Yeah, “free” is un-American. “Free” = pinko hippie communism. Subscription EVERYTHING is the American way now.
Pay, pay, pay and pay some more. Pay everyone and pay them frequently, from now to eternity.
Also as stated previously, people are lazy and want instant gratification. No one wants to work to get something free in return.
Also, using the brain causes pain. Twiddling with satellite dishes in the back yard takes away from faceborg time and Candy Crush.
Back in the day, (about 5 years ago) there was Equity and there were a LOT of great FREE channels on FTA. Tons and tons and tons ! It was awesome!
But Equity went boom and died and that really hurt the “hobby” a lot. Mostly I’m into it for PBS, a few news channels on 97, EBRU which is very similar to the BBC in format and content (they also run Doctor Who!)
and the wild feeds.
Another problem is finding quality dishes. MOST of the dishes for sale are flimsy sheet metal from China and they bend and rust easily.
GOOD, high quality dishes like old Primestar, Prodelin and Andrew dishes are pretty hard to find, people covet and hoard them.
C-band dishes are a beast to put up simply because of their size. And they are even harder to find because people scrapped them out by the ton for the past decade or so.
If you can find a brand new one they are cheap, Chinese junk. The price is high and the shipping is outrageous.
You can find them on Craigslist from time to time, sometimes for free, people just want them hauled off or they want a few dollars in scrap value.
The old ones are far better made than the new junk but usually will require and extensive rebuild.
I know because I did exactly that with a 10 foot dish I “inherited” that was in pieces. It took me months to rebuild and repair and repaint it to be like new.
Then you have to dig a very deep hole, like 6 foot deep and put a huge, extremely heavy pole in it and fill it with a ton of cement..
It’s hard, hard work. But you learn how to do something really cool and all your friends will think you are a rocket scientist.
Pay, pay, pay and pay some more. Pay everyone and pay them frequently, from now to eternity.
Also as stated previously, people are lazy and want instant gratification. No one wants to work to get something free in return.
Also, using the brain causes pain. Twiddling with satellite dishes in the back yard takes away from faceborg time and Candy Crush.
Back in the day, (about 5 years ago) there was Equity and there were a LOT of great FREE channels on FTA. Tons and tons and tons ! It was awesome!
But Equity went boom and died and that really hurt the “hobby” a lot. Mostly I’m into it for PBS, a few news channels on 97, EBRU which is very similar to the BBC in format and content (they also run Doctor Who!)
and the wild feeds.
Another problem is finding quality dishes. MOST of the dishes for sale are flimsy sheet metal from China and they bend and rust easily.
GOOD, high quality dishes like old Primestar, Prodelin and Andrew dishes are pretty hard to find, people covet and hoard them.
C-band dishes are a beast to put up simply because of their size. And they are even harder to find because people scrapped them out by the ton for the past decade or so.
If you can find a brand new one they are cheap, Chinese junk. The price is high and the shipping is outrageous.
You can find them on Craigslist from time to time, sometimes for free, people just want them hauled off or they want a few dollars in scrap value.
The old ones are far better made than the new junk but usually will require and extensive rebuild.
I know because I did exactly that with a 10 foot dish I “inherited” that was in pieces. It took me months to rebuild and repair and repaint it to be like new.
Then you have to dig a very deep hole, like 6 foot deep and put a huge, extremely heavy pole in it and fill it with a ton of cement..
It’s hard, hard work. But you learn how to do something really cool and all your friends will think you are a rocket scientist.
