# What's available in Portuguese, or any other language?



## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

This is not an uncommon question: My favorite language is X, so what X FTA channels can I get in North America? There are two ways to answer this question:

1. (Easy.) Go to www.ftalist.com and sort the channels by language.

2. (Much more complicated.) Go to the LyngSat Free TV index (http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/index.html) and click on the links that lead you to countries that tend to broadcast in the language you want. As an example, for Portuguese, click Europe, then Portugal.

When you get to LyngSat's "Free TV from (your country)" page, you'll see a list of channels, the satellites they use to broadcast, and the video style, which needs to be DVB for most FTA receivers to decode it. The next step is to see which of those satellites points at North America.

The list of satellites visible from most of North America is here: (http://www.lyngsat.com/america.html). East coast viewers may be able to get some "Atlantic" satellites; west coasters might see some "Asia"/Pacific satellites. You can check the (your country) channels' satellites against this list.

Another, more thorough way to check is to click through one at a time. For example, on the Free TV from Portugal page (http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/Portugal.html), next to RTP Internacional America, click the AMC 4 link. On the AMC 4 page, scroll down to RTP (12169 H). The link on the far right for each transponder shows its footprint; click the North America link to the right of the 12169 listing. That takes you to a page provided by the satellite company showing the signal strengths and area covered by that beam. In this case, North America is thoroughly covered, so this channel should be available.

For another example, start from the Free TV from Brazil page (http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/Brazil.html). Note that most of the channels' satellites are on pink backgrounds, which means you'd need a C-band dish to pick them up. Let's try Canal Auto Desenvolvimento, broadcast on Anik F1 (which has a green background, meaning Ku-band only). Click the Anik F1 link, and you'll see only one active transponder for that satellite. The footprint link for it is labeled "South America". Click that link, and you'll see that anything this side of Panama is out of luck for that channel.

For Portuguese, I'll save you the trouble and let you know that almost all the Brazilian FTA channels are beamed at, well, Brazil. I couldn't find any pointed at North America, and that leaves RTP as the single Portuguese channel currently available for now. Unless someone else points more out to me.

I hope this helps you work out this question. I gotta get back to work on the FTAList update.


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## kenglish (Oct 2, 2004)

There is another site called SatcoDX. If you buy a copy of the Telesatellite International magazine, you receive a key (US only, others get the CD Rom) to download their software and data, which allow a great deal of editing and sorting. You can specify FTA/Scrambled, by band, by location (sats you can see from a particular place), languages, size of your dish, etc.

http://www.tele-satellite.com/eng/


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## zipcom (Oct 14, 2005)

Carload,

Excellent information. Thanks so much. This gives people like me who want to find FTA international programing a place to start!!



> Let's try Canal Auto Desenvolvimento, broadcast on Anik F1 (which has a green background, meaning Ku-band only)


I heard somewhere that you can use an old primestar dish and the correct Ku-band LNB and pick up Ku-band stations, would this work for this particular instance??

thanks,

Kipp


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

First, please recognize that Anik F1 was my example of a satellite you can see, but which isn't pointed at you. From Oregon, no dish would work to pick it up unless it changes its signal footprint.

For the Ku-band Portuguese channel that you *can* get, the Primestar dish ought to work, depending on its size. RTP is a pretty strong signal.

And for kenglish, thanks for suggesting the Tele-Satellite package as an alternative. I recommend the magazine, which is a little pricy but has FTA articles you can't get anywhere else. Personally, I find its satellite channel software to be at least as confusing as LyngSat, but I'm sure its different approach must help some users.


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