Free to Air Satellite Legitimate Reception Guide

To get the most out of a legitimate, unmodified FTA receiver you will need at minimum a 31-inch satellite dish and a dish motor. There are several satellites in space that carry in the clear broadcasts. The motor will allow your dish to be redirected to whatever satellite you intend on viewing programming from. You will also need an appropriate LNB, which is mounted to the dish and allows for the actual reception of FTA channels.

A popular LNB is the Invacom Quad LNB as it will allow you to run up to 4 receivers off of 1 dish and can receive signals from both the linear and circular KU band frequencies. This is an ideal configuration for viewers in North America.

Using an 18 inch or 22 inch dish that was designed for premium paid satellite service is not recommended. For example, DirecTV and Dish Network dishes are, for the most part, too small to properly receive most FTA channels. Most FTA channels, although Ku band, are lower in frequency than the premium provider's channels. Furthermore, the minidishes used by Dish Network and DirecTV are fixed dishes, they have no motor. Since the FTA channels are spread across many satellites, you will need a motor, which allows the receiver to automatically move the dish so that you may receive all the FTA channels available.