Free-To-Air Satellite TV

@ enitan
          bros i wish to see another view of that w3a again from another angle.u see i was getting w3a any time i motorilize bigger dish i never knew it was this difficult in 90cm because i found it almost impossible to track in my house this morning so i ll have to try again.i think this bird signal dosnt flash up like other ku signals i think its like booting signal.but i must catch it when i go home today after chelsea match.

Just wanted to drop some "how to tutorials' " Link for our Nairaland FTA Crew. This link provides step by step on how to setup and aim a dish plus other stuff. They might not be exact to your needs, but at least it gives you a pretty good idea on how things are done. http://www.ftavideos.com/fortec/cd/index.html 

Also this is how to Check Dish Reflector Accuracy. See attachment.

Hi Everone !!! think its time to have my first post in this forum, I came across this forum about 2 weeks ago and the first day i read all the post from the begining to the end . There is hardly a day i did not visit this site despite being busy. Anyway i got hooked with this FTA of a thing.

I went for the old decoder in the house "VISIONETICS VISTAR 2010a" its the one installed with our TITV ( think you guys remember them if u are in Nigeria). Anyway i could not get it to work , and I've searched all over the internet for more information about the decoder, no luck. If anyone can shed more light on that I'll be great full.

Anyway i decide to do a clean setup,

got a 90cm strong dish = 3,500 Naira
Universal LNB strong   =    700  "
STRONG DECODER        = 8,500

 I have cable at home ,

 I now got something called SATELLITE FINDER ,(less than 3k, can't remenber).
 its a kind of device that have on it a analogue dial like a multimeter, and makes noise anytime a signal is in the path. Its connected between the decoder and the LND connection. cable from LNB is connected to SATELITTE FINDER, and from it another cable run to the satellite connection of the decoder.(think thats all it is to that). Dont forget its my first time installing anything satellite.

I assembled and mount my dish , really cool for a first timer ,  , got a plum (to make sure i have my dish hanger at a right angle , to the horizontal , dish is mounted on my facing board( think thats what its called), by my roof top think u'll get that,

Now my TV and decoder were  outside where i can see them from the top of the ladder while turning my dish, 

Did the cableling attaching my "SATELITTE FINDER" close to my decoder but also view-able too from the ladder.


Now i really don't know what to search for first but i got some tips from " ENITAN" we all know him, he's in this forum, really cool chap always ready to help when u call, to help this guy you really have to read this forum  and ask specific questions, that will help him help you more, very cool guy cool.

Now to perform a scan for a satellite signal, i read the manual for my new STRONG decoder, ( very necessary),

I have lots of frequencies i wish to search but i really don't think am ready for that yet , so i think something called a BLIND search in my decoder is appropriate at this time , so i go for it ,

i select NSS 703 satellite   in the "BLIND" search option,  then every other thing is  set to all ( the polarisation, the stations) Now i click on go ( sorry i mean i press ok on my remote , to start the search.

When that was going on on my decoder , i was on my ladder turning my dish slowly with about 10 degree elevation and MOVE IT from NORTH - EAST and back,

At a point i heard a short beep from the SATELLITE FINDER. stopped and adjust the dish, so the sound is at its loudest and the deflection on it is at the middle of its dial.( note before i start turning the dish i made sure i adjust the knob on the SATELLITE FINDER to the point at which it will beep with a slight change in signal level, that might not be noticeable on the TV screen in a short time frame of the dish movement. ).

I now position this dish where it give me the loudest noise in that area, and wait for the scan to finish,

i saw this on the screen.

12.584(v)  26.458
12.584(v)  23.413
11.744(H)  27.490
12.048(H)  27.502
12.238(H)  27.478
12.277(H)  27.502
12.315(H)  27.471
12.354(H)  27.499

the search took some time about 10 minute or more, i think this are the transponder it could get at that location, then there was a saving setting message on my screen , an voila , it all done.


i got lots of scarmbled channel but the ones i saw that are free are the following

FOX NEWS
CNBC AFRICA
TREND SERIES
TRENDS SPORT
NBA TV AFRICA
PFCI
and i think NWC, not sure , some kind of Catholic religion station in UK. all from this  frequency from the info (Nss703  11.744ghz(H)


please i need to know which satellite i am hooked up to now, so i can use it as a reference point to locate the rest. I know it  probably DSTV or HiTV link point , but need the name of the satellite so i use it as refence point, on the Nss 703 information i can see i don't seem to see those frequencies on my screen .

and amont the scrambled station are     :-
Hi sport
AIT,
MITV, NTA2
Silver B
Euro S.
ZDF
CHAN

etc


I guess maybe someone can learn somthing from this , story ,

I guess its not bad from a very new guy to satellite tracking , not just FTA , 
Thanks to you all , am very greatful to every member of this forum , keep up the good work ,
Thank you Enitan , its me , MOMOH ( called you a few times and sure still will, )

I still need more help so please guys gather round and contribute and let me know where i stand , give me the satellite name , and i start tracking again for new things,

am yours and IBADAN, is where i stay.

justx24

@ ejike
         u mean those channels u listed is already on w3a because as i scan i can't get then then apart from msnbc.and how many channels re up now send the freq and s.r at once.

@ all
      for your information i inserted another pipe inside my strong dish hanger so as to lift it above my zinc.its not necessary.
this last pic is my angle of elevation.
In those various pic if i move my dish a little bit right and track it  i ll get mytv or dstv.

@ Pitodenz
Good job bros. Those channels and those mensioned by Toxnija are what FREE2VIEW reported on their site as what to expect very soon. Check Free2View for more info.

@ justx24,
from your first few lines i knew you were the one. Thats was really cool to have done what i suggested i.e post your experience on the forum so that we all can learn. Just as vickoy said, if not for the satellite finder you for hear whin, but all the same kudos to you.

@ pitodenz,
thats really cool o you, based on the direction u got that naughty bird, i think its due to difference in location, because most people here in lagos got that bird by the right of dstv/mytv position.
But are u really enjoying the packages on that bird, and how many satellites are u facing for now?

This thread is getting much more interesting by the day.


@ Enigma,
its quite some days you've been here, how u doing? and what about the motorised 90cm dish we talked about, kindly tell those interested the estimated price so those interested might get prepared for it.
Based on that ferq on w3a you asked to be scanned, most viewers have gotten that through blindscanning even before lyngsat put that up on their page, the name is TV Minimah


@ vickoy23,
How u dey also? Its quite sometime also with you, how your w3a especially the MSNBC , hope you are still cool with it?


@ all W3a viewers,
have u guys done a rescan to try to see if those channels have been added?


@ justx24,
just try and locate some other satellite positions and try to achieve that without the help of the satellite finder, try those frequencies i gave you, and try to see if u can use the satellite finder to track the w3a, and give us a feedback here on this forum.



@ all in the house
Hope u guys are having a wonderful midnite sleep?

pitodenz,
a lot of people make the mistake of thinking Nilesat can only be picked in the North of Nigeria because of the Middle East beam.But would you believe I pick almost 300 fta channels  including MBC1-4 (showing movies,news,grammy,oscar awards),AL JAZEERA,MTV ARABIA,FOX MOVIES,DUBAI SPORTS1-3,ZEE ARABIYA,SPACETOON1-2,JAZEERA SPORTS1-2,BBC,etc  all in Abeokuta,Ogun state with a 3.0metre fibre dish and ku lnb.You need to experience it and you will love it on the condition you have space for it.
all,
free2view should be be given a chance.I just tuned to w3a on Monday.It's worth the stress.I struggled before i could pick it.
I visited Vickoy and his wonderful family today.We even had a ride together in my car.this forum is worth the while.I am looking forward to meeting everybody especially enitan,badaru,pitodenz,twinstaye,ola,enigma,mercussey,etc.
But please beware of people like Iretunde and some installers on this site.They are all out to make some money from us.Everybody including me complained about Iretunde's arrogance and inexperience.His attitude initially discouraged me from joining the forum some months back.I think he should back off.or what do you think?
Though I am always very busy in Lagos and Abeokuta,you are all welcome to my home anytime you are in Abeokuta on a weekend, to see what I watch(over 500 fta stations on 3 dishes,4 lnbs,20 satellite locations).

Greetings and Blessings to all, I must big up eveybody on this forum, it is so refreshing comming up here on the odd occasion when i get time and too witness people being so helpful towards each other, if this attitude could trancend the whole naija Nation accross the globe both at home and in the diasphra then we would be world beaters in anything we do. Any how i wont go down my pan africanist line as this is a satellite forum and satellite is what i intend to talk, first ill give you all a joke. I should at this moment i speak be in my favourite city amsterdam preparing to board a flight later on to hit Naija This evening for only the second time in my 40 young years. Instead im back in London cursing my bad luck  rather than in a coffee shop in amsterdam chilling and looking forward to visiting Home sweet home. What happended?, well i commited a cardinal sin by anouncing that i would be going home and as such got inudated with parcels to take to Naija. You can immagine by the time i got to heathrow i had so much luggae that i was three time over the limit. By the time arguments had come and gone, the plane was on its way to amsterdam and me still at heathrow fumming. my Holiday cancelled, No refunds. i had lost my holiday taking me too amsterdam for a day and night then lagos then acrra then back to amsterdam for another chiled out day before back to London, Had the next four weeks so planned now its not so planned. All is not lost as at a cost ive manged to get a flight straight to Naija, ill have to give those coffe shops in amsterdam a miss this time round and it now means im on the tightest of budgets but still ill be in naija on monday, minus all that baggae which messed me up in the first place. In reflection i suppose its quite funny but the pocket is hurt badly, hope ive brought a smile to some of your faces.
Any how back to what we are here for and to discuss the wonderfull world of satellite TV

@ justx24,  I read your post with much interest as you talk about the use of a satellite finder, something that i have surprisingly not heard much people on this forum talk about , it seems like you have come across sesatw4 at 36E, I was actually wandering weather a sat finder would work on satellite beams into africa and you have answered my question. I have a number of various kinds of those little finders and would be happy to bring a few with me on my visit next week if anybody would be interested .
The reason why i was not sure wether it would work or not is because i have a very sophisticated digital satellite finder/meter called a Lacuna Digital sattelite meter.
by attaching the meter in the way justx24 has described aprt from the meter does not have to connect to a receiver like other satellite finders do. This lucuna meter acts like a receiver and tv in that with out a tv and receiver you can align a dish.
I get a digital read out of exactly what satellite im pointing at, as well as a digital read out of the strengh both H/V and also the picture quality and a calibirator which you can control the lnbs scew with. It is the mother of all meters and finds satellites in minutes, it also tests your LNB and can fine tune . I had intended to bring this with me which would mean it would take less than 5 minutes to aling a dish, but to my dismay, the manufacturers  informed me it is not designed to work on beams into Africa, contry to them advertising the meter as being able to pick up any satellite in the world, they should describe it as picking up all visible european satellite beams. I have since challenged their claim and they promised to write me a bit of software that would enable me to pick up african satellite beams with the meter, every time i ring them they say they will email me the software, they will do this they will do that, they are now ducking my calls.
I will write to a well known satellite magazine to dispel their claims, that aside, it is a wonderfull piece of kit i must admit, but they should come clean, i actually brought this meter a few months back with instillation of satellite in Ghana in mind as i knew that i would be installing satellite in ghana this year, so thought this will limit the time my European climatised body would be in that West African heat. I can now sence the mosqutoes licking their lips knowing fresh blood is comming to spend hours alining four dishes without his super satellite finder.

@fadinus. The mytv card you have for sale, does it currently open up channels or is ist just a basic card where by i have to purchase credit, and you say the dstv used to work in your decoder a few months ago, does it mean it no longer works, what channewls will it open, how long will it work for and is not dstv a pay monthly service, just wandering how you can veiw channels with out subscribing to that network, and even by eurpean standards, that network seems damn expensive.

Finaly  @ all on forum: Peace and Love to all
maybe i can get to hook up with one two of you guys on my travels and see your satellite set ups, i will be passing through  Abuja, Ibadon, Port Harcote and Lagos on my trip by Gods Grace that is before going on to Accra.

Blessing to all and hope your weekend brings all that is good and decent.
One Love

@ salamander,
i'm dead sure u will never regret joining this forum, and try to keep us posted on things you experienced through practicalising.

@ all,
i'll really enjoined everyone here that has FTA installed should give us some info on what he's enjoying, and don't think any info is too small or outdated. Infos ranging from MYTV FTA, NSS7 to W3A should be posted here for visitors to have the fill of what we all are enjoying.
I repeat no info is too small.

I'm making a research on how we all can derive additional benefits from FTA, like browsing the web, if am done and successful i will let the whole-house get to know of it.

@ toxnajia,
Try to give me a midnite call so we can talk, because i might likely visit during the 1st week in June from my base here in school, and it's most likely OLA will also make that journey from lagos on that day, so make u prepare something for us.
hope u extended my greetings to vickoy, because we know eachother very well but have not met.I'm proud to say that Nairalanders are wonderful set of people, though i've only met one out of the numerous ones and is boljamoguns, i can say he's such a wonderful person, i have in mind to pay visits to some other users like OLA,vickoy, justx24_momoh,heartsoclean and lots of others during my forthcoming holiday. And also Enigma, because i guessed he will be in Nigeria by then.

@ mide2008,
i say welcome on board and i hope you will be a frequent user here and your contributions will be appreciated.
For sometime now we most here have been talking of KU-band, because it easily assembled compared to the c-band, and most of us here are not in our personal abode, but before c-band talks was the main discussion here before i spearheaded the diversion to ku-band because i wanted lots of infos then, but now it seems the c-band users are now more intrested in what we ku viewers are enjoying, but the main problem is that the c-band users don't post their experiences here on the forum, thats why it seems ku is now dominant.

And thats the main reason i've been calling upon c-band users to also contribute to this so as not to make it look as a one-way street for ku. But since you've written that u have c-band satellites, i think we can rely on you to provide us the info we all have been clamoring for. And i hope you wont let us down or disappear just like some people do.

You can reach me on 08055458324 or 08067055323. Am specialised on ku bands

@ those who have been sending me emails am so sorry that i don't reply to your mails, its just that i'm that lazy at replying emails, i prefer phone calls because i talk and shed more infos than through emails. I also welcome midnite calls at any time.

@justx24
what are you up to presently? keep the whole house posted

@ OLA,
how body na? you know this is the only medium i communicate to you due to my absence

@ toxnaija,
I don't think your info saying 3.0m net dish can get nilesat is right, because i know someone who's gotten 3.6m net dish here in lagos but still can't track nilesat on it, i will definitely check that out at your place when i come over during the 1st week in June.

enitan,
NILESAT can only be picked on fibre and not wiremesh.I never mentioned wiremesh.I would love to talk to you at midnite though it's beginning to sound like we are having a wizard/witches midnite deliberation ha,ha,ha!
butoneday,
the signals vary especially with the dish size and location.the good stations there like foxmovies which I am really savouring go as high as 60 with the strong x series but 45 with the other receiver.
thanks alot to all those who called me to make enquiries especially Ola who spoke with me for over 2hours at about 3am today.I also want to implore all of us to forget about our egos when on this forum or calling or being called.Dont be surprised that you could be contacting a governor or senator on this forum without you knowing.please your humility will take us a long way.
No news on free2view from me yet.foxmovies is the hottest thing on nilesat.it started May 1.please check it out.
for all all you in southwest Nigeria,please join me every saturday night 11.03 to 2am on a radio show,Party time on paramount fm 94.5.it has been touching so many lives.I am also on Ltv every Tuesday and Friday night 7,8,10pm news.GTV Newstrip Sundays 8.30pm.Best wishes.

Am Always here Friends, thank you all for your response, was only taking my time reading , so i can know what approach to take in my next "BIRD HUNTING" , can be kind of difficult without a catapult, guns not allowed in my Country(Nigeria), at least not for a common man like me 

Tried catching this bird called Eutelsat W3 , no luck,  man !!!  even with my hi-tech catapult with telescope, oops, just messing around abit, am talking about my "satellite finder". Think maybe the satellite(Bird)  is kind of different , like I read above, maybe be its a booting type, guess it means , u need to live the dish at a position for some time for the signal to show up (boot up) if you are in the right position, ? Am asking the experts here, (3sec enough??)

I  tried using the position finder on the internet putting my position as   lat = 7 and long= 3, think thats  right and i check and compare the position (elevation and azimuth ) to the ones of the position am in at the moment, with information  from you all in this forum i know for sure am on Eutelsat W4 at 36East. Make the changes but still the bird , i can't find (Eutelsat W3 7East).

Guys i think maybe i can do this better with a Compass, so for the past week i have being doing a lot of searching Book shops in Ibadan, for it , the only place i was able to locate one so far is at a Rotering shop in at Oke-Ado , they were putting a knife on my head, or was it a gun , Hand compass for 9,000 Naira only, 

Anyone know where i can lay my hand on this stuff in Ibadan, i know lots of you guys are able to do this without a satellite-finder nor a compass, but am thinking of how to make things easy. Even everyday installers don't us this stuffs , but i think i might do better as a lamer with it, 

One last place to check for my compass, then maybe i'll try hunting again for the most beautiful bird in W.Africa at least for us with 90cm dish, talking about EUTELSAT 3W, the old fashioned way. Am taking on this as a second Hobby, so no shaking am still learning. Cant expect to know much as the guys who have being in this for years, got into this in less than a month ago, and i can close my eyes and get my dish on W4, but i don't dig Home movies, only the Fox-News i dig here.

Imagine i have rent a ladder and keep it in my sitting room for 2 weeks running now , imagine what people think when they see you on the roof everyday turning your dish, it seem kind of funny,  , But me , am learning , so maybe i can expect some more advice from you guys , I stay in Ibadan and will welcome you all , 08053334470,, 08034707935.

Waiting for responses, thank you all


justx24

According official information, DSTV nigeria does not have a Brazilian channes (TV Globo/ REcord ) I know DSTV angola have this channels on SESAT sattelite, It's possible receive this SESAT here in Nigeria ? ( 'Port HArcourt ) http://www.lyngsat.com/sesat.html , It's possible by in Nigeria the smartcard open SESAT channels on DSTV ?

Thanks

Paulo

To All the Gurus on this Thread,

I hail you all.

Wow! I came across the thread by mistake and you guys are the best.

Which dish, receiver and motor should I buy for Abuja?

@Twinstaiye, how is Abuja? I sent you an email about those housing developments in Abuja.

@ badaru plz can u explain more on how to use two di-electric plate in one c band lnb.also your magic box how sonner can it open dstv on 36 degree east ku band.

@ butoneday
          sorry network can't allow me to answer your call the other day.u still dey work?

@ toxnaija
            bros i know i lot of channels re up there in nilesat and it can be gotten with bigger dish in the south,but does it solve our problems?NO,because a lot of us can't even afford not even the space but the price for that or don't u know that someone in senegal can easily pick the same station in nilesat with 90cm dish.what i think we needed is how to encourage fta company to beam on our land.

@ all
    the w3a stuff tire me self na so so french but msnbc with go africa is good.as for me i ve only one 90cm but i can't miss any good program in those four ku band.i motorilize it manually with my hand and each dosnt take up to a minute.i only use nss7ku when theres premiership n 68.5 on weekends for etv x-movie the other two i share them depending who is around me.but am talking to my landlord into allowing me for bigger dish.so if u can, i don't think theres a reason for more than one 90cm in a nairaland forum member house because i believe by now tracking should be part of us.the naughty w3a is not all that hard hence u know the direction n elevation.because i track it out and in more than two times a day.

@ enitan
        i blind scan everyday bt no show.have u come across 3650 strong reciever,is without card reader.i think the reciever is damn good because it hold signal more than 46xx n its very cheap.