How to Get Satellite TV Free

Almost everyone is familiar with Dish Network and DirecTV. These two enormous successful firms sell paid satellite tv to over twenty million Americans.

Both of these firms offer an incredible selection of programming with an amazing level of convenience for the average viewer.

What fewer people know is that many channels of quality satellite television programming are available at no cost to individuals with the proper equipment.

This programming includes channels such as:

ABC News Now America One Bloomberg TV Bluegrass Music CNBC CNN The Documentary Channel Faith TV IRS Satellite Network KPBI (Fox Fayetville) KQUP (UPN 24) The Outdoor Channel

These channels are encoded using DVB, NTSC, or PAL.

You can legally receive these channels without any type of subscription. These channels are known as free to air channels.

What You Need to Receive Free Satellite TV

Most free to air programming is broadcast on the Ku Band. Ku Band signals can be received with a satellite dish as small as eighteen inches across.

Some free to air programming is still broadcast on the older C Band. C Band reception requires a dish at least six feet across.

Your satellite dish will need to be equipped with an LNB (Low Noise Block) which is designed for use with free to air satellite signals.

If you want to receive channels from more than one satellite, you will also need a small motor for your satellite dish.

To control all of this gear, you will need a free to air satellite receiver.

Pros and Cons of Free Satellite TV

Free-to-Air satellite TV is much more difficult to setup and maintain than DirecTV or Dish Network. On the other hand, free-to-air satellite is considerably less expensive than paid satellite tv.

Dish Network and DirecTV offer the most popular channels available anywhere. On the other hand, free-to-air satellite television also gives you access to a wide variety of specialized programming which is not available on paid satellite tv networks.

The right satellite tv solution for you depends on what you want to watch on your TV. And if you have room for two satellite dishes, you can have both!

Will Spencer is the webmaster of The Tech FAQ, Fort Liberty, and Be a Private Investigator

My search for reality in TV revealed satellite TV and TV's future, now.

I never dreamed of TV becoming amazing again - I was the guy with 12 o'clock blinking green on his VCR. Yes, I said VCR. So getting the hang of today's TV wasn't a piece of cake.

Recently, during an emergency replace-ectomy of my dying Zenith behemoth, I realized I was in deep trouble. Never mind DVD. Who knew of progressive scan or digital convergence, aspect ratios, digital comb filters, anti-glare coatings and so many lines of resolution? I knew about a tv satellite dish, but...

This was a long way from the TV I was nurtured on?

I remember seeing Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show gyrating inside a black & white-glass-globe-picture-tube about as small as the window on a front-load washer. ...Man did the warm glow of that box-at-the-end-of-a-wire get me excited.

Oh, I watched plenty alright! And you know what? I can't ever remember complaining about getting up from the couch to change the channel... or to adjust the antenna. Then again, Wagon Train on a 19 inch "color set" was as good as it got for a while.

I lost track of television's high technologies after that I suppose. I saw TVs getting bigger and I did get hip to cable and the remote control - but distracted by life and a million other things - today's satellite TV and the whole awesome new experience almost passed me by.

It wasn't until my first trip to a home-electronics super-store - to replace a dinosaur, 25 inch Zenith color console in a polished-wood-cabinet that matched our living-room furniture long ago - that I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore... but rather, lost.

Lost in a new-world-unknown.

A world where I discovered satellite tv on flat screens square and wide and thin plasmas that hung on the wall. Flat-panel LCDs framed in silver and perched upon slender, tilting pedestals.There were TVs that connect to your computer and one giant-screen, rear-projector that eats digital camera's memory-sticks and can show your photos of grandma on vacation fleecing the casinos - in larger than life - and surround sound.

Oh, TVs are still getting bigger, alright. But now they're also amazing again and I'm excited. And with that "excitement and amazement", comes downright confusion. How do they do that? What of "all this" is right for me?

I like the idea of a tv satellite dish on my roof, but it's a new-tech jungle out there my friend. Prepare if you too are from Kansas.

Those links above will help you get a clue about "what's out there" before you buy "what could become" the most incredible entertainment experience you and your living room - and Elvis could ever dream-up. And for a far better price than you might be thinking.

Keep your eyes on the Planet and I'll fill you in soon on why I don't leave my house anymore.

Danny Planet is author of Danny's Planet, the hippest free zine out there, hundreds of articles, web pages, radio commercials and celebrity ghost scrawling. To see what Danny's up to, visit him at Satellite TV and get your seat on Danny's Planet Ark

How a Satellite TV Antenna Works

Practically all broadcast systems use antennas to transmit and receive radio signals. These antennas are based on single metal pole to which the carrier signal is sent through a cable. First lets talk about how this most simple type of antenna works:

Pole Antenna

A Pole antenna basically consists of one metal pole that transmits it signals around it as if it was the center of a sphere. In all directions the transmitted signal has the same power. The length of the antenna is determined by the frequency of the transmitted signal.

Radio waves, like light waves, always travel at the same speed, which is about 186.000 miles (300.000 km) per second. One wave length is determined by the frequency of the signal by the following formula:

Wavelength = speed of light / frequency

This results in higher frequencies having shorter wavelengths. A pole antenna doesnt have to have the length of a complete antenna but can also have a length of about , 1/8, or 1/16 of the wave length. This is done mostly for practical purposes (shorter antennas). Wave lengths for pole antennas can go as high as 1 to 2 Giga Hertz. A cell phone for instance works at frequencies of 950 Mega Hertz which is almost 1 Giga Hertz.

Satellite TV or Parabolic Antenna

A satellite TV Antenna or parabolic antenna works on the same principle. The frequencies used by satellite transmissions are of much higher frequencies; 2 Giga Hertz or higher. Wavelengths get so short at these frequencies that it is not possible anymore to transmit using a pole antenna and transmit in all directions. The power needed would be very high because high frequencies are subject to much more resistance from the atmosphere.

Bundling all the transmitted power into a beam improves the power transmitted in one direction by a huge factor. Depending on the distance between the transmitter and the receiver the amplification compared to a normal pole antenna can be as high as 40 to 50 dB (which is as much as 10.000 to 100.000 times amplification).

In reality the beam is not completely straight, but gets wider over the distance. The angle is small, but in case of an antenna on a satellite that transmits all over the USA the angle is actually a little bigger so that the whole USA is covered.

The antenna at your roof or in your garden is pointed at the satellite and receives the signal and does the same thing; it bundles the radio waves into a point, thus amplifying the radio signal with 40 to 50 dB. (see illustration below).

Amplification in the whole path is extremely big. The transmitting antenna amplifies, the receiving antenna amplifies, the transmitter it self amplifies, and the receiver itself also amplifies the signal. A total amplification of over 120 dB (over 1.000.000.000.000 times) is necessary because the atmosphere and also the long distance just decrease the signal power a lot.

By Gary Davis
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Webmasters: You may reprint this article in its entirety, providing you leave the Byline and About the Author sections intact, including the links to Dish Network Satellite TV.

Gary Davis is the owner of Dish Network Satellite TV, has several years experience in the Satellite TV Industry and has written numerous articles about satellite TV.

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