuners built in.

 

[techno935]

By the way, do those HD OTA tuners go to the VHF band Ice? We have a few channels down here on VHF that are the HD channel.

 

[Mr Tony]

yes it can. Here in Minneapolis all the HD channels are UHF but you can set the high and low frequencies to scan. I know someone on the board got their HD channels that were VHF with the CS8K

 

[qwert1515]

I found the specifications for the Pansat 9000 at Global CM Pansat 9000 HD and the frequency range for the ATSC tuner is 54 Mhz to 806 Mhz.

That means it covers VHF and UHF.

Also in my experiance with a few ATSC tuners I have not seen a tuner that does not cover the VHF band.