digg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-air more information.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=95214 Use your pc as a dvr with satellite.

This seems pretty cool. Hopefully I'll get the time to set this up.

I don't know too much about this stuff, but aren't most of the channels you get from it kind of crappy?

I don't understand how to do this. Can I get some help? I set up the receiver but I only got like 3 channels. Nasa channel and a couple others.

Eric Wilson

Anyone know what the difference between green and pink means in the table?

do you have to point your dish in a certain direction to get chan's??

We used to get Astra in Germany. Everyone over there seems to use it. They have MTV, Eurosport and other name brand channels. Pretty nice since it was free.

anyone know what format or quailty theses are in?

This links to "Channels from United States" - this doesn't mean the channels can be watched there!

If you want free TV, you should find out what satellites broadcast into your area and then check this site to get a channel list for the satellites you can point your dish to.

@godmode: (who said FTA channels suck)
Depends on what FTA channels you can receive. If you are not limited to one satellite, a motorized satellite setup will give you an amazing selection of channels.

with the right receiver and dish, u can get free dishtv

ask and you shall receive
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/freetoair_fta_free_tv.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

This seems to be a list of the TV that's *from* the USA. There are a few channels here on Satellites that only cover Europe. Hotbird and Astra serve Europe, and can't be seen from the 'states, no matter how big your dish is.

Yes. You can get free to air satellite.
But all the "free" channels suck.

What you're really doing with the equipment is getting the "technically legal" stuff, then going about making it able to decode satellite you would normally have to pay for.

So if you want "Free" tv. This isn't for you. If you want to "steal" tv - then this is for you.

So why pay for satalite?

this is old stuff... been doing this in europe for years.... specially if you are german.. lots of quality channels....

Ive been using a Dreambox receiver for about a year now in the UK for the FTA channels and have around 600 free channels, and around 150 in english.

Actually, you can technically get (steal) most satilite channels. How it works is this: Amost all national/international TV channels (probably not your local access) beam their TV signal up to a satilite, where is bounced back down to your local cable TV company. The problem is this, usually, there is only one channel on that signal. That means that your cable comapany has several dozen satilite dishes, one for each channel. With a satilite dish pointed in the right direction and a decoder box from eBay, you got your channel. Its great, because oftentimes, it is commercial free (commercials are added locally). That means if you watch CNN, you get to see the anchor persons bitch to their assistants/smoke/copulate or whatever they do during commercial breaks. However, you only get the one channel that your dish is pointed to, to change channels, you need a VERY good idea where that particular satilite is, a signal meter, a GPS device, and LOTS of patience.

"Satilite TV" as we often know it (DirectTV, DISH) work by recieving all these separate satilite channels at their headquarters, re-encoding them, and bouncing them up to their own satilites. With DirectTV and DISH, every channel is on the same satilite, so you don't have to move the dish to get a different channel, just decode a different part of the stream.

I Wush I Had The $$$ To Do That

my friend had this in 1980. hardly new technology

May I use my DirecTV dish and receiver for this? Or it is somehow "tweaked" and I should buy another?

Yah, this is pretty *****. Out of that entire list, there are maybe, maybe 7 good stations. 5 of which I can pickup with an antenna made of 5 cents worth of aluminum foil. The other 2? Eh, not worth the equipment/time.

do some web search you can begin to hack them if you really want too. you can pick up satellites from the US, Canada, and even international.

I really need to get some of this equipment and try it out.

You can read more about FTA (and more interesting aspects of it too ;) ) at http://www.curious-contraptions.com

3ABN is also free online.

"About 3ABN
Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN) is the "Mending Broken People Network," a 24-hour Christian television and radio network. 3ABN’s focus is to present programming which will reach people right where they are hurting. 3ABN offers divorce recovery programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, cooking and health programs, stop smoking and weight loss, programs that deal with children and family issues, organic gardening, natural home remedies, gospel music programs, as well as a variety of inspirational themes from the Bible for children and adults."

I have the coolsat receiver and pointing at 91 :)

It's bliss !

I blogged a description of getting Nasa TV from free-to-air quite some time ago. You can find it at:
http://www.broadbandpig.com/archives/2005/07/how_to_receive.html

I can't believe someone actually put this on digg. Satellite companies start acting like the DEA and cracking down and breaking down your door handing out very very high fines(if your lucky) and/or jail time. Use at your own risk. Bliss doesn't last forever.

Most of the channels on that list are off of European or Asian satellites that can't be received in the US.
Most of the "good" channels that can be seen from the US are encrypted, and most of the ones that aren't
are only on C-band (big dish). The number of FTA Ku-band (small dish) channels with regular programming
in the US is quite small, and are typically religious, educational, or foreign language. Lyngsat is the best site for finding what's out there though. The bottom line here is that Europe and Asia get a LOT more good free stuff on satellite than we do, because the broadcasters assume that we've got more disposable income in our pockets, so our eyballs are worth more. IOW, we've got so much money we'll happily pay for the privelege of watching their commercials! Yay! Sadly, they're pretty much right.

Yeah im running my Fortec Lifetime ultra, pointing at currently three birds. Been doing this for 3 years now, and im in shock that this is dug.

But note, that the post made is legal... but the comments people are making are illegal lol

This is old news, but informative for someone who didnt know

Any diggers get this to work lately? I'm interested to know if you've got any of the major channels like CNN? Comments?

Seems like an inordinate amlount of j3bus crap available eh?

The problem is that for the US viewer, there is no service that's similar to what's available in the UK and Europe. In the UK, you have Freeview (30 free television channels, but is a domestic transmission system) and Freesat from Sky (which has 120 channels) for all of 150 pounds (roughly $260). This pays for the dish, the receiver and that's it. There's no other monthly fees for the service, so you can watch what is provided (which admittedly isn't all that great a choice, a lot of shopping and special interest channels). But it does provide all of the BBC and ITV channels, which for most folks is sufficient. With the way the US networks and services have been set up, anyone trying a Freesat-type service would get squashed by all the major players in no time.

Still, it would be nice for those of us in the US who would prefer an alternative to local cable services (or DirectTV).

I really have no experience about it,
but I really want to watch Discovery Channel without paying $30/mo.
Is it possible to watch it with a dish for DirecTV in LA without special skills?
Currently, i have no Cable / Satellite.
Thx!

Sweet, Spongebob in Dutch!!!

not really worth the time nor money if you live in America (north or south) and only have a ku dish (small format ones) but if i had a c based i would for sure look into this, especially if you live in the country and you get like no channels

Back in the 80's, my family had a 6' C band dish. One of my favorite things to watch was, if I remember correctly, Transponder 21 on Telstar 3. The Wold network would transmit a weeks worth of some syndicated shows on the weekend. I really loved being able to get the original Canadian Much Music station years before the US broadcasters got ahold of it , too. Man, there was so much neat stuff on C band back then.

I have been having an FTA receiver for over a few years now. Pansat 2500A and a DVB pci card for my pc twinhan to be exact. They work great right now i receive over 500+ dishnet channels. Its awesome. You can buy them cheap here at freetoairdish.com They do free shipping. And you can get all your info at www.al7bar.tk or i can help you out=)

double plus good

this is ok, all this information is avalible if you get the satilight times, or what satilite TV. I am living in the Uk and have been at this since the D2 mac days, sadly i cant put the 1.5m dish i had on the side of my new flat!

No new information. Old and classic link.

No digg!!!

Here is a slightly better link from the same site. The will take you to a list of all the visible satellites in the US. Click on any one to see what networks are available.

http://www.lyngsat.com/america.html

You can normally get these boxes cheap at http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/main.aspx?p=SearchBody&search=satellite

We've got a direct tv dish from the previous owners, wouldn't we need a hacked card in the box to read the signal? I've got digital cable right now anyway, probably not too much point in going through all that effort to change.

This doesn't relate to sat tv or any mainstream tv. My comment is to share an interesting site that has interviews from authors and thinkers from around the world about all kinds of topics. Such as science, consciousness, healing, conspiracy, drugs, and more. It is all free and good quality. Hope you like, enjoy!

www.bblc.tv

~Ain Soph Aur

i found my guide and files at http://www.bevkeys.com you can catch ANY channel with the right software on most FTA boxes.