Official Thread of Free-To-Air Satellite TV (Part 1)

please, i have seen just a few of this stuff-i mean satellite tv apart from DSTV , which is the best free to air?

guys, i finally got it on TP 12.722 V and unlock with 6969 6969.

@Adewoyin

Sorry I have this bad habit of logging on and using other interfaces to write code. Unfortunately when i am coding i get carried away. Did i Miss anything?
Best Regards

@ Ecowas4all
Thanks man, I had good luck with your suggestions and it worked. Simple as u quoted!

hi everyone,

i finally got my hands on a PVR enabled decoder  over the weekend ( a clone) and i am finally glad i am back on the grid, after missing out on the more than 2 weeks of free to view DSTV and the olympics and the start of the football season, but then again, better late than never, Abi?

so the next question is ' is it worth it?' the answer to this depends on the kind of person you are. i happen to be a very gadgety person so i tend to overlook its shortcomings but others may not be so enraptured by it as i am. for me, buying the standard x-series strong decoder, is like going out today to buy a Nokia 3610 (okay, maybe 6600), i mean, technology has moved on and it makes sense for us to move with it. so even though this might be a clone, it is what it can do that matters. let me go over it's features for you guys.

this model does not have an inbuilt HDD, so it requires an external memory device for it's pvr function (flash drive to be precise, because it wouldn't recognise my external IDE HDD), so this limits its ability to record for long, but then the picture quality of the recorded program is amazing, almost as good as the original program, and it can actually be programmed to record a program which might come up when u r not available, so that would mean the end of missing out on all those matches u can't watch because you have to go out, and it would also put an end to unnecassary arguments. another thing is that even though it is not a dual tuner, you can actually record a program in the background while watchin another one as long as they are on the same TP for instance you can be watching something on JSC 1 while recording what is going on on jsc2.
the downside of all this is the flash drive, is it me or every single flash drive available in the market today is messed up? once u record one program, if you try recording a second, it doesn't write well. i am thinking of getting a memory card and hooking it up via a card reader to the decoder permanently because they are more stable.

but the worst thing about this decoder is that it is very slow, this is with respect to decoding signals, u don't really notice it while watching tv, but if u want to track a satellite, it lenghtens ur time because u have to move ur dish very slowly if not u might miss the signal, it takes about a few miliseconds to reflect any change in signal level, by which time you might have left the signal path, for strong signals like nss7, this is alright but for nilesat, it can be very demoralizing, i experienced this first hand over the weekend and i still need to borrow a strong decoder to fine tune my dish.

another thing that is still irritating me is that it the usual codes i know for bringing up the key edit menu for inputting keys are not bringing up any response, and it does not recognize the usual softcam keys, i will try .bin files and other file formats and see if it helps.

all in all, i think it is a pretty decent buy, can't wait to get my hands on an original device though. will keep you guys posted.

@gangsta101
Birds of the same feather flocks together. That explains that, we rock the same boat.  I am a gadget person too, that is why when you get to my living room, the back of my electronics gadget are entwined with various cables mostly connecting one thing and another to each other.  I would have loved to experiment with your clone decoder, but with the explanations you have given, I still believed that my DVD Recorder is still very much effective than the clone Decoder.  The only snag about this one is that, it is not a Decoder, but simply record from every TV and Decoder.  For example, I had connected mine to my DSTV, and my two other strong decoders, It has inbuilt hard disk which can record as long as over 300 hours depending on the recording quality you choose. You can even pause a live recording with it. I can schedule a recording if I want, and I can record one and watch another. It is very flexible.  It goes for 39k when I bought it here in naija, it is an lg product and am sure the price would have crashed down by now.  What is more, you can record things that you recorded on the hard disk to a DVD and watch it in another place if you so desired. 
The reason why am telling you this is that, you can still revert back to the strong decoders if you can lay your hand on this DVD Recorder.
PS: Do kindly email me, I need a favour from you.

Honourable Gangsta 101, i thank God last saturday after almost 4 hours, i succeeded in getting the Nilesat, thank you for the guildline.

is there any trick to getting a 2.4m Pan dish to receive Nilesat in Lagos, Satellite town to be precise.  anyone with useful info on the LNB to buy and so on will be very usefull, i currently useful a fuji LNB it does not seem to be doing the JOB, it only picks the first set of frequencies and not the ones containing MBC and the rest.

Hurray !!! this is great i was able to track nilesat signal with my 2.4m dish,i resumed duty by 6.30am on sunday i was able to track the signal around 9.05pm,meaning i spent the whole sunday working on nilesat around 9pm i wanted to give up but to my suprise the signal came out of middle east desert around 5mins after nine.Imagine ,this thread if of great value to me cause i read it as if i have exams on satellite tv engineering.Today I am happy that i was able to make it  to Middle east.To BADERU,ENITAN SEUN,TWINSTAIYE,AND ALL OTHERS I SAY MORE POWER TO YOUR ELBOWS.I am now a graduate of satellite engineering from university of nairaland.if you arnt got Nilesat you are really missing the real actions.I am more than willing to give support on how to track Nilesat to anyboy in this forum.Shalom

If daarsat is coming with 40 channels at a time that means they re not what we re hoping for.but 8 channels is understandable,what i mean is that, its only cable tv can up with that amount of channels at a time.but my question remain re they ever going to be free at all because i hate daarsat since the day they beam their AIT Movistar free in northern europe.believe me they might end up beaming all their freq to europe for free and transmit for their mumu in Nigeria to pay.they re just another replica of dstv but this time they happened to know the business more,so we shall expect the worst encryption because they really know what nigerians wants.

@all
i have just discovered that there is a set up that can be used to motorize a 90cm dish using a DiSEqC1.2

all,
thank you for the wonderful infos

pitondez,
am a member of this forum based in portharcourt and resides in town area. i will like to meet u . name is sam ajayi, phone 08028599131; 07028204003

thanks

@ adewoyin

any idea of their bird ,freq??

Good for FTA.
DSTV users should migrate.
If your fav stations are encrypted (in FTA), they can be decrypted or if you're the honest jockey, subscribe for them  

Do it ur self rs 232 cable.
get a com port female adaptor (9 pin), network cable, and you are done. chech ur female adaptor you will se numbers like 1 to 9
pin to pin
2 - 3
3 - 2
4 - 6
5 - 5
6 - 4
7 - 8
8 - 7
pin 9 is not connected
and test it with ur decoder that is all.
any help mail me at tundamack@yahoo.co.uk

Great Nairalanders!!!

Na wa 4 una ooo mecussey, Adewoyin and all una wey go the daarsat thin. una dey represent sha. We should all have had a mini nairaland conference there don't u think so? I was there so was Tox9ja. the info has already been giving i will only fill the gap.

Dokpesi gave the whole speech and answered the whole question. This proves the one man show Nigeria syndrome.

He started with the general tv history in Nigeria then moved on to raypower, ait history.

Now to the area of our interest. They are coming with 40 channels on their phase 1. It is in HD (high definition) format so our receivers are no use. i mean strong and all these ones we have that are not HD. their channels would include

fox sport
euro sport
CNBC,
Aljazeera News,
Fox News
BBC
CNN (not for sure)
AIT News (brand New from them)
patform for Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood movies
dedicated Yoruba movie channel
dedicated Hausa movie channel
fox baby channel
b4u movies
Kidsco
Nickoledeon
fox crime
fashion tv
quest tv (african fashion tv from daar)
Platform for primetime and soundcity
mcmtop
mtv base
mcm pop
c music
skytech
National geographic
two discovery channels
NTA
AIT
MBI
Channels
Silverbird
Nigeria leagues
and others I could not write.

their hardware will go for 40k i.e HD decoder, dish, LNB and maybe cable. they also have a flat screen tv branded Daar for them that has the decoder inbuilt. comes in 32" and 42" option if you don't want wires running round ur house.

Subscription would be 5k a month. pay for 3 months and get 1 month free. pay for 1 year and get 2 months free.

The guy did not however mention the bird they would be on so after the program i went to the MD of Daarsat and asked him he said it would be on intel907 which is 27.5º west. The bird trend was transmitting Nollywood from before they moved to eutelsatw4 on 36º east. He however did not give out FR, SR and TP. i guess they don't have it yet so we will have to wait. lyngsat did not list it too. maybe we can install the dish using 11052 H 12600 and constantly do a blind scan. But first go get a HD compatible decoder before u say you can't see pics ooo. It is in HD format

Transmission will start 7th October according to Dokpesi with 8 channels. No premiership and champions league for now. we have to manage the usual two matches a week until next bid i.e if they can out-bid HITV.

what else? I can't remember right now. would post once i remember.

My general conclusion is that they may be better than MYTV and DSTV medium package when they roll out but definetely no where near DSTV full bouquet. For HITV, if they don't repackage, and look beyond premiership and champions league, then they might as well close shop because Frank Nweke Jnr. would not be there to bully the right for them when it expires.

But in all Nilesat will still be the ultimate according to testimonies from this forum members. That is my destination point.