If you want to know, that how to create an FTA TV System for Receiving free-to-air Satellite TV channels at home from C-Band Satellites, then you are on the right page. Trackdish.com is a popular website for tutorials on Satellite Tv, IPTV, DTV, Cable TV, and CCTV systems. Many people, almost 99 % know that we can connect a dish to a set-top box and obtain a certain number of channels as provided or broadcasted by a broadcaster. We often tend to limit ourselves to the list of programs, made available by the broadcaster, while we can go and change the general idea of using a regular paid DTH to obtain quality services. We can free ourselves from the packages offered by DTH companies and can create our package. And that too most of the time cost-free using a free-to-air satellite TV system. We know that DD (Doordarshan) Freedish, earlier known as DD DIRECT has been broadcasting free channels for quite some time now. But the channels provided were very few. Apart from these, there are many other broadcasters, providing their service for free, but they are not as popular as they ought to be. Let us consider just 4 satellites providing free-to-air services.
Currently, if we use Ku-Band DTH like Freedish then we may receive up to 150+ TV channels. But if we can collect TV channels from all the above satellites, then we could receive 500+ channels and all that free (without any monthly rental). Collecting these channels requires a system called a multiple-dish system like a cable operator.
Consider there are four Dish antennae A, B, C & D. So let’s see how to combine all the TV channels in a single set-top box.
Dish Antenna A receives 120+ TV channels from GSAT 17
Dish Antenna B receiving 100+ FTA channels from GSAT-30
Dish Antenna C receives 145+ FTA channels from Intelsat 20
Dish Antenna D receives 100+ Free TV channels from Asiasat 7
Their connection type may be depicted as. Now if we can combine all these FTA TV channels in a single satellite receiver then we have to attach them with a small switch, called DiSEqC Switch. the entire setup is as depicted below.
if we can combine all these FTA TV channels in a single satellite receiver then we have to attach them with a small switch, called DiSEqC Switch
Using a DiSEqC Switch –
Connect Antenna 1 to DiSEqC Switch Port 1: Use a coaxial cable to connect Antenna 1 to Port 1 of the DiSEqC switch. Connect Antenna 2 to DiSEqC Switch Port 2: Use a coaxial cable to connect Antenna 2 to Port 2 of the DiSEqC switch. Connect DiSEqC Switch to STB: Use a coaxial cable to connect the DiSEqC switch to the STB’s antenna input port. Configure STB for DiSEqC: Access the STB’s settings menu and select the “Antenna” or “Satellite” option. Configure the STB to recognize the DiSEqC switch and the two antennas. After connecting all these together setup in the STB must also be configured. Although above we have mentioned only C-Band satellites, you can use GSAT-15 and Ku-Band. So you can create four satellites in your set-top box satellite list and LNB Frequency should be 05150. Now in the DiSEqC switch option give a different port number to each satellite.
Satellite List
LNB FREQ
DiSEqC Port
GSAT-17
05150
A
GSAT-30
05150
B
INTELSAT 20
05150
C
ASIASAT 7
05150
D
After successful configurations, you can scan your satellite decoder using the blind scan feature. Select Search type FTA Only for receiving only free-to-air TV channels. You don’t have to delete scrambled TV channels one by one. Congratulations !! Now you have created a mini Cable TV system at your home for FTA viewing. Here you have learned how to connect multiple dish antenna with the single set-top box. Now you can learn, that how to connect multiple TVs with a single dish antenna.
