₦airaland Forum

Enigma,

I need your help, as you know i am using an ALI M3329 A1 processor clone device, now initially i read somewhere u couldn't use it to open encrypted channels, well, someone showed me how to access the key edit menu by pressing the meny button, moving the cursor down to the CAS menu, opening that and then pressing a red button on the decoder, this brings up the key edit menu so i can manually input keys. however, there are certain problems with this setup, first, it doesn't have the space for inputting provider ID, it just has the 2 digit key ident part, where the 4/6 digit provider ID should be, there are a series of four dashes _ _ _ _, so if for instance i want to enter showtime keys, i go to the showtime/betacrypt menu and change key ident part to say 02 and then i enter the rest, and it opens up for me. the only problem with this is that it will not recognise 2 seperate 02 keys such as when both showtime and art keys are available at the same time. so this means i can only input one set of keys at a time. i have tried to load softcams designed for other ALI B and C devices which have more support, but although it sees them, it will not accept them.

so in essence what i am asking of you is if u could help me search/ask about whether there is any way to edit the keys for an ALi A device which is safe, or if there is a way to generate a softcam which the decoder will accept. because the decoder has the option for firmware upgrade and channel upgrade via usb but i can't get them to work. i have tried googling but to no avail, and i can't seem to find any receiver by any major manufacturer which uses an ALI A1 chip, if not i would have tried searching for info about such devices in particular.
Thanks in advance.

PS: it is called I-class PVR receiver, and i can't find the manufacturers site, or any support for it anywhere.

adewest:
Hi gangstar, i got ur text.please sorry for the late respond. I actually got people book for the gama immediatelly my post and i got u as the number seven caller. I have disposed them all. Maybe some other time

No probs, i might get it from another source soon. but u still haven't said anything about the nilesat and hotbird stuff. i believe in giving people a chance to make good on their claims cos nobody is under any kind of duress to post on this thread, so if someone makes a post out of his own free will, and the post sounds too good to be true, instead of shouting 'liar liar!!!', i would keep asking u in a polite way until u make good on your claim or otherwise. an instance is the MBC persia thing that Obnelly and Toxnaija talked about which sounded too good to be true. so if you can give us some more facts, it will be highly appreciated.

Jajuk,
the 6m dish guy, any new info about your dish yet, have you tried to get the nilesat or any other sat with your dish yet? i am greatly interested.

jujukemist:
;DGangsta101 there might be a nilesat installarion on wed. interested?

Definitely, just let me know the time and venue, i'll be there. how was your weekend, just got back to town last night.

waterflood:
any body with how to get Go Africa on eutelsat w3a should please mail me hhow on adexwaterflood@yahoo.com or to call me to notify me so i can call that person back for the detail my number 08060055144 thanks a lot

Waterflood,

there is a trick to getting the right answers in a forum such as this, and it is pretty simple: 'JUST ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION.'
From your post we know you are not getting Go Africa, but that is all we know, we don't know what kind of equipment you are using i.e. dish size, lnb type and setup, also we don't know your location. so we can't be of much use to you. also, how clear are the other channels you are receiving, what is the signal strength of the various other freqs you are receiving, and finally have you tried to manually input the freq and symbol rate for Go Africa and it didn't open or was it a blind scan you did and you didn't get it. fill up the blank spaces.

fasone:
@all,
i need to thank all of u gurus, newbies and the onlookers, i don't want to mention names but then few names still comes to mind anyway, badaru,jujukemist,enitan,twinstaiye,olofofo,captainus,gangsta,toxnaija,f_marchal, biggjoe, you all know yourselves. i have read over 60% of this thread and using the knowledge you all freely and genuinely passed down i can say proudly that i have installed nilesat, intelsat 7/10 ku and nss 7 for my friends without any supervision or hassle. it is true that many forums exists on the net but certainly the information one obtain in this forum is relative to Nigeria and Africa soil.
just yesterday i was able to combine the ''lectures'' (post) of toxnaija, gangsta, f_marchal and i think enitan to input nilesat disney keys into my srt4653x and viola, it opens. i didnt even bother any of you with phone calls. to whom much is given, much is also expected. thank you all for being active poster and for sharing.more blessing to you all.

Man, you are something. Kudos to you, wish a lot more people would be like you.

Sathob,

whatever you do, do not try to load a patch for strong onto your decoder. i also searched the net for info on your decoder, but could not get any site where the patch for it was listed. there are other options though, does the decoder have a USB port, you could try loading a softcam from the net unto, they usually contain the necessary keys for sabc/etv. if it doesn't, well, we'll keep checking for you.

enitan2002:
@ F_marchal,
that was a nice tip from you, but let me remind you that, obstruction against beams affect more of c-band freqs compared to its ku-band freqs.
Come over to lagos especially lagos mainland, where you will so many DSTV/HITV dishes being faced against Storey buildings.
Many people residing in lagos can testify against that, they know what am talking about.

About that, beams which are intended for a particular area usually have higher signal strenght, so are more likely to fare better when there is an obstruction along the path of the beam, as long as there is enough signal coming through. dstv, mytv, hitv, e.t.c all have their beams focused on Nigeria, and usually have very high signal strenght, so trees and buildings which are along the beam path in a way that allows some of the signals to filter through (such as in the second picture by F_Marshal), will attenuate the signal strenght, but not so much that they do not allow anything through, but when the signal is weak, like Nilesat for example (a ku-band broadcast) you really need a really good line of sight to the bird, cos obstructions will cost you a lot of signal loss. let me give an analogy, a really bright torchlight will have its beam shine through a card board paper, much better than one whose light is not so bright.
i guess what i am trying to say is that what obstructions do to the reception of signals is a function of the signal strenght (ku band signals are generally meant to have higher signal strenghts to a particular area than C-band), and not broadcast frequency/wavelenght. Infact, i can guarantee you something, you cannot receive even dstv when there is total obstruction to the signal such as in your living room.

Arabambi,

seems you r reading with your eyes closed. there are several things for you to note;
1. there are several Free to view channels on the mytv position (intelsat 7/10 on 68 degree east), these include ETV, SABC and several religious channels.
2. MBC, JSC sports, Showtime, ART, are all different packages which broadcast on Nilesat on 7 degree west. (also on hotbird, badr and several others but definitely not on intelsat 7/10.
3. intelsat7/10 broadcasts primarily to this region, so u can receive their signal with a small dish= 60, 90cm. Nilesat broadcasts to the mid east and north africa so to receive it, u need a larger dish, depending on where u r.

hope this clarifies things for you a bit. if u feel u need more info, use the search function at the top of the thread, anything you feel u need to ask has been discussed before on the previous thread.

Adewest,

i see you are still not giving out detailed info. wish you would take the time out to be clearer about the things u r saying. for example, have you really tracked nilesat with a 1.8m dish in lagos? and what about the hotbird, what TPs did u track. would love to hear more from you.

adewest:
May i help? Where do u actually stay?i am a TRACKER even with 1.8m dish at ikeja Lag nilesat works ok only cnn transponder is weak during sunligh even some transponder on HOTbird respond unbelivable.Though i reside in bauchi

What really got my attention with this post is the bit about getting some transponder freqs from hotbird, now like u said, it is almost unbelievable (almost because it has been proven on this thread that almost anything is possible, what with people in the south receiving MBC persia, while those in the north cannot). can u actually provide us more info so we can work on it? are u currently in Lagos or in Bauchi? i am most interested in the Hotbird TPs you received (albeit weakly).

Jujukemist,

how your side? can we get together tomorrow?

Twinstaiye,

Congratulations to you, i hope the year ahead is even better than the ones that have gone by, and you get everything u truly desire. all the best,

Jujukemist,

I see i have been missing action on nilesat, i just got back from ABJ this morning, and as usual it is straight to work. nice to know the showtime keys are back. i'll get in touch with you later so we can see how to go about your neighbour's dish.

[quote author=F_Marshal link=topic=7715.msg2918001#msg2918001 date=1223559062]Don't stop now. You have started something really big and you shouldn't limit your success now. If there was a PM feature, I would have communicated this to you PRIVATELY. [/quote]Ha Ha, good one

Enigma,

i fear i have been jinxed with respect to those JSC sports keys. i put in those keys yesterday but they didn't open anything. i only wish i knew someone else who is currently using them, it would give me something to work with. another problem is that my decoder doesnt seem to be accepting softcams. it doesn't recognise the usual .key files most decoders use, but even the .bin files for ALI devices don't work, the decoder recognises them but won't load them up, saying 'error loading files'. it won't accept patches either, and i am not certain i want to use a laptop to serial transfer of patches until i fully understand these decoders. i will spend the entire day today searching for info on these type A1 Ali decoders and see.

Badaru1

oh boy where u dey? i really really need your input on this JSC sports keys thing. i know your humax decoders remote is missing, does that mean u can't use the thing anymore?

jajuk,

6M dish, men, that is my dream. as regards why u can't receive nilesat, there are probably some very good explanation. what i keep wondering is if you have the right focal point? You can check this out by calculating the focal lenght at this site http://www.csgnetwork.com/antennaparaboliccalc.html. another question is have u ever used the dish to track another ku bird, for instance it is common practice here in the north to first track nss7 to enable you tweak your dish to its best setting before you face it to nilesat. bro, with a 6m dish, i won't even be thinking of nilesat anymore i will be setting my sights (pun intended) on maybe Hotbird or one of those eurobird sats, but then one step at a time.

Enitan,

looking at the pix you posted, inputing keys into your decoder should be easier than mine, what you should do is take the decoder to a friends place who is currently receiving nilesat sat, and can receive disney channel, then take the following step (this is not really different from what Enigma suggested).

1. Highlight the area where the provider is (where u currently have premiere c) and move left or right until u find one that has Showtime or ART. but if you don't find, select a blank space under irdeto/betacrypt and move on to 2. below.

2. move down to the left hand column of where u have 1, 2 , 3, etc. change the index from ff 01 10 to 06 04 00 and 06 04 01 for ART and showtime respectively, but if the FF part refuses to respond, try leaving it as FF 06 04 for both of them. (i.e. both showtime and ART).

3. the most commonly available key IDs are the 06 and 08 keys, but recently, the 02 keys have started coming into play more frequently. now the key ID is intimately related to where you get your keys from, (how they are arranged at the site you get the keys from). if they are arranged as a string of 32 alphanumerics i.e
06 AA BB CC DD EE FF HH II HH KK LL MM NN OO PP
08 QQ RR SS TT UU VV WW XX YY ZZ AA BB CC DD EE FF
then what you need to do is break the string down into 2 columns each and change the key ID by adding replacing the first 0 with another number (commonly 1 or 5), somthing like this
06 AA BB CC DD EE FF HH
16 II HH KK LL MM NN OO PP
and then
08 QQ RR SS TT UU VV WW XX
18 YY ZZ AA BB CC DD EE FF

and that is how u enter the keys into the decoder. in some softcams that u may open (with notepad), they are already arranged like they are above so you will have less problems with them. anyhow, let us know how it goes, but u have to do it on a system that receives nilesat when there are keys currently active, like right now the disney channel keys are open.

All,

Yesterday i got Jujukemist's Number and called him, i can tell u guys i am really excited that i am going to meet him today, cos there is so much i believe we can learn from each other and maybe even pass on to the house. if this feeling is anything to go by, a general forum where one can get to meet all the members of this thread and maybe even get to discuss with other corporate bodies will be a very welcome idea. i do agree the commitee should be set up and put in place before the thread is setup. the timing is critical though. the period around Christmas would have been the best cos work is less, and most people will be coming home (i understand Enigma should be in the country then.) but just before christmas will make sure we finish in time to still be able to travel home for those who want to do that, anyway, we'll sort all those things out sha.

Enigma,

I just checked out that link, since those keys were released 2 days ago, they should still be active, the funny thing is that i was on that site on the 5th but there were no keys posted then. this network access i don't have at home anymore is really frustrating, it is taking all my self discipline to remain at work and not dash home to start trying them out on my decoder. thanks a lot though.

Olofofo,

thanks for your forebearance, wish everyone was like you.

All (again),

I see some people still have a problem with inputing keys into decoders manually, i am wondering how i can make a video of the process for both a strong decoder and my ALI clone, and post it someone and paste the link, i'll try and work out the logistics and get back to you guys.

Enigma

have been searching for weeks but can't find any site with the live jsc sports keys. i have opened lots of softcams but no luck. that is why i was really interested in Olofofo's discovery. but if u know where i can get an active key, please fill me in.
just checked out the beams. i guess that explains a lot. but still puzzled how obnelly can get it with his 2.4m dish in the south. but maybe ur explanation is the best, but i will still continue my research though. another thing, it seems we in Nigeria are closer to the beam than u guys in the UK



Olofofo,

are u saying your decoder no longer opens those channels? i can guarantee u it wasn't aljazeera giving away freebies cos that would mean the rest of us would have benefited also. the only explanation still remains that u had active keys for JSC sports.

All,

Just 24hrs away from this thread and it feels like forever. my starcomms subscription expired and i didn't know, thot i still had 2 more weeks, so i have been off the grid, i have finally sorted that one out sha, hopefully for the next one month, i will be totally linked to the net through what might be broadband (still have to experience it fully) from a neighbouring cyber cafe.

Jujukemist,

Finally someone feels my pain, knowing someone else receives mbc persia on 2.4m dish in Ibadan and i can't receive it with1.8m in KD, even though i receive other channels is really frustrating, but i have read through the various explanations given, what still puzzles me though is that we receive atl bird 4 well enough because the strongest freq on the entire nilesat setup is 10758, and it is on atl brd 4, but another thing is even though that is the signal we use for tracking initially because it is the highest, we then have to tilt the dish slightly away from that position to get the other 2 birds, this causes a slight reduction from the signal quality from atl bird 4, so even though we get the strongest TP, we might not necessarily get the others, maybe tilting the dish to the best position for atl bird 4 might bring in mbc persia, but that will then raise the question on whether it is worth to forsake all the other beautiful tps just for mbc persia, but like u said, we have to explore, just got ur mail, i'll call u now.

Toxnaija/Enitan

That is the way to go, please continue along this line. all the best. sorry about your health toxnaija.

Olofofo,

i just checked my bulk mail and saw your post, only prob is that clicking on the link doesnt open the images, it only takes me to their home page. are there forces working against me with respect to JSC?

Enitan,

i see u and baba enigma have already discussed everything on keys, i'll take my time and read the posts carefully and see if there's anything else. all the best,.

Olofofo,

i didn't see any mail, could u resend it, thanks

Enigma,

Really sorry about that. please how do you edit ur post on this forum?

Olofofo,

i read somewhere u have to put in keys 4 d two different encryption, please if u can,take a picture of ur screen when it is on the irdeto screen and then on the biss/dcw screen let me see how they look like.

Olofofo,

it seems aljazeera uses 2 different encryption, irdeto and BISS. it is probably the biss keys that are on ur system. please check the BISS keys, (or DCW keys) if u see anyone that has a 4 character string with either 08AF, 0E08, or 0603, but if u r not sure, take a pix of ur BISS screen let me see how they are and i will get back to u. sorry for all the bother oh, i am sure we will make a break through,

Olofofo,

Once it comes to keys for opening scrambled channels, the only difference is in how they are arranged, but nearly all decoders use the same keys. so if u access the key edit menu and can locate the jsc sports keys, just send them to me, and i'll carry on from there, if u r not sure which ones are the keys, let me know, i'll guide u on how to locate them.

Baba Egun,

I'm not so sure where u can get the starsat decoder but in the order of ranking of decoders i think they progress from Humax, starsat, echostar/echolink (all use the same ALI chip) and then the clones. u can ask the guys who supply you ur materials to look for them for you.

Obnelly,

I was actually hoping you were getting it on a different freq. now i wonder why someone down south with a significantly lower signal quality would receive a freq and someone up north won't, i know it is not my LNB cos even though i use a 'cut' supermax, my friend uses the fuji LNB and neither of us receives it, well, i'll continue to ponder this issue for a while yet.
The web site i use to check for keys is sat-hosting.com. the problem is that they might not have the keys posted until a few hours after they become available, but the good thing is even when the keys change and most other sites don't have them yet, u just might find it on that site. but i suggest u just keep googling. please note, instead of downloading a full patch, u can just get softcams and install them directly, u will definitely have less trouble with your decoder crashing because someone posts a malicious file. or alternatively, if u are familiar with it, u can manually input keys, that way you can keep trying multiple keys and see which one works for you. all the best.

Obnelly,

do urself a favour and get art/showtime out of ur mind, u can't really ever be sure when they would return, but if u have reliable internet access, once a day u can check the net every morning b4 goin off to work, sometimes they return after a day, sometimes as much as 2 months pass without functional keys. meanwhile u still didn't post the mbc persia freq. thanks

Olofofo,

what model of starsat decoder are u using? please check out this link hxxp://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/receiver-software-international-section/12991-emtech-receiver-patched-starsat-receiver.html, for info on key editing on starsat. please if u can retreive the keys for the jsc + sports, they are either BISS or DCW keys, (but may also be irdeto), or maybe 2 keys at once, i am not sure. please get back to me, thanks.

Obnelly,

Yeah, but you get MBC persia, and that is what has been driving me crazy in the last few weeks. when u get bbc and msnbc, u really don't need cnn, but mbc persia means extra movies, series, e.t.c.  what freq do u get it on exactly? i get cnn on 12073 H 27500, same as some showtime channels.

Olofofo,

Men, that is the most incredible thing i have read on this thread in a really really long while. is there any way one an access the BISS key menu. i know on strong it is by pressing 8280, i will google it and get back to u, so maybe u can retrieve the keys and mail them to me let me test them on my decoder. men, i am definitely envious of u.

Jujukemist,

that's good, i am finally going to meet one of the original fore-Fathers of FTA on Nairaland. Please can u mail me ur no. my email is on my profile is u click on my username. i finally agree it is not a good idea to post phone no.s or email addresses directly web pages. even though my mail address is not directly displayed on the thread, there is this individual/corporation that keeps sending me these mails, and the only place they could have gotten my mail is from here, so just imagine if they could lay hands on your phone number, men u won't be able to sleep anymore. cos now they can do targeted marketing.

Olofofo

i still don't understand what u r trying to say, when u say your decoder can open jsc + sports channel, r u saying u loaded a patch and it opened up the channels or is it from someone else u got that info. please, i am very much interested in this info, if u r currently watching the channels please let me know.

All,

i just finished reseting my dish, my nilesat signals are now much better than they were before. CNN= 54% (at 9:00 AM), BBC = 66%) and 10756 84%. but am still not getting a wink of MBC persia on 12341. Also, i still can't get W3A as part of the multi LNB setup even though i moved the dish well clear of any possible obstruction, now that is a real downer.

Excellent questions Initialize, but a few corrections before we proceed. First, the only thing i am an expert in is asking questions and probably manually inputting keys into a decoder, but in the general scheme of things in this thread, all those don't begin to qualify me as an expert. Secondly, my setup is pretty ordinary, just a normal 1.8m dish and a not so common clone decoder. i dont have practical knowledge of motorized dishes, but there are alot of people here who can help you out if you ask them including Pitodenz and Olofofo.

but having cleared that out of the way, i can make a few suggestions. From what i understand about them, motorized dishes can be made to rotate within an arc in which the 36 degree east position of HITV can be easily included and because you are using a 1.8m dish to receive a signal for which a 60cm dish is the intended dish size, u should have very little problems with signal levels on HITV if u do decide to get it. the beauty with this setup is that when u decide u no longer want to subscribe to HITV, u still have ur FTA network. (please note that the satellites you are receiving will not include the Nilesat group of satellites).
About cost, there seems to be a significant differences in prices between what u can get down south and what we can get up north, so i suggest u inquire from Lagos based people such as Enitan, Olofofo and Toxnaija, but the prices quoted for you above are fairly representative of what u require. The strong decoder is the typical decoder we use, it has a lot of support i.e. firmware upgrades, patches, softcams, etc, and most installers are familiar with it, the new ones have PVR function which will allow you to record your programs, also, the Conditional Access Module (CAM) which is the card holder allows u to use most common cards (irdeto= showtime, ART, DSTV; CONAX = HITV, TRENDTV) with it. and inputing keys is fairly easy, it cannot open jsc sports channels though, but then again nilesat is not your target at the moment. most of us here are targeting the HUMAX 5400 but it is not common around here so getting it will be difficult, but it does support keys for JSC sports.
As for the HITV card, i don't know if they will sell just the card to u, and frankly i don't know how much that will cost you, hopefully not too much (i am thinking N10,000 tops, but don't quote me sha).

Get in touch with Enitan, Olofofo, and Badaru (if he still is in Lagos), they are all nice people (from what i hear) and they can be of help to u. As for me, i can't help you more than just giving out suggestions which may be difficult for you to follow anyway, but i do wish you all the best.

Badaru,

Thanks for making ur point clearer. Please did u see my post, i didnt get that decoder along Kano Road, do u have anyone in mind u can direct me to so i can get it from there?

Darkside,

From what i understand about your decoder, even though it has the conax cam, it should still accept the same softwares as others of the same series (4652 that is), i no longer use strong decoder anymore but if u search www.sat-television.com u should find a recent patch for your decoder. does yours come with usb port? if it doesn't then u have to get a computer, an rs232c cable (costs about N500 or more)and the go to the strong website and get a loader software (strong-technologies.com), u can then patch your decoder. please note that patching can go awfully wrong sometimes, so u r doing this entirely at your own risk, so please be careful, and make sure you download everything completely (part files are more likely to get u in trouble).

Enitan,

could u post some pix of your menu edit page so i can get an idea of what you are talking about.

Initialize,

Nothing stops you from getting the best of both worlds, since u haven't spent any money yet, it just might be possible for you to get a motorized dish with both c band and ku band lnb's at the focal point, and a decoder that has a multi-encryption cam (like strong for instance) get a HITV card, (if it is possible to get just the card) and u can receive both fta and paytv, you can check up on that sha. the ultimate would have been a 2.4m motorized dish, but those things are fairly unstable, so if u can get 1.8m dish with HITV card, u are good to go.

Jujukemist,

Do u still stay in KD, i wouldn't mind the opportunity to meet one of my mentors if it is okay with you. Another thing, please be careful with ur use of words, ur comments about Enigma's comparison can be taken wrongly. Enitan posted Badaru's hypothesis, some (especially the people with a lot more installation credentials) agree with him, while some (let me say the more theoritically inclined ones) disagree, i think the major problem so far is that u guys on Badaru's side of the coin haven't given out the supporting argument yet just the statement of the hypothesis, so it is difficult for others to see where u are coming from. please shed some more light if u can. though this is an aside from our fta stuff, it is a nonetheless interesting onel

Olofofo,

If u can click on my user name, it should take you to my profile where u will see my gmail address. Enigma has made me develope an aversion about pasting addresses on the net. sorry for the trouble.

enitan2002:
@ olofofo,
just try to use that application with your starcomms and try to give me a feedback

What application, if it is a free browsing aid, i am interested.

Back to FTA business, congrats Olofofo, and welcome to the world of nilesat. it is funny how we over here in the north take it for granted while down south people are willing to pay a premium for it, well, i guess that is just one of those things about life. one thing though, after a dish is used to tune a satellite, the signal quality gradually improves over the period of a few days, this is not just one of those myths but something i know a few others have commented on. you might experience signal levels as low as 48% on maybe jsc sports immediately after setting up the dish, but after 24 hrs, probably after the sun has really beaten down on the dish for sometime, u return and find the signal level is now like 52% or even more, so expect much better reception soon. congrats once again, and please get back to me about any starcomms app.

hi,
there's this yoruba song that i know is a nite club/band favorite, the problem is that i can't remember any of the words of the song, just that it has a catchy bassline which is something like , mi so mi so doh, mi so la₁ do re doh doh doh, mi so la so la so doh, mi so la₁ doh re doh doh doh. sorry i didn't correctly accentuate the music but i am hoping anyone that knows it will recognise the melody, i can't seem to get it out of my head, i just keep humming the thing.

hey com'on guys, don't tell me there's no one else that thinks grey's anatomy is the bomb and isn't just about the human anatomy (or is it physiology), well then i guess the winner is HOUSE. at least that should narrow the gap between awards for the two shows.

F_Marshal,

Talk about simplicity, i first did d test on a friends dish, i used a really thin wire by the way, and the distance between the strings was less than 2-3mm (maybe the strings were not taut enough?), so i went back home and repeated it on mine, the distance between the strings was about 1.5 - 2cm. i actually expected that cos there are 6 metals used to attach d base of the pan to the circular support frame of my dish and one of them is missing, (don't ask me how), i'll try and get another one as soon as possible and repeat the test, i actually have to reposition the dish anyway. thanks

Ceejay,

Welcome to the world of FTA, one basic fact of life is that apart from some channels on nilesat (mbc1-4, action, CNN, BBC, Aljazeera news, sports 1,2, and a few others), most premium channels are actually on paytv network, most other satellites in this area that have FTA channels have only a few channels and they show quality programs intermittently. that's why the focus on this thread in the last few months has been on
1. Getting a big enough dish to track nilesat (depending on ur location)
2. Motorizing our dishes so they can move from one satellite to another with as little fuss as possible, so u can get all those good channels with only one dish. Nobody promised anybody the same thing u get on DSTV.
The fun is in how many and how u receive them, and discovering something new, so the question i suggest you ask yourself is 'Are u up for it?' if not go and pay for your mytv subscription.
Sleep well.

Ceejay

what size of dish are u using, if na 90cm or less, then etv na the only channel when u fit receive for now, if ur dish dey up to 1.8m then add a c band lnb and you will get more channel. where are u located in the first place?

Olofofo,

if i were u, if Badaru comes over to install your nilesat for you, i would watch him like a jealous wife, everything he does and ask enough questions to make myself a nuisance, who knows u just might acquire the touch from him and become the regular nilesat installer in that area when he tires out, cos i am certain everyone is soon going to be hounding him.

About the signal quality improving just because more people are installing dishes to receive it, i don't know about, the explanation i would suggest is that the installers just get better and it the more they install so that after a while, they can almost do it with their eyes closed, i mean they would know all the tricks to coax (and that is actually what it seems like) the best signal out of dish. but then again, that is just my opinion.

F_Marshal.

still waiting on the info on the thread test if it is no bother.

F_Marshall/Big Joe,

I cant get my head around that string test thing, can't seem to get the image right in my head, if u could post some pix or some more details, it just might be helpful. thanks.