Newbie beginner question for Condo installation

[chetanh]

Hi,
I live in a condo and would like to install a FTA satellite dish and a receiver. I am a complete newbie to satellite TV technology. What i know is that i will have to buy a satellite dish which would connect to a receiver which would then connect to your TV in order for you to get eh FTA channels. I also know that if you want to access premium content you have to buy receiver from the service provider and connect that to the satellite. Given this knowledge i have a few questions. Any help will be greatly appreciated:

1) Can one dish point to multiple satellites.
2) In case 1 is true can i have one dish and multiple receivers or can one receiver tune multiple satellites. If its a premium receiver how can i tune FTA channels. I am sure vice versa will not be possible.
3) I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and my apartment does not allow installation of dish on the walls. I have a big solarium in my apartment. so
3a) Can i install the dish in the solarium (can it catch signals through the glass windows)? Cannot keep it open in Canadian winters
3b) Since my apartment is not very big i do not have complete access to open sky. Now if i know the coordinates of the satellite how do i know that the dish can catch the signal from the satellite given the limited direct access I have to the sky through the huge glass windows of my solarium.
3c) I do not want to buy the equipment if the dish will not be able to point to the satellite of my interest.

Thanks for taking the time to reading my long post, waiting for your replies..
Thanks,

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by chetanh

Hi,
I live in a condo and would like to install a FTA satellite dish and a receiver. I am a complete newbie to satellite TV technology. What i know is that i will have to buy a satellite dish which would connect to a receiver which would then connect to your TV in order for you to get eh FTA channels. I also know that if you want to access premium content you have to buy receiver from the service provider and connect that to the satellite. Given this knowledge i have a few questions. Any help will be greatly appreciated:

1) Can one dish point to multiple satellites.

Yes. Either use a motor or a Toroidal dish

Originally Posted by chetanh

2) In case 1 is true can i have one dish and multiple receivers or can one receiver tune multiple satellites. If its a premium receiver how can i tune FTA channels. I am sure vice versa will not be possible.

One receiver to multiple sats has been covered in question 1. Multiple receivers would be best done with a Toroidal dish. FTA = Free To Air so anything the receiver is capable of viewing that is out there unencrypted is free to watch. The problem you run into is "premium" receivers/systems usually are setup differently. Circular lnbf's vs. linear, DCII, etc.

Originally Posted by chetanh

3) I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and my apartment does not allow installation of dish on the walls. I have a big solarium in my apartment. so
3a) Can i install the dish in the solarium (can it catch signals through the glass windows)? Cannot keep it open in Canadian winters

No idea.

Originally Posted by chetanh

3b) Since my apartment is not very big i do not have complete access to open sky. Now if i know the coordinates of the satellite how do i know that the dish can catch the signal from the satellite given the limited direct access I have to the sky through the huge glass windows of my solarium.

About the simplest way I can think of is straight south is equal to your longitude (roughly). Sats are listed by longitude (LyngSat - Lyngemark Satellite) somply move roughly that far from center degree wise and that should tell you what you can see or not.

Originally Posted by chetanh

3c) I do not want to buy the equipment if the dish will not be able to point to the satellite of my interest.

Thanks for taking the time to reading my long post, waiting for your replies..
Thanks,

Understood

[wejones]

Originally Posted by chetanh

3) I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and my apartment does not allow installation of dish on the walls. I have a big solarium in my apartment. so
3a) Can i install the dish in the solarium (can it catch signals through the glass windows)? Cannot keep it open in Canadian winters

I don't think there is any sure way to predict this. Some glass doesn't seem to be as transparent to rf as other glass. I've never tried sat TV indoors, but have tried other frequencies through glass vs through walls, and in my house at least, it seems like it goes through walls easier than through glass. My guess (a complete guess) is that it may have something to do with that high "e" coating or whatever they call it. On the other hand, I get good reception of GPS through my car windows, so that glass seems to transmit pretty well.
But the bottom line is that you can't just assume that because you can see through glass that rf will go through it. I have experimented with putting pieces of plywood in front of one of my dishes, and have found something like 50% absorption or less, but quite a bit of scattering, so the closer the plywood was to the lnbf, the higher the signal. I've never tried that experiment with glass. Might be interesting.

[bill190]

1. You can have one dish on a motor (positioner) which moves it back and forth to aim at different satellites. The dish can be large or small.

You can also have one fixed dish which does not move and has multiple gizmos on the front of the dish (LNB's they are called). These would point at different satellites.

2. Pretty much, you have paid satellite with its own dish and receiver and then FTA satellite with its separate dish and its own receiver. The systems are different and don't mix. There is another paid satellite TV called 4DTV with which you can mix FTA. (Search google.com for 4DTV.)

3a. I don't think you could receive anything through new energy saving glass. Might be able to if old regular glass or plastic glass.

3b. For paid TV, look at other peoples dishes and see what direction they are pointing. This would be the direction you would need for paid TV. For FTA, there are satellites almost anywhere in the sky which have FTA on them. But the satellites you would receive from your limited view may not be what you want. Satellite locations along with channels are at lyngsat.com, use a dish pointing calculator and compass to find the direction each satellite is at from your location.

First, I would call your local paid satellite provider and have them come out to your apartment. See if they can install a dish inside which would work or not. They should be able to tell you.

FTA takes a lot of reading to learn about. Read and study all the following to learn about all this...

Satellites and channels...
lyngsat.com

Satellite location finder...
http://www.geosatfinder.com

All about FTA, dishes, and satellites...
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp2.html

Search google.com for words you do not understand.