FTA and getting started

[Yousaf]

Hi,

I'm new to the whole FTA scene. I reside in Ontario, Canada (I just stated that because I'm not even sure if my location makes a difference in terms of what hardware I need; since I started researching FTA's I'm on information overload).

Here's what I'd like to know. What hardware components do I need? And please.....try to be as specific as possible. I'm not looking for any brand name recommendations (yet). What I am looking for is a list of hardware components.

I know I need :

1) Satellite Receiver (1 for each TV unless I'm mistaken)
2) Satellite dish (Although I'm NOT sure what size I need. Ultimately, I want to be able to receive programming from North America and the India/Pakistan Sub-Continent so what size dish would you recommend?)
3) LNBF (although I'm not sure what this is or what type I need : HELP!)
4) Coax cable to run from the LNBF (I think) to wherever my receivers are.

NOW....I have 3 TV's in my house. I think I might need the following, but I'm not sure so please educate me on the subject if I'm mistaken :

1) A multi-switch / DiseqC Switch (Not sure if these two are the same thing, but I think I need this because I have 3 TV's)
2) An Antenna motor (I guess the type would depend on my dish size, and I'm not even sure which dish size/type I would need)


If you think you can help a newb out, please do.

Thanks!

 

[Woofle]

I will leave more experienced members to comment on the hardware requirements in detail.

As a general recommendation, do a channel survey and a site survey before you buy any hardware. The results of both may impact what hardware you will want to buy.

1. Site survey: You need to find a location to mount the dish which can "see" the southern sky and well to the east and west of south, at least at elevations of 20 degrees and higher. If you can't find a suitable location, it's probably cheaper to pay an installer to do a "site survey" to evaluate your options BEFORE you buy any gear. This is especially true if you're thinking of getting a full-blown multi-set system up front.

2. Channel survey: Check out "The List!" (see tab on this website) and FTAList.com Master Channel List to figure out what channels you might be interested in. You may cross-reference some of these with lyngsat (LyngSat - Lyngemark Satellite) by satellite name and transponder frequency. Sometimes there's a web link to the channel and you can read about it or even stream some video to decide if it's a channel you really want.

Make a list of which satellite(s) and which band(s) (Ku or C) contain channels you want.

If they're on more than one satellite, you may need multiple dishes, a fancy toroidal dish, or a motorized system. Something you'll want to know before you order a system.

If there are channels on C-band that you can't live without, then you're looking at a larger dish, a fancier positioning system, and a bigger investment. Though less expensive than if you go with a Ku-only system and later discover you should have gotten a Ku/C-band system up front.

3. If you're not in a huge hurry to have a multi-set system, try growing your system in stages. Consider starting with a single receiver, a single dish (with or without a motor), and try it out for a couple weeks before building out a multi-set, multi-switch setup. With planning you can continue to use that hardware as part of the full system later.

IMHO the issues are complex enough (and equipment varied enough) that you're wise to make sure everything works together before buying multiple copies of gear. Three copies of the wrong setup can be three timers more expensive to fix.

So just some general thoughts. Feel free to take or leave any or all of it. Free advice is often worth what you paid for it.

 

[Tron]

If you need to feed three receivers, you will need a multiswitch and dual output LNBF (s). Depending on whether you decide on a single motorized or multiple fixed dishes, you could use either a 2 x 4 or a 4 x 4 DirecTV-style multiswitch. Woolfe had good advice above. Decide what you want to watch, figure out where it is in the sky, and we can recommend a setup. Remember that, with a motorized dish, only one receiver will be able to move the dish, and all receivers will only be able to see what is on the one satellite that the dish is pointed at.