FTA (free to Air) Satellite TechnologyFTA (free to Air) Satellite Technology

Free-To-Air (FTA) is a television or radio broadcast, which is unencrypted. Mostly free-to-air programs are multilingual, no translation as specified earlier. Free to air is a technology that transmits satellite signals, which people may receive without need of registration. Mostly, free-to-air channels are broadcasted from worldwide sources and from small producers. FTA satellite programs are transmitted using large satellite dishes C-band or Ku Band, small satellite dishes and you will need a rotor, however, to receive more than one satellite channel. Free-To-Air Satellite Source offers satellite technology for free-to-air TV, and FTA receivers.

This type of programming is satellite signals that are broadcast through out the world that requires no subscription fee from the broadcasters to bring in the channels that operate in this manner. To support the channels by advertising or donations and government bodies to keep them free. Some of the new channels may be planning to charge subscription fees in the future days but they are free now and these channels are not encrypted so they can be received with no need for unscrambling. This type of programming is mainly often MPEG-2 which means Motion Picture Experts Group-2. It is a standard in which the signal is compressed to aid in the transmission. HDTV and DVD use this same compression and are of a very high quality. Most of these transmissions are in the Ku Band frequency range. The Ku band operates between 12 Ghz (Gigahertz) and 14 GHz that permits today’s smaller dishes from 18 inches to 31 inches in diameter. Before the C band the Ku band was the first developed for satellite television, which operated between 3.4 Ghz and 7 Ghz. The first dishes required to pick up these early signals were 20 to 30 feet wide.

The equipment required for this is a receiver and dish that is dedicated only to picking up the free to air signals. If there are other paid programming channels desired a separate dish and receiver is utilized to pick up paid programming such as Dish Network or Direct TV. A computer can also be customized with a PCI card to pick up the FTA signals turning it into the receiver. This PCI card available requires the computer to be a Pentium 500 and have Windows 98SE or higher installed. The reason you can’t use Direct TV or Dish Network dishes and receivers to pick up FTA channels at the same time on the same system is, Free To Air channels are weaker and require a minimum of a 30” dish and they use a different LNB or LNBF device in the dish itself. Paid channel dishes are normally 18 inches to 20 inches. The receivers are also different and paid channel receivers can’t pick up the FTA channels. An LNBF is a Low Noise Block with an integrated feedhorn. After the signal is bounced off the dish it goes into the LNBF that amplifies the signal. Dual LNBF is for two television sets, For the FTA setup you should decide if you want a stationary dish or a motorized one. The motorized one will allow you to pick up many satellites giving maximum amount of channels.