| Subject: Free-to-Air Digital: a "quiet" revolution |
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Anonymous
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Date Posted: Thu, February 05 2004, 22:28:52 PST
Those around in the early days will remember the variety of programming available free of charge before HBO first scrambled their signals in 1986. Free movie channels have long since vanished, and many of those early dishes have become lawn ornaments. DirecTV entered the landscape ten years ago, followed by DISH Network in 1996.
People have been trained into paying for TV, and the monthly bills are escalating ever upward. Most cable & satellite subscribers are paying big dollars and not really watching that many channels. As many other things in life, it has become too complicated (and some dare say "civilized").
About the same time that DISH Network appeared on the scene, a quiet revolution was starting. It involved a few dozen channels that began to appear in a new transmitting format called MPEG-2 Digital. In North America, the first adopters of this technology were foreign language channels trying to help their expatriates now working in America reconnect with home. Most of these channels were government or ad-supported, and many are still on the air today transmitting both television and radio programming free of charge to a worldwide audience. There are also many more subscription options, but the tendency is for more of both types to appear as the months pass by. Free channels are known as FTA digital, or Free-to-Air Digital format.
There is very little logic as to the number and type of FTA channels now available on various satellites. Many transmit to a very small audience that is finally economical to serve, thanks to the lower transmission costs of digital formats. Some channels are up there as internal feeds to normally be received by broadcasters and private organizations.
Since none of these channels are using a subscription mode, there is no control of who watches them, and also no recourse if they decide to encode their signals or go off the air without notice. If you are not paying for something, nobody will listen to your complaints if it suddenly becomes unavailable. But the overall tendency is for more and more channels of all interests to go on the air, and while many of these channels do not compare to the typical "Cable" fare, there is enough variety to suit a considerable number of people. And the price is right.
Unless you have a large (8 to 10 foot) C-Band or C/Ku-Band big dish system already in place, it may be much more cost-effective to pick a few groups of channels and install several non-moving (fixed) dishes to receive just the satellites in question. Each separate satellite antenna can be wired into an electronic switch, and the signals in turn are cabled to a digital receiver, which can be programmed to automatically receive all channels available on those particular satellites.
Most Ku-band satellites use a 30 or 36 inch (that's 75 or 90 cm in metric) solid offset dish. DBS satellites can use a smaller 18 or 24 inch (45 or 60 cm) solid antenna. Many individual C-band satellites can get away with 6 to 8 foot diameter antennas, which can be mesh or solid type. It is suggested to use the larger size recommended, especially on Ku-band and DBS-band, because smaller sizes are often not enough to collect adequate signals during bad weather.
A little extra antenna can go a long way towards having a very reliable system, which experiences few if any weather related outages.
Source: http://www.global-cm.net/
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