FTA Receivers
An Free To Air (FTA) receiver is a satellite receiver for unencrypted satellite transmissions.
An FTA receiver is not able to un-encrypt Dish Network or DirecTV satellite transmissions.
Types of FTA Receivers
Most FTA receivers look very similar to Dish Networks or DirecTV receivers.
There are also some PC-based FTA satellite receivers that enable you to watch FTA satellite on your computer.
Features an FTA Receiver must have.
You should look for some of the following features on your FTA receiver:
• Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
• Ability to zoom into a picture
• Picture-in-picture reception
• A built-in PVR (Personal Video Recorder)
• Able to view and record two different channels
• PIG/PIP interface
• S-Video output
• Dolby SPDIF output
• Blind Search Power Scan to find all channels transmitted by a satellite
• On Screen Display (OSD) to move, delete, and rename channels
FTA Satellite Receiver Vendors.
Some quality manufacturers of FTA satellite receivers are: Viewsat, Pansat, Coolsat, Fortec, BlackBird, UltraStar, Ariza, MultiStar, Digiwave, and Twinhan.
Additional Equipment.
In addition to an FTA receiver, you will require:
• A satellite dish (Either C-Band or Ku-Band)
• An LNB
• An antenna motor (If you wish to receive channels from more than one satellite)
