Confirming AU9S install for FTA

[justask'n]

Upfront apologies for the long post. I tried to format the questions such that only brief answers 'should' be needed. Thank you very much in advance!

I am a newbie to FTA, but I have researched many posts and read all the FAQ’s I could find to keep the following questions from being too naïve, so thanks in advance for your patience. At the moment, I am only concerned with getting the infrastructure setup and want to make sure I have that right in my head before proceeding with anything further. I’m a little new to the terminology but have used it where possible for the sake of the experts. Again, thanks!

1. I have a D* Slimline AU9S-SL5-S (no additional diplexers, splitters, etc). I am not a D* subscriber and I am currently only interested in using this dish for FTA on one TV only (for the moment). I know it has some powerful HD and multiple tuner features that I might subscribe to in the future. Since this dish/LNB combo is both Ka & Ku equipped (Ku 101, 110, 119), my understanding is that I would not need to make any mods or alterations to the dish and can use as-is to receive FTA over the Ku band. Is this correct?

2. I have a detailed FAQ on using the D* Phase III – 3 LNB dish for FTA (just for reference) and have read that re-pointing the dish may be required to get FTA signal. I don’t know that the Phase III FAQ would even apply to the AU9S, so my question is, if I was to keep the dish aligned for a normal D* setup, i.e. no change to tilt, elevation, skew, etc., could I expect to pick up FTA birds, and which ones? Eg. EchoStar 8,10 @ 110, EchoStar 7 @ 119.

3. Because this is a 5 LNB (but really a 3 LNB for my purposes), would I also receive Intelsat 5 @ 82/91 or others like Telstar 5 or Galaxy 10R without having to make any mods to the dish or alignment?

4. An AU9S feature according to the spec sheet is that it is “Integrated for HD Local Reception”. Does this mean that it would act like an ordinary digital antenna and receive local broadcast network signals like ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WTTW, etc without any additional equipment or mods?

5. Do I need to use the PI-21 power supply to power the SL5-S SWM LNB for FTA reception? Is an equivalent power supply built into FTA receivers such that an external power supply is not needed?

6. Assuming proper alignment and signal has been verified at the dish, aside from the FTA receiver and RG6 cable itself, what other equipment would I need in the form of diplexers, splitters? Based on what I think I know, the connection for a single TV should be as follows: AU9S to 8 Channel SWM Multi-Switch to Power Supply to FTA receiver.

7. The FTA receiver would plug into the IRD side of the power supply and the SWM side of the power supply would plug into either the SWM1/2 outputs on the 8 Channel SWM?

8. Is there an alternative to the 8 Channel SWM Multi-Switch I could use for this setup?

9. Does anyone have a diagram of this type of setup that they can share?

10. Can you recommend a particular FTA receiver that would work best for my application?

[PokerJoker]

??????

How on earth do you plan to use a SWM-type antenna for this? And how did you ever get the idea that this would work?

The SWM system works only with certain current D* receivers or DVRs. It has nothing in common with the old Phase III dish. It does not put out a signal that any other receiver (FTA or otherwise) is going to be able to use.

And no, it does not contain any form of off-the-air antenna.

This absolutely is not going to work.

MAYBE you might be able to get something using the NON-SWM version of the dish, the one that uses voltage/tone switching and band stacking. That would come a lot closer to being similar to the Phase III.

You've really gotten a long way down the wrong road here, my friend.

Keith

[veryoldschool]

I am a newbie to FTA, but I have researched many posts and read all the FAQ’s I could find to keep the following questions from being too naïve, so thanks in advance for your patience.
You're the second member/poster who has asked about FTA and using DirecTV dishes/multiswitches/SWM equipment.
The short answer is: IT DOESN'T WORK, and especially using SWM hardware.

[CCarncross]

Is there even any FTA stuff on the 99-101-103-110-119 birds?

And here's a third data point: The chance of you receiving anything with that rig is slim to none.

[justask'n]

Thanks.... appearantly I must have taken a wrong turn in some of the research I did. I know I have read elsewhere of using of using older dishes for FTA use, but clearly I am not understanding some of the fundamentals (despite having reviewed). Back to the drawing board.

[Davenlr]

You can use the DISH, but not the LNB. You need a LINEAR FTA LNB. DirecTv uses Circular LNBs in a different frequency range. FWIW, you can get a dish/LNB/receiver combo so cheap for FTA, its not worth trying to modify the LNB mount on the dish to accept a linear LNB. Also, since the DirecTv dish is designed for multiple satellites using multiple LNBs, and used with very high powered satellites, I doubt you would have enough gain on a DirecTv multilnb dish to pick up the relatively low powered FTA satellites.

[justask'n]

You can use the DISH, but not the LNB. You need a LINEAR FTA LNB. DirecTv uses Circular LNBs in a different frequency range. FWIW, you can get a dish/LNB/receiver combo so cheap for FTA, its not worth trying to modify the LNB mount on the dish to accept a linear LNB. Also, since the DirecTv dish is designed for multiple satellites using multiple LNBs, and used with very high powered satellites, I doubt you would have enough gain on a DirecTv multilnb dish to pick up the relatively low powered FTA satellites.
Thank you for the clarification - now I get it. I am going to abandon the AU9 route. Hopefully I won't put-off anyone by asking this question. I am not opposed to buying a new FTA dish, but I come across many Dish Network and Direct TV dishes that have been disabled and are otherwise scrap. Are there any known models that can be used for FTA and could you suggest a few to keep an eye out for - e.g. DTV Phase III? Did I mention I was a newbie :) - sigh....

[Davenlr]

I have used both the 18" round and 24" in round dishes for KU FTA, both of which required modifying the LNB mount to mount the FTA LNB. Those dishes would work for strong satellites, such as G19 which has lots of international and religious channels (I use one specifically for Al Jazeera/English). You MIGHT be able to get PBS on AMC21 as well, but Ive found I need a 4' dish to reliably pick up PBSHD.

Most of the sports feeds and Networks are on C band, and you would need a minimum 6' dish to get those.

If you want lots of information, check out this stores site: http://www.gofastmotorsports.com/rickssatellitehome.htm

They have a $169 deal for the DISH/LNB and RECEIVER for picking up G19. They also have several other dishes listed, as well as a forum for finding feeds and new free channels, and pay channels that have turned off their encoding temporarily. They dont allow any hack or illegal reception talk, and anything you buy there is guaranteed clean/legit, without hacked code in the receivers.

[justask'n]

Thanks Davenlr. I’m checking out the link you forwarded as well. Since your last post I looked up more info on the linear FTA LNB’s. While I still need to get a better understanding of some of the finer details, at least on the surface, it appears that there is not a silver bullet – but I’m betting you might know if there is.

I came across a FAQ on FTA LNB’s and there was a further point made regarding linear and circular polarities that one needs to consider when setting up your gear. I’m not looking to dive to deep on this topic because I know there is plenty out there I can find on my own. But if I am understanding the fundamentals correctly, it seems you would need two LNB’s, one linear and one circular, depending on the bird you are trying to see. Linear for FTA and circular for digital (enhanced/HD) FTA?? Maybe this is where I’m getting confused? The FAQ stressed that up to a 50% loss could be experienced when trying to track a circular polarity signal with a linear LNB. Also, I did see a point made about dual and quad output LNB’s, but I think that means there are multiple drops off the LNB to be able to connect multiple receivers in different rooms as opposed to an all-in-one linear/circular LNB. In short, unless there is no such thing as (circular) FTA, it seems you need two dishes depending on the type of bird you are trying to receive?

Finally, if the FTA birds are spread out, e.g. 61.5, 110, 119, 148, does this suggest that one would not want to go the route of a fixed position dish and should invest in a motorized dish to increase visibility to other feeds? Or is the 18 -24” dish large enough that if it is fixed in a central position it would be getting most of the FTA signals available to it.

Oh, I’m probably not even going to consider C-band for the moment based on the dish size required. European football and cricket would be a nice to have and as for the local network channels, it looks like I could always just hook my Terk digital antenna on the roof to a multi-switch/diplexer combo to support it as well as the FTA dish. Could you let me know if I’m on the right track? Hope others are benefitting from my experience, or ehhh..., lack thereof :)

[CCarncross]

Bottom line, if you want to see more than one sat you would need a dish with a specific geometry that would focus the beam of multiple points in space to one LNB. IN your situation, looking at some of the sat positions you are trying to hit, 61.5, all the way out to 148, you will need a motorized mount, which pretty much puts you back to a c-band setup. The smaller dbs dishes are not really meant for what you are trying to do, and the effort you will need to put in to receive a few mostly uninteresting unencrypted channels(most are encrypted now) seems like an awful lot of work for very little return.