What is FREE TO AIR?

Free to Air television has been available for years to satellite hobbyist and enthusiast around the world.   Many people ask the question: What is Free to Air and what does it mean?  Basically it is self explanatory.  There are many "free"  and "paid" programming channels in the air waves, all you have to do is have a compatible satellite receiver and a satellite dish with the proper reception hardware pointed to the orbital satellite that you want to watch. 

Below is the Wikipedia description of Free to Air as it relates to North America, however there are many other orbital markets to watch.  You can get a full detailed description of this at their web site if you choose.  

ATTENTION:  Our Free to Air products are completely and totally ligitimate when used in the intended manor, however Cable and or Satellite Signal or Programming Theft may be illegal.  Do not contact our office to discuss the use or miss use of our products for these purposes.  We will refuse sale to anyone whom we believe will use these products for any purpose other than their intended use.   Please read our Terms of Use Policy concerning FTA products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-air

From the Wikipedia Web Site:

NORTH AMERICA

There are a number of competing systems in use, with early adopters having used C-band satellite dishes of several feet in diameter to receive signals which were originally analogue microwaves, and then digital microwave using the 3.9-4.2 GHz band. Today, in the 11.7-12.2 GHz Ku band, which enables the use of under one-meter dishes, with most often the DVB-S standard, FTA can be used from apartment balconies.

The most common North American sources for free-to-air DVB satellite television are:

Most of these signals are carried by US satellites. There is little or no free Canadian DVB-S content available to users of medium-size dishes as much of the available Ku-band satellite bandwidth is occupied by pay-TV operators Star Choice and Bell TV, although the large style dish (over 3 feet) does have a few choices. FTA signals may be scattered across multiple satellites, requiring a motor or multiple LNBfs to receive everything.

The largest groups of end-users for Ku-band free-to-air signals were initially the ethnic-language communities, as often free ethnic-language programming would be sponsored by Multilingual American Communities and their broadcasters. Depending on language and origin of the individual signals, North American ethnic-language TV is a mix of pay-TV, free-to-air and DBS operations. Today, many American broadcasters send a multitude of programming channels in many languages, spanning many new channels, so they can get National support, which ultimately leads to carriage by cable systems, to additionally support the high costs of broadcasting signals in this way.

Nonetheless, free-to-air satellite TV is a viable addition to any home video system, not only for the reception of specialised content but also for use in locations where terrestrial ATSC over-the-air reception is incomplete and additional channels are desired.

 

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Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License

Please read our Terms and Conditions Policy regarding FTA equipment.

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