Who needs the MSM to get the news? Nobody! Free To Air Satellite

Who needs the MSM to get the news? Nobody!

In this thread, I'll cover a subject that no media outlet or broadcasting company who sells what you watch has, or ever will advertise. FREE TO AIR satellite TV.

The reason this is being posted in the survival forums, is because it can actually be part of your bug out kit, or part of your daily life. You don't need cable companies, or wires, or monthly fees to see important news...period.

I know just how insatiable an appetite ATS'ers have for news. We want it now, and we want the whole story.

With just a couple things, you can actually watch live news-feeds as they're being transmitted to your local stations, straight from news vans and other sources. These signals are unencrypted, totally free, and absolutely legal to watch...period.

As well as live feeds, you can get news from all over the world, in hundreds of languages...again, for free. Want everybody's (usually bias) view of world events, and both sides of any story? Well now you can have it, all for the cost of the equipment.

Aljazeera, PressTV, Russia Today, and thousands upon thousands of other channels are available to watch for free, not just what your local cable company or dish outfit wants to sell you.

Today, for instance, (9-12-09) there's a huge gathering (of Tea Party patriots) in Washington D.C. All afternoon I've been watching it live, from the podium and can hear all of the speeches and see the crowds in real time. Most of the corporately controlled media hardly even gives it a mention, yet I'm watching it as if I was there.

Here is a short story of my first FTA experiences, and a few other examples of what you can expect to see. Further on, I'll list exactly what you need to get the most out of your FTA box.

About 10 years ago, a friend of mine was doing a remodel for a man and his wife who happened to be DEA agents. Along with remodeling their home, they were also upgrading their satellite system. Somehow they got to talking about computers and my friend mentioned that he knew a computer nut...(me).

The agent says, “Here, give this to your buddy, he'll know what to do with it.” What he gave him, was a 30” solid satellite dish and an old school universal satellite receiver. The truth is I had no idea, so I got on the net and learned how to use it. I also had no idea such a thing even existed, and thought you had to have a “Dish Network” or “Direct TV” type receiver, as well as a paid subscription.

The box he gave me didn't have the capability to blindly scan a satellite, so you had to have all the frequencies of the transponders and channels that were being broadcast, so it was kind of a pain in the butt to use, but hey, it worked!

The first time I got it going, I got a list of transponders and channels from a website, got my dish pointed at the right satellite, and BAM, I was watching a live feed on my TV! Man, was I exited... I just LOVE gadgets!

The very first picture I ever got was Rush Limbaugh sitting at a table, with a big fat stogy hanging out of his mouth. (Easy Dems, I'm just telling you how it went) He realized that they were about to go on air, so he chucked it as fast as he could. Now I was really happy, this was too cool.

I decided to check the next channel, and the camera was pointed at the guy interviewing Rush. Then I checked the third channel, which had both Rush and his interviewer in the shot. A fourth had a wider shot and you could see them as well as the golf course their table was setup at.

A couple days later, the Grammys were going on, and just like the Rush interview, each camera had its own feed and channel. One camera appeared as if someone set it on a chair, half crooked, still transmitting with full audio. I caught several more live feeds and I was hooked!

Since then, I invested in a motor for my dish and a new satellite receiver, so now I can “blind” scan any satellite my dish can see from the comfort of my couch, with the remote, without having to know all the frequencies. The motor gets its power straight from the box via the coax, so there's no need to install any sort of electrical whatsoever at your dish.

Here are the things you need:

1.An FTA receiver:
You can Google “FTA receivers” and get lots of information on them, as well as local vendor information from their websites. They typically cost between $150-$250 and can be purchased on-line as well.

2.A 30” satellite dish:
I'm still using the one I was given, but I think they can be purchased new for under $100, check your local satellite shop.

3. A low band (10750) LNB
Dish Network, Direct TV and other subscription types use a 11250 LNB, and many types and configurations are available. (dual, quad etc.) For the most part, you only need a single, low band (10750) LNB and I'm sure those are available for under $50.

4.A Motor (optional)
The nice thing about having a motor, is that you can scan many satellites without manually adjusting your dish. They're all positioned along an arc, and once you have your dish pointed and tuned in, that's it, you're done and rarely, if ever, will you have to readjust your dish. I purchased my HH (Horizon to Horizon) motor for about $100.00.

That's it, thousands of channels with no monthly fees.

Sure it may cost a few bucks to get setup initially, but just look at the prices of today's subscription cable and satellite.

Here are a couple examples of more recent events:

The Israel – Palestine conflict: Live unedited footage complete with jump right out of your seat camera shaking explosion audio.

The L.A. Fires: Live helicopter and ground footage as well as live cameras from the command posts. The cameras were running 24/7 and would only shut down when they went to refuel.

Car Chases: You get to watch the whole chase and not just the crash at the end.

Natural Disasters: Any time there's a hurricane, earthquake, or tornado etc., there's usually a live feed as soon as crews can get to those areas.

Live and recorded news as it's being sent to the studios for editing: Basically any time a news crew in a news van has footage to upload or is broadcasting live.

The list goes on and on, and the cameras put you right where the action is. It's funny sometimes to see how the reporters act like normal people, swearing and doing their makeup etc. while waiting to do their live pieces. It really is like being there.

As I type this, looking through the feeds, I'm watching Obama trot down the steps from Air Force One, on his way to the presidential helicopter. You really never know what you're going to get, and there's no programming guide.

The key to catching all the new stories, is to do a “blind” scan of satellites known to carry news feeds at the top of a news hour, as well as a scan whenever you know there's a newsworthy event happening. A good site to get information on what satellites are carrying news-feeds is lyngsat.com.

If you decide this kind of thing is for you and need help getting your dish pointed in the right direction, feel free to U2U me. If any interest is shown, maybe I can jot down a few tips. With a compass and a little patience, it really is no big deal.

Again, we're not talking about “black boxes”, stealing cable, or anything illegal. If you want local MSM news, PPV movies, or over-priced sheeple programming, get a subscription.
(Just letting you know it's out there.)

Obviously, Ham Radio setups and the like would also prove extremely valuable in a bug-out situation, and we all know who is in charge of keeping communications satellites where they're supposed to be, but you never know. My “umbrella stand” will be going wherever I do.

Peace

I would have no clue how to do this but for those who do, this is a great contribution and I thank you on their behalf.

sign me up

i wonder if this would work in Alaska? we don't get much for satellite TV even threw dish or what not.

That's really interesting and i wasn't even aware that this was possible. Thank you for sharing this bit of knowledge, it could definitely come in handy.

We've all heard about how to get free cable, but live feeds from satellites is a whole other story.

reply to post by lernmore


Free To Air is 100% legal unlike the so called free cable. I have been doing this for 10 years and I have approximate 100 channels. A 39” motorized dish with White Springs TV on 129w (free movies) with no commercials, yes life is good.

Wild feeds for ABC, NBC etc and seen them before they edit them for content for the reals new you will not be watching the US channels for sure.

Truman

I'm definately gonna try it. Nothing like new projects to keep me busy.Thanks

Just did a quick search and this stuff is very afordable.Here's one site I came across.

GOsatelite.com

[edit on 12/9/2009 by Revealation]

What if you already have a satellite dish and service? Can you still get f2a? How hard would it be to set up then?

Originally posted by Alaskan Man
sign me up

i wonder if this would work in Alaska? we don't get much for satellite TV even threw dish or what not.

I'm guessing it would, as long as you have a good view of the southern sky. It seemed to be working fine in Washington State. The satellites were, however, a little bit lower in the sky than they were when I was in California, as they're basically in an east-west arc with your southern most “bird” (from your position) the highest point along it.

You may want to check on the net though, or call your local satellite dealer and ask them which birds can be seen from such a northern latitude. Many of the good news feeds are currently coming through Galaxy4 (99 deg W). I'm guessing it can still be seen above the horizon from Alaska. (assuming you don't have a huge mountain off to your SE)

Originally posted by radio_for_peace
What if you already have a satellite dish and service? Can you still get f2a? How hard would it be to set up then?

Most satellite services (Dish Network, Direct TV) use a high band (11250) LNB (the device that catches the signals bouncing off your dish), and an 18” dish. Generally you're going to need a 30” or larger dish and a low band (10750) LNB.

Also, the receivers that they send you with your service are usually proprietary as well, meaning they don't have the capability to use other LNBs or scan satellites etc., and aren't very versatile as far as “antenna” (dish) setups.

They really don't want you knowing that other satellites exist out there other than the ones they charge you to use.

Unfortunately, the only thing you can use from one of those subscription systems is your coax cable and your TV (unless the receiver you have has options for using other LNBs, and is programmable. I'm just not familiar with the options on those boxes).

The link posted by Revealation above has receivers as low as $129.00, so it's really not that expensive to get started, and second hand systems can sometimes be found even cheaper on Ebay or Craigslist etc.

My systems are several years old and still work great. The key is to make sure, whatever system you get, it has the capability to do “blind” scans so you don't have to manually program in transponder frequencies. All of the newer FTA boxes basically have this feature.

Hope that answers your questions.

Peace

Originally posted by radio_for_peace
What if you already have a satellite dish and service? Can you still get f2a? How hard would it be to set up then?

all you really need is a fta receiver box, and hook it up to your dish. it might be hard because the ***hole in charge *cough* Rupert Murdock *cough* made a security card switch that hasn't been hacked yet. so you might need to get an Ihub for now, with the new box.

reply to post by The Killah29


Actually, it's true, that you can simply hook up a new FTA box to your dish, but most likely you'll only be able to get the NASA channel or any channel that isn't encrypted being fed through the satellite that your subscription company utilizes, without moving your dish.

In some cases, you might be able to use a "smart card" from your subscription company that will enable you to use an FTA box to view their programming. Most new boxes have card slots for this purpose. It depends on who you have your subscription with.
Several dishes can be hooked up to one FTA box using a DiSEqC switch

That said... I also need to offer a WARNING here.

This thread is NOT the place, however, to talk about IKS, Plastic, Nag3 hacks or any of that other ILLEGAL stuff. This thread is only about true, legal FTA TV and news-feeds etc.

Please don't risk getting an otherwise helpful thread tossed into the virtual abyss of trash-can land. I know the site owners here don't want anything to do with that legal headache. I'll alert the mods to any such posts myself, and they will be deleted.








[edit on 13-9-2009 by lernmore]

Man I am so glad the O.P. brought this up!

I had forgotten this was the true first satellite TV. I used to work at a sports bar in san antonio (fatsos, if anyone recognizes) and we had about seven of them and they worked off all different sizes. This bar was the most well known secret to the hundreds of fans who were out of there market and out of their mind from not seeing favorite sports teams. We would spend about two hours every day setting up the game plan, what was on, what time and channel. No small task when everything is available. Anyway I always marveled at that because we also had 22 DTV receivers. So we had subscriptions too and regular cable that we paid for and right next to it an untapped source of streams.

Thanks for the reminder I have to get one now.

What are the odds that I get all this hardware, get it to work, then the broadcasts are encrypted?

Why are these broadcasts free and not scrambled?

wow this is an awesome thread. im finishing up some other projects around the house and i think i just found the next one to start. cant wait.

I was looking at the website you posted on what the satellite feed are, and brings up a question where do some of these people get the money from to broadcast this stuff.

I see a bunch of religious channels and stuff, but this is pretty cool I'm going to have to try this out.

wow i'm surprised so many don't know that... it's simply sattelite broadcasting. Whoever runs the sat/tv market in the US with payTV won big time.
In europe with eutelsat & astra you're very well served with a ton of channels. Free of course !

Only reason most don't choose this Tv receiving system is that due to copyrights, some stations do not broadcast via sattelite.

[edit on 13-9-2009 by piett]

reply to post by venividivici


Slim... These feeds are bounced off sats to news orgs all over the world. It is a raw un-edited feed, the editing is done by each org, which is where the copyrights come into play. Also, some sat providers ( white springs ) have realized that combating signal theft is too expensive, and is cracked in a very short time. The money is made on the commercials. I have been doing FTA for years... I got a old Super dish which has both circular and Linar LNB's and a motor, and I can tune into any feed on my horizon...

This is an excellent thread! S&F

I had pondered on this many times in the past. But never really pursued looking into it. The geeky stuff is beyond me. But now that I know how to do it, I'll be setting it up. No doubt.

AWESOME!
I'll bet that if you had the proper conditions, you could pick up on all KINDS of stuff. Kind of a downer though, I'm surrounded by trees in all directions. Heavy foilage. I'll have to figure something out, but I'm going to make it work.

Thanks for bringing the info here!

So who is up to the task of recording some of this news stuff upon seeing something important, like an intentional lie or something like that. How hard would it be to record any of this footage that could be of sppecial interest to our community?

Thanks for this post.
I too had forgotten about this.
I had it once, never thought to use it.
Once went outside and moved the dish around. Found some weird stuff.
But mostly I just watched the enedited "direct" feed from CBC.
My favourite thing to watch at the time and still would be good today:
Hockey Night in Canada.
There's no play by play or commericials on one feed, which is nice. It's like being there with multiple angles and just arena sound feed.
You also can watch Don Cherry Pick his nose before he goes on air and argue with Ron during the commercial time.
Fun stuff...
S&F

reply to post by DYepes


I would think that with the proper gadgetry you could record it quite easily... dvr.about.com...

Or, with some of the newer television sets you can directly link a computer to the television. You could record directly to your hard-drive, I'd think.

I would probably try to use my computer.