Newbie questions

[alkogolik]

Hi Everyone,
I want to get an FTA system and so far I have come up with the following:
M-2 system with a 90cm dish.

I have a few questions:
1. Will the 90cm be enough for the Chicago area? I know that bigger is better. I just want to know if it is sufficient.

2. I have a Dish Network receiver. Can I get it to work with FTA channels if I add another dish? Or is Dish Network completely different?

3. It is hard to figure out the right info on Lyngsat about the programming. The bottom line is: Will I be able to get Russian Channels? Does anyone know of any? I see that there are a few in Europe, but I couldn't find any in the US.

4. C band requires a big dish. Does it mean that it's old technology and I should not worry about it? Our bylaws only allow dishes up to 100cm..
Does it pay to even try to use a dual band LBNF?

5. What does the "blind search" mean? Does it mean that I can just press scan and it finds all the sattelites within the limits of the dish and recognizes the channels?

I appreciate your help.
Alkogolik.

[reho33]

Hello and welcome:

90CM should be OK for your area. I am in NYC area and have the 90 and it performs well.
A Dish network receiver cannot be used for FTA as it will oly receive their programming. A proper FTA receiver is the way to go and Sadoun has several bundles on his site that will work for FTA.

Most Russian channels are on IA-5 satellite at 97 degrees w latitude. The rule of thumb is if it has 4 digits for the frequency (4189 H) that would denote C band and you would need a dish 6-10 feet for proper reception of that. If the frequency is 5 digits (11741V) that is Ku band and a dish 90CM up will be sufficient for that.
C-band is far from "dead". In fact, the most intresting programming can be found on C band but in some cases requires a diffrent type of receiver, like a 4DTV (DSR-922) because the transmission is in Digicipher2 format and the FTA receivers use DVB format.
Blind Scanning is done when you don't have a chart of channels form Lyngsat or Satcodx and want to find "wild" feeds on a transponder. A blind scan is a very useful feature to have and most receivers have the capability. A blind scan will search for "active" transponders on a satellite first and then download the channel list from each transponder and seperate radio from TV. I did a blind scan during the November elections and found a ton of feed channels.
Hope this information helps and again welcome.

[rainman]

Originally Posted by alkogolik

Hi Everyone,
I want to get an FTA system and so far I have come up with the following:
M-2 system with a 90cm dish.

I have a few questions:
1. Will the 90cm be enough for the Chicago area? I know that bigger is better. I just want to know if it is sufficient.

the 90 cm dish should work just fine.

2. I have a Dish Network receiver. Can I get it to work with FTA channels if I add another dish? Or is Dish Network completely different?

no dish receiver for dish network won't do fta.

3. It is hard to figure out the right info on Lyngsat about the programming. The bottom line is: Will I be able to get Russian Channels? Does anyone know of any? I see that there are a few in Europe, but I couldn't find any in the US.

there are some russian channels on IA5.

4. C band requires a big dish. Does it mean that it's old technology and I should not worry about it? Our bylaws only allow dishes up to 100cm..
Does it pay to even try to use a dual band LBNF?

not old technology when use with FTA but you will need a bigger dish than 100cm.

5. What does the "blind search" mean? Does it mean that I can just press scan and it finds all the sattelites within the limits of the dish and recognizes the channels?

when you find a sat it find all of the avaiable transponders for that sat.

I appreciate your help.
Alkogolik.

good luck and enjoy your system.

[rainman]

reho you type faster.LOL

[reho33]

Hope I wasn't too technical?

[rainman]

Originally Posted by reho33

Hope I wasn't too technical?

sounded just fine to me.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by alkogolik

Hi Everyone,
I want to get an FTA system and so far I have come up with the following:
M-2 system with a 90cm dish.

I have a few questions:
1. Will the 90cm be enough for the Chicago area? I know that bigger is better. I just want to know if it is sufficient.

2. I have a Dish Network receiver. Can I get it to work with FTA channels if I add another dish? Or is Dish Network completely different?

3. It is hard to figure out the right info on Lyngsat about the programming. The bottom line is: Will I be able to get Russian Channels? Does anyone know of any? I see that there are a few in Europe, but I couldn't find any in the US.

4. C band requires a big dish. Does it mean that it's old technology and I should not worry about it? Our bylaws only allow dishes up to 100cm..
Does it pay to even try to use a dual band LBNF?

5. What does the "blind search" mean? Does it mean that I can just press scan and it finds all the sattelites within the limits of the dish and recognizes the channels?

I appreciate your help.
Alkogolik.

(1) 90 is enough for Ku.
(2) No, Dishnet receiver won't work. It's not that it is different, it's just that it's not programmed to do non Dishnet DVB. You can get non scrambled Dishnet with a FTA receiver, but you can't get FTA with a dishnet receiver.
(3) You can get Russian language channels. I'd look at the IA5 thread in the new finds section to get more info. I don't know how many there are, but I have seen some.
(4) I think it's a waste of time to try a C/Ku lnbf on a 100CM dish. C-band is NOT "old technology", more like VHF TV vs UHF TV, just a different band. Only thing different is that it takes bigger dishes for C-band.
(5) Blind scan means that once you are aimed at a satellite, it will search and find the transponders. Prior to blind scan, you had to know the frequency and symbol rate of a transponder before you could tune it in. With blind scan, the receiver will find "most" of the signals. Not all. With services like Lyngsat, you can get along without blind scan, but it is nice to be able to search for these things yourself, plus Lyngsat often doesn't have the up to date info, plus many people don't put things in Lyngsat, so often the "good" stuff won't be there. But with blind scan you can find it yourself.

[reho33]

BTW Rainman, I just had my motorized dish installed on the roof of my house. Now I can get everything from 30W to 121W. I also upgraded to the QPH-031 LNBF and I like it very much. 2 polarities in 1 package. Tried to get Telstar 12 at 15w but no go(too low in the sky?) and 123-129 is a no-go either (maybe trees?) I am 41N 74W. Not too concerned as I get plenty of programming as it is. Now on to C band>>>>

[wejones]

Wow. I must type slow. There were no responses, then before I finish a dozen lines, there are 5 responses! Oh well.

[reho33]

That's OK bill. BTW I would like to try for a DSR-4200as I see them on Ebay from time to time. I know that you have directions on your website on how to program them. Is it worth it or should I save my pennies for a DSR-922?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by reho33

That's OK bill. BTW I would like to try for a DSR-4200as I see them on Ebay from time to time. I know that you have directions on your website on how to program them. Is it worth it or should I save my pennies for a DSR-922?

Wow again. Talk about fast typing, and editing. I clicked the quote button on this message when it said "920", then up came the quote, which says "4200". I guess you edited it in the time it took me to hit the quote button.
Anyway, the decision between a 4200 and one of the 4DTVs is mainly a decision about whether you want to subscribe to pay services. You can't get a 4200 authorized (well technically it's possible, but no-one will do it). So you can only receive things that are free, ie FP or ZK. The advantage of a 4200 is that it can tune any frequency and/or SR, whereas with the 4DTVs, you can only tune things that are mapped, or at least that is my understanding, as I don't have a 4DTV (actually, I think you may be able to lock the carrier, but can't change channels).
Right now, there are a reasonable number of DCII subscription channels, but that is getting smaller and smaller, and if the subscription things go away, I'd rather have a 4200. However, my main reason for having a 4200 is for PBS programming, and a good bit of that is going away soon too. So bottom line, I'm not sure that I would recommend anyone to pay much for either a 4DTV OR a 4200, since the future of DCII isn't certain. However if you can get one cheap, it will get a few things for a while.
HOWEVER..... if you get a 4200, make sure it is a 4200V not a 4200b or 4200c. The "V" version gets all the SR rates, while the "b" and "c" versions just get some of the SR values. Unfortunately, most of the 4200s you see on ebay are "b" versions, and the "v" versions go for about 4 times as much.
When I bought my 4200V, it cost me nearly twice what I could have gotten a 4DTV for (both new). But my reason for getting it was completely to get PBS programming, and at that time the 4200 could get significantly more PBS channels than a 4DTV could. Even though the national PBS is leaving DCII, I think some of the local PBS, like Nebraska, Oklahoma, GPTV, LaPTV and others will stay DCII, at least for a while, but probably all will eventually go DVB.

[reho33]

Yes Bill, thanks. I read about that. PBS is going to DVB and dropping DC2 as a transmission format. Wonder if other organizations will follow suit? No I am not going to sub to DC2 programming, just wanted the receiver to get FTA DC2 channels.

[rainman]

Originally Posted by reho33

BTW Rainman, I just had my motorized dish installed on the roof of my house. Now I can get everything from 30W to 121W. I also upgraded to the QPH-031 LNBF and I like it very much. 2 polarities in 1 package. Tried to get Telstar 12 at 15w but no go(too low in the sky?) and 123-129 is a no-go either (maybe trees?) I am 41N 74W. Not too concerned as I get plenty of programming as it is. Now on to C band>>>>

sounds good reho glad to here you are up and running.I am getting ready to upgrade my orbitron dish with a co rotor 2 and a couple of norsat lnb's also got a new 24" acuator arm comming.also still got my Birdveiw HH mount to set up going to use the bsc621-2 on it.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by reho33

Yes Bill, thanks. I read about that. PBS is going to DVB and dropping DC2 as a transmission format. Wonder if other organizations will follow suit? No I am not going to sub to DC2 programming, just wanted the receiver to get FTA DC2 channels.

If you're not subscibing then I think I'd go for one of the commercial receivers. Only problem with the 4200 is that it only can hold one VCT at a time. Like right now, all the national PBS channels on AMC3 are on one VCT, but if I want to tune in say GPTV, even though it's on the same satellite, I have to go through the 50 some steps I listed on my web page to tune the new VCT. Same thing for other VCTs. So it can take a bit of time to switch from one channel to another. Some VCTs have hundreds of channels, others just one or two. With some of the newer commercial units, I think it will hold more than one VCT, however I think you need to know the VCT NUMBER, whereas the 4200 automatically goes to the one you tuned since it only holds one. Another issue is that more and more channels are going to the combo mode that the 4200 doesn't do. I'm not sure what receivers do that.

[reho33]

Thanks for the info Bill. I think I will save my pennies and get a dsr922 instead. The idea of a 6 foot dish that Sadoun sells and the h-h rotor for it really sounds good even though 6 foot is probably the bare min. for c band.
That way I can download the channel maps through c-band and maybe sub the the stuff on KU although that is probably not a real good method.

[elgemcdlf]

My channel maps come down on G1 at roughly 1:30 in the morning.