If you want to buy from Europe this place has lots of stuff.
[Link: satellitesuperstore.com]

The people who get FTA receivers to steal programming don't even realize what is out there in the clear. I have been using FTA satellite for over 6 1/2 years now and I have found lots of stuff that I can't get on the 2 pay services I have subscriptions for. I have 4DTV and Direct TV but I watch FTA stuff more than anything, Live breaking news feeds are great when something big is happening.

The primary reason I started this topic was because the vast majority of the FTA trunk-slammers in this city simply don't know anything beyond what is required to cheat the paid-for subscribers. If you ask them about linear vs circular polarisation or Galaxy10R you just get a blank stare.

Thanks WayneB for the website link , at least preliminary it seems very good to me. Your are right donnyjaguar , they seem to know nothing about the true FTA world. I was not expecting that , but I could be a naive person , lol lol lol.

It looks like Bell ExpressVu is moving to a new encryption scheme to thwart the satellite pirates. This will mean some low-cost FTA receivers on the market for us "true FTA" types. :) :) :)

That's true. I remember the last time a change occurred in the encryption back in 2004/05, Digiwave ended up selling a 33" dish and a Twinhan DVB card (or Starbox, I can't remember) together as a package for $70. When things settled out again the price went back up to around $120 for the very same equipment.

I'm in the market for a dish bigger than my current 33" and a dish motor. They are pretty cheap anyway, but I'll wait 'til prices drop. :) Yes, I'm sure some clever cloggs will find a way to hack this new Nagra3 system but I think these things generally take several months and involve turfing current equipment.

Which satellite(s) can't you get with the 33" dish? IIRC, the old Galaxy 10 transponders were the weakest in the sky and they could be received with a 33" dish in the GTA.

Scroll back and you'll see the issue with Galaxy18 (which replaced Galaxy10R). The bigger dish should resolve the problem alright. Fingers crossed! I picked it up at AA-E Electronics last night for 39$ and that included the linear LNB. This is the best deal I've seen.

I didn't know that interference from transponder on another satellite could be fixed with a larger dish. Or do you think that by having a fixed mounted dish pointing at Galaxy 18 will solve any aiming problems with the motorized dish?

That's a pretty good deal from AA Electronics. Is that the no name dish that they sell?

Several years ago I noticed that their low end no name 33" dishes were the same as the dish Digiwave sold. Those Digiwave dishes (from 2006) had focus and aiming problems, probably because of poor stamping. Things have almost certainly changed since then though.

I have a motorised system and to avoid interference I simply set the Sat position a few 10th of a degree off either way depending on the location of the interfering SAT. But a 90 cm Dish and the bigger the better will make your life easier. Or you can even use DiseqC 1.2 instead of USALS for that particular Sat and FINE MOVE the rotor accordingly.

I read somewhere AMC 21 at 125W has been successfull selling those Ku frecuencies so expect more interference from that bird in the future, most of them data related providers. will see.

Man, I'm having no luck getting the bigger 39" dish aligned to Galaxy18!!! I'll try again tonight if the weather cooperates.

not sure if anyone else answered this for you. British recording engineers record the band from the perspective that you are watching the band i.e high hat on the right. While American engineers record from the perspective that the listener is the drummer i.e hat hat on the left.

Hmmm....Is this because they drive on the left side of the road in the UK? Haha! I'll have to talk to my all-knowing pop-culture/music junkie friend about this as he's well acquainted with engineering practices on both sides of the Atlantic. Full report to follow! In other news, I was able to align my new 39" dish. I discovered two things. The LNB I got with the rig doesn't work; and the signal is no better than my 33" dish. Argh!! The interference from 125W seems to be better, but the "Q" is slightly lower and many channels are still pixelating. Any thoughts appreciated. FWIW, I placed the 33" dish pointed at Galaxy25 and the signals are booming in.

I have a couple of thoughts. I wasn't sure about the idea that a larger dish would help with the interference problem. The larger dish will collect more signal from both satellites, so you might not be any better off. As long as a dish can collect enough signal from the satellite's footprint, getting a larger dish might only help prevent rain fade because of the higher signal level.

The other thought goes back to my question about the brand of the dish. The symptoms you mentioned, pixellation and lower signal quality, also happened to me with the poor quality Digiwave dishes from 2006. The poor stamping led to a spread out signal at the focus point, which lowered the quality and caused pixellation because of the out of focus signal. It's exactly like taking a picture with a camera where the lens is out of focus, the image would be fuzzy. That same fuzziness can result in lower signal quality and a poorer video image.

The lesson I learned after buying a cheap Digiwave dish was that the difference between a $30 dish and a $50 dish is like night and day. The $50 dish can be aimed in minutes, the $30 dish can take an hour or more because of poor focus. The signal quality from the $50 dish can be very high, the signal quality from a $30 dish was often very marginal. A good 33" dish can be much better than a cheap 39 inch dish.

You'll likely get that dish working but you'll probably need to fiddle with the aim of the dish until you find where the signal is best. I found that a good dish would snap to the highest quality signal in no time because there was only one prime focus point. Finding the focus of a bad dish, because it's diffuse, required a lot of time moving the dish around, trying to find the point of highest signal quality.

A larger dish will indeed help with ASI (Adjacent Satellite Interference). Try aiming the Dish to reduce the quality level of the interfering signal. I mean instead of using a strong 123W TP to aim for 123W use an interfering TP from 125W and move east the dish until quality stops jumping or if you use a 125W TP that is not active on 123W then until you loose that signal completely. the goal is to avoid interference instead of maximizing signal quality for all 123W TP's since in the digital world over a certain signal level it either works or not. this are not analog signals.

Only TP 12104 uses the same V polarization on both birds , the rest use opposite polarizations, this helps. Also adjust the polarization accordingly , it helps too.

Be extremely patient. Lower signal levels could be related to current weather conditions. A bigger dish increases the Gain of the antenna system.

I will play with my set up (only 90 cm or 36") this weekend , lets see if now that the leaves are gone I can still get signal from 30W, 22W and 15 W from the current dish location.

BTW as per lyngsat , there are 3 more feed TP's on the new 125W bird. expect more interference in the future then.