10 Facts Free-to-Air Satellite Installers may Never tell A Beginner

There are things to ask your FTA installer as a beginner before you proceed with your FTA satellite tv installations. For obvious reasons, because  Free to Air gurus and enthusiasts may never tell you certain things. At least, they won’t tell you before you invest in the satellite tv equipment. Don’t blame us because if we tell you, you may lose interest immediately. However, I will spill some of the beans so that on your own part as the customer, you can ask sensible questions so as to get the best advice from the FTA guru that would be handling your satellite tv installation. Some of the answers to these mysteries you may have as a beginner in the Free to Air Satellite business. I was also once in your shoes and I learnt the hard way.

Things to ask your FTA installer Before you buy Your Satellite TV Equipment

In this section, I shall be dishing how useful tips on the things you need to ask your installer before you invest in the project of setting up a free to air satellite tv system.

• What Type of Installation are you Planning to Set-up for me?

Some installers will want to install an IKS/cardsharing solution for you under the disguise of FTA. The only way for you to know is that they will ask you to connect the device to the internet before it can open certain channels. Simply ask them if you will need a special account or subscription along with stable internet to enjoy the channels. Another way to know if you are about to pay for a 100% FTA, a pseudo-FTA or a cardsharing is in the content. Immediate the satellite TV promises you live premium soccer matches for free, for a one-off payment or for a token, know that you are not doing FTA.

• Free to air Offers very few local Contents

Secondly, you will definitely get more foreign content than local content. This is partly good news since most people can get local channels easily anyways. Besides, local channels tend to be boring.

Furthermore, the foreign contents you will receive on FTA is global. You can get channels from all the continents of the world such as Asia, America, Africa, Europe, Australia and so on.

• In most case, Some of the Channels are not in English

Let’s take some MBC FTA channels as our example. Some of them are not broadcasted in English. You as an English speaker will receive channels speaking in Chinese, French, Zulu, Arabic, Portuguese,  Hindu, etc.

That notwithstanding, you will still receive many of the channels in English. In some cases, even if the audio is not in English, it will be subtitled. Come to think of it, If you can speak and read French then you are at an advantage because there are quite a number of french channels.

• When you receive some channels in English, the commercial break may not run in english. This is nothing actually.
• Also, it is important to note that some of the best channels have strange subtitles.

• You have a wide array of Religious channels on some satellite positions

Religious channels dominate some satellite positions. An example of a satellite position with many religious channels is on Intelsat 20 68.5E. Some of the Christian religious channels you can receive are Sunna, Loveworld, Emmanuel TV, Starcross and Angel TV among others.

• At times, FTA Channels are Simply Scrambled and for no Reason

Some channels are scrambled for no reason at all. Through lyngsat, you will be able to get to some of the TV stations websites and you will ask yourself why they are scrambled. For example, why is Walf TV from Senegal scrambled? They speak French in Senegal so to an English speaker. In addition, signals of some channels might just go off randomly

• The Bigger your dish, the more Premium FTA channels you will enjoy

Big C band dish needs a considerable amount of space to install. This is obvious. Read about the differences between prime focus and offset dishes here.  Also, read the difference between KU-Band and C-Band LNB here.

• You can’t Receive and watch Premium football Content reliably on FTA Packages

For premium and reliable soccer like EPL, you need to get a subscription from a pay-TV company operating in your region. Reliable Football content is not for free you need to pay for it somehow either legally or illegally.

• To Enjoy more FTA channels, you need to attach multiple LNBFs to your Dish

This you will find out for yourself: You will not get satisfied with one dish only. The many, the better the satisfaction and the more an expert you will become. However, if you have a big dish with multiple LNBS, you can motorise it and receive channels on various satellites using just your single BUD. Otherwise, you will definitely need to install multiple dishes to enjoy enough.