# What are C- Band dishes?



## coltonjared

Are those the big dish rusting away in peoples yards and can you pick up any channels on them now? Can they be used to pick up the 105, 110, and 119 on dish? Thanks


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## dfergie

actually alot were fiberglass and they still get lot of channels... no D*nor E* but first generation...ie dbs is second generation... I believe there are adaptors but...


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## Toklat

Big Dish does not have very many analog free or subscription channels. BUT with a 4DTV setup and subscription there are some very good channels. I just went to that setup as I can not get either Dish or DirectTV at this location.


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## FTA Michael

Depending on the dish, you may be able to add a Ku band LNB.

But there's some FTA stuff on C band. The major Anchorage OTA stations, national NBC and WB feeds, and more. See http://www.global-cm.net/MPEGlistCBandUS.html for the best list, or thumb through the pages at LyngSat.


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## tdti1

coltonjared said:


> Are those the big dish rusting away in peoples yards and can you pick up any channels on them now? Can they be used to pick up the 105, 110, and 119 on dish? Thanks


The big dish is the best system on the market, you get more channels than any other system can possible give you and the price for programming is a lot less, plus the picture and sound quality blow away pizza dish, more info can be had here:
http://satellitetheater.com/C-Band World.htm
www.4dtv.com

Would be best to get a c/ku setup to get everything, and also later on add a DVB unit to get a ton of free programming 

If you want a new system or want help setting up a used one, this is a updated dealer list:
http://onsat.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=bc9b0f57c0bc2c248eee4196c2887061


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## coltonjared

it would be nice to get a c-band dish. what size of dish should i get and what type of receiver should i get to get the FTA channels?


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## Richard King

> price for programming is a lot less,


Actually, this isn't nearly as true as it was a few years ago. Much programming is disappearing or requiring the purchase of a more expensive digital receiver now.



> it would be nice to get a c-band dish. what size of dish should i get


 You are in a good spot being in the middle of the country. Very good pictures can be had there on about a 7.5' dish. Better pictures would be had with a 10' dish.


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## coltonjared

so many people around here got c-band dish laying in there yards so i can get a 10 ft dish for free or at a cheap price but getting a receiver will be harder to find


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## Richard King

I just picked up a used General Instrument 2650 from a customer. It's an older unit with a seperate power supply, but it still works. I have both the receiver and power supply (and a copy of the manual). If you can get yourself a dish for free let me know and I will send you the receiver for the cost of shipping plus packing.
http://www.satellitehelp.com/gi2600r_2650_index.asp


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## coltonjared

how much do you think it will cost so i have the money ready


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## tdti1

Richard King said:


> Actually, this isn't nearly as true as it was a few years ago. Much programming is disappearing or requiring the purchase of a more expensive digital receiver now.
> 
> You are in a good spot being in the middle of the country. Very good pictures can be had there on about a 7.5' dish. Better pictures would be had with a 10' dish.


Well anyone with a big dish should have a 4dtv by now, so yes you will save money on programming with all the free feeds, and so it works out well to spend the money on the 4dtv, NPS has a super good deal on them now that you can't go wrong with, also adding a DVB to the system is just a big bonus.


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## tdti1

coltonjared said:


> how much do you think it will cost so i have the money ready


Best would be to look for a used dish in you area, grab it see if you can get it free, they may even throw in a old IRD, you will be best off buying the 4dtv after you get the dish up and running, and then add a DVB box, it is well worth the money, you can't go wrong.

I would say under $1000.00 and you will have a pimping system 
well this is if you can install on your own.


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## tdti1

Toklat said:


> Big Dish does not have very many analog free or subscription channels. BUT with a 4DTV setup and subscription there are some very good channels. I just went to that setup as I can not get either Dish or DirectTV at this location.


Are you the guy that just bought the 10' I did some research on the dish size for Alaska and was told that you are out of the footprint and would need a 12' 14.5 or even a 16' I do hope the 10' will be good enough, good luck.


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## Richard King

> how much do you think it will cost so i have the money ready


I suspect shipping would run about $45-55 or so. I really don't know for sure. It isn't a light weight receiver though. C-band dishes are NOT an easy installation unless you have experience, no matter what anyone tells you. My first install (a 10' dish at my old house) took a couple days to get in and a few more days to get tweeked to perfection. Of course after I did a few I got quite good at them and could do them in a few hours (a couple a day if I needed to). Think PLUMB pole and you should be ok. I would bet that anyone giving away their dish would also give away their current receiver with it which could save you the shipping bucks.


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## coltonjared

i might be able to get a 4 ft dish or a 6 ft dish


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## tdti1

coltonjared said:


> i might be able to get a 4 ft dish or a 6 ft dish


I would try to get 8.5'-10' bigger being the better choice, anything below 8.5' is not 2 degree compliant and will lead to adjacent satellite interference from neighbouring birds, this will lead to improper reception at the receive site resulting in digital brake up or sparkles on analog feeds or even worst.


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## Richard King

coltonjared said:


> i might be able to get a 4 ft dish or a 6 ft dish


a 4 to 6 foot dish won't work at all for c-band, well, maybe 6' would work for a single satellite, but not a motorized system. Minimum should be 7.5 feet.


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## coltonjared

i might be move outside of my town then i'll get c-band dish then but right now i'll keep looking for one. how big does the c-band dishes get anyway?


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## Richard King

As big as you want them to get or your budget will support. Arthur C. Clarke has a 16' dish. My old dish in Minnesota, before I moved and left it behind, was 10'. The vast majority of what I installed there were 10' dishes with the ocassional 7.5'


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## coltonjared

so big is better?


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## tdti1

coltonjared said:


> i might be move outside of my town then i'll get c-band dish then but right now i'll keep looking for one. how big does the c-band dishes get anyway?


My buddy has a 24' at his bar, and another bar not far from me has a 26', I know a few guys up north from me who have 16' dishes, I myself have a 10' mesh and to be honest would like a 12' solid  but I would not really go under 10' unless it was a must, I can hit the Greek mux on AMC-12 and I can also get AMC-8 I would get HispansatC but my house is in the way.


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## Richard King

Keep in mind that the bigger the dish the more challenging the installation. A 10' dish has a narrower beam than a 7.5' dish meanning that it has to be aimed better than the smaller dish to get good results. The advantage to this though is that you generally have to aim it better which forces you to get a better end result.


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## coltonjared

can I chose what channels I wount to pay for or is it like dish network were chose the package they make?


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## tdti1

coltonjared said:


> can I chose what channels I wount to pay for or is it like dish network were chose the package they make?


There are still a few channels that are a la carte more than any other system, though these channels are analog, once all the analog goes digital they must be packaged, though you may see some that are not, of course the movie channels and all are a la carte always and you do not need any basic programming to be able to order them, also you can just watch the free stuff and subscribe to channels through more than one provider giving you freedom to get the best price, a 4dtv with a DVB slaved is the best you can ask for the two together will provide you with so many free channels that you will not need to buy to many again leading to savings.


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## coltonjared

what is DVB?


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## Tower Guy

coltonjared said:


> what is DVB?


Digital Video Broadcasting. It is common in Europe.


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## FTA Michael

DVB is a standard for compression/decompression of audio/video signals. Common FTA receivers use the standard to decompress the satellites' digital signals into TV shows.


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## lee635

First, I would strongly encourage you to pick up a used system. I paid a guy $100 for a dish, cable, analog receiver and a descrambler with about 3 months subscription remaining. Even with a couple of upgrades and a couple parts replacements, I have spent only about $400 in the 8 or so years I've had a BUD. 

If for no other reason, access to live coverage on 9-11 was just incredible. I spent a couple evenings just watching all these news feeds going to all over the world. The next time there is a major event in the northern hemisphere, you will be able to watch a bunch of live feeds that you can't see on cable or small dish.

DVB is digital c-band or ku-band that is not scrambled, so you can receive it with a dvb (digital) receiver for free. 

The big dishes can be a lot of fun, but I don't live and breathe BUDs, so here's my reality check on the big dish. There are some big drawbacks: You can't get a second receiver and pay $5 a month to watch different stuff on 2 TVs. You would need to pay for a full subscription on the second box.

No one ever mentions this: There is a fat wiring harness that has to be run from the receiver in your house out to the dish. It has about 10 or so wires, including a couple coax cables. You will need to drill a big hole in the wall or open a window or something and you can't easily hide the cables, so you better put the receiver near the place where the cables come into the house. You will have to bury the wires outside or string them up if your dish is away from the house. the dish is big and very heavy. You will need at least one helper to put it up and if you slept through geometry class in high school, it will be tough to to align all the polar axis and stuff.

The dish has to physically move when you want to watch a channel on another satellite and it can take a minute or so to move back and forth. With the small dishes, you can look at 1, 2, 3, or 4 satellites and when you switch channels, it switches immediately. Also, those moving parts need to be checked and they wear out. You will need to tinker with your equipment and dish occasionally, so if you're not a hands-on person, this may not be your hobby. In 8 years, I've had to change out the arm and the lnb and have gone through 2 used receivers. Unless you are rich, you will be buying used equipment which will mostly be pretty cheap, but that stuff can break and so forth, so it would be good to have a spare lnb and an extra receiver and stuff in the garage.

Even if your system is tuned up and getting a great signal strength, the digital channels can be hard to tune in, especially the ku stuff -- don't let anyone downplay this little annoyance. Every time your dish moves, you may find that you occasionally need to manually jog the dish a bit to get the digital channels to come in. And you will find certain digitals are just a bear to tune in. 

Locals are not widely available on c-band. You can subscribe to two packages of locals in analog that includes one major network from a couple of cities. Unless you live in Alaska (see below), you cannot get your area's locals on the big dish. Also, some channels on the small dish simply are not sold on the big dish in analog or digital. Of course, there are also some channels on the big dish that Dish or Direct currently don't offer, so that works both ways.

The good stuff is that there are quite a few free channels especially in the digital area. You can watch the locals from Anchorage Alaska for free as well as a bunch of smaller locals and some individual networks from across the country. You can tune in a lot of free spanish language and some french language programming. You can get a couple free channels in english from canada. If you want foreign language programming from all over the world, there's lots, you can watch a bunch of middle eastern channels for free.

There are lots of free feeds of news, college sports and syndicated programs. Quite a few weekly shows are available free on the big dish. The picture is often spectacular and can beat the small dish hands down. However, if your equipment is a little older or the dish isn't perfectly aligned to the satellite, you can see sparkly stuff all over the picture when viewing an analog channel. That's not a problem with the digital channels, which also look great compared to the small dish. Again most of the free stuff is in digital nowadays.

If you just want to mutzfutz with a big dish, then get a cheap digital receiver. I picked up a used dvb receiver on ebay for under $70 with shipping included. There are more expensive models that tune in automatically and so forth for a higher price. If you are just looking for a simple package of the more popular cable channels, you could still get by with an analog subscription, CNN, MTV, all the pay channels and quite a few others still have some offerings on analog c-band. You'll get Showtime though, not showtime women and all that multiplex stuff. You can still pick a couple of individual analog channels and create a poor-man's cable for a cheap price. One caveat is that analog channels switch to digital without warning. When that happens, you just lose the analog feed. If you go digital, you need to buy a 4dtv receiver for a several hundred dollars. The digital packages are priced a little less than the small dishes. Gone are the days of a big price advantage for the big dish especially on the digital packages.


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## coltonjared

I just found a TRACKER SYSTEM 4 receiver. would this work for fta channels?


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## Richard King

Not for digital FTA. It would receive in the clear analog though.


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## coltonjared

is there a box or something I can hook up to the receiver?


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## jbach

Others have told you how to use C Band dishes to get C band analog and digital channels. And you get great SD pictures that way.

But you seem to want to know if they can be used with the right LNBs to get DISH signals. I still have a C-Band dish etc and had the same question before I signed up for DISH. Theoretically they can. And you would have much less chance of rain fade with all that gain. But there's a problem. You have to move the dish to change satellites. So with DISH programming, there's a big problem. CBand receivers have built in software and signals to reposition the big dish as needed, but DISH receivers don't. And you wouldn't get the guide if you weren't on the right satellite, with no easy way to reposition without a strange kludge.

DISH dishes use multiple LNBs to get more than one satellite and a different little dish shape to maximize the signal. The Cband dish shape can't deal with multiple LNBs.

So I don't think your original idea - using a C-Band dish to get DISH - is really practical.


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## tvdxer

If you have an MPEG-2 DVB free-to-air receiver (e.g. Pansat 2700 or Fortec Star Lifetime Ultra), you can receive well over one hundred unencrypted channels on C-Band alone. This number might grow if you move the dish's positioning eastward to allow reception of the "atlantic ocean region" satellites (PAS 9, Intelsat 805) which contain a number of signals, or even better, add an orthomode LNB which will allow you to pick up even more.


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## coltonjared

I already have the TRACKER SYSTEM 4 receiver and the lnb. I will take picture of the lnb later


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## coltonjared

i found a prosat receiver in a resale shop does anybody know what it does? it say DVB on the front and on the back it has sat in and sat out and tv out. if i get this will this allow me to get digal fta channels?


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## FTA Michael

Google is your friend. Here's the first link it turned up for "Prosat DVB": http://www.coolstf.com/mpeg/Prosat/

It depends on the receiver, including such questions as whether that particular piece of metal and circuitry actually works, but it sounds very possible. That DVB does mean that it should get FTA channels, and there was an old receiver from Prosat. Good luck!


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## TheRatPatrol

Ahhh.....I remember the good ole days of C-Band satellite growing up in Alaska as a kid. We had one to watch hockey, mostly the Canadian networks and CBC HNIC. VideoCypher, VideoCypher II, and VideoCyper II+. 

Aren't most of the satellites nowadays Ku-band, thus requiring a smaller dish? Or are most of them still C-Band? And how does this 4DTV work, is that multiple channels on one transponder? And what program suppliers are left out there? There were alot of them back in the day, can't think of the names of any them now though.

Yup, those were the good ole days for sure, free HBO, Showtime, ESPN, CNN, everything free, well for a while at least.


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## tdti1

theratpatrol said:


> Ahhh.....I remember the good ole days of C-Band satellite growing up in Alaska as a kid. We had one to watch hockey, mostly the Canadian networks and CBC HNIC. VideoCypher, VideoCypher II, and VideoCyper II+.
> 
> Aren't most of the satellites nowadays Ku-band, thus requiring a smaller dish? Or are most of them still C-Band? And how does this 4DTV work, is that multiple channels on one transponder? And what program suppliers are left out there? There were alot of them back in the day, can't think of the names of any them now though.
> 
> Yup, those were the good ole days for sure, free HBO, Showtime, ESPN, CNN, everything free, well for a while at least.


Most big name broadcasters still uplink there feeds via C-band, and big dish is still the best for price and picture quality:

I will give you some info:

Good link to understand why big dish is best:
http://satellitetheater.com/C-Band World.htm

Here is a 4dtv channel list:
http://broadband.motorola.com/4DTV/4DTVChannelUpdates_100705.htm

Main programming providers:
http://www.callnps.com/ (great place)
http://www.programming-center.net/ (great place)
http://www.superstar.com/index.asp (these guys are owned by dish network and will try to convert you to that)


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## texasclaw

I still have a 10' BUD and I get excellent coverage with my analog alacarte subscriptions( Motorola 450i analog receiver) and my Free To Air digital(BEC DB 6600+ digital receiver). I plan on setting up a recently aquired Ku Band 76cm (31") with H to H mover for more FTA coverage.

A good source for inexpensive Satellite products is Ricks Satellite.
I get most of my gear from him for a lot less than most other suppliers.

Good luck with your setup whatever you try.


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## panoramix

I am very new at Satellite TV. Reading the thread I learned a lot. I still have questions:

I am located in dallas TX. Any idea what I can get here? I am looking for channels in French, if possible from Europe. Thanks for any suggestions

Marc


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## Ray_Clum

panoramix said:


> I am located in dallas TX. Any idea what I can get here? I am looking for channels in French, if possible from Europe. Thanks for any suggestions
> 
> Marc


Take a look at Christian Lyngmark's Site . You should be able, with a H-H motor, be able to pick up everything from 157W, to probably about 40W, so you'd have to look at the Americas page and the Atlantic page.

Most Ku FTA (which I have) is Arabic or English, some Spanish, Farsi; C-Band FTA might have more, but Christian's site is top notch to see what's out there. Just remember, if you can't see the satellite's orbital position, you can't watch what's on it (i.e. nothing specifically for Europe or W.Africa), plus just because you can point at a satellite doesn't mean much, if it doesn't point back (i.e. there are some satellites that just point at Argentina, or the Carribean and you won't be able to see those).

I can't recall any French channels as TV, but there is also FTA radio over sat which I don't listen to.


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## S.C. Am

panoramix said:


> I am located in dallas TX. I am looking for channels in French, if possible from Europe.
> Marc


The French programming that is viewable from your location is on the ku side of Anik F2 @111.1. It requires a subscription to Star Choice

http://www.starchoice.com/francais/default.asp?default=1


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## texasclaw

There also appears to be some French language programming at:

http://www.telequebec.qc.ca/

and http://www.rockdetente.com/principal.asp?station=cite

Both are in the C-band range. They are on Anik F2 as well.

Hope this helps. Another Texan (From the Border of Texas)

GO COWBOYS!


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## unionbricky

jbach said:


> Others have told you how to use C Band dishes to get C band analog and digital channels. And you get great SD pictures that way.
> 
> But you seem to want to know if they can be used with the right LNBs to get DISH signals. I still have a C-Band dish etc and had the same question before I signed up for DISH. Theoretically they can. And you would have much less chance of rain fade with all that gain. But there's a problem. You have to move the dish to change satellites. So with DISH programming, there's a big problem. CBand receivers have built in software and signals to reposition the big dish as needed, but DISH receivers don't. And you wouldn't get the guide if you weren't on the right satellite, with no easy way to reposition without a strange kludge.
> 
> DISH dishes use multiple LNBs to get more than one satellite and a different little dish shape to maximize the signal. The Cband dish shape can't deal with multiple LNBs.
> 
> So I don't think your original idea - using a C-Band dish to get DISH - is really practical.


prime focus dishes are great for multiple lnb setups. skyvision sells a scaler ring with a built in circular polarity (dbs) lnb for use with dish net or dtv or FTA and if you look at your cable companies headend dish farm youll see that they have 3 or 4 ten footers with 2 or 3 lnbs on a bracket on each dish so it can be done. that scaler ring is only like $80


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