Here is a little update for ya all.
I thought that since I had the Starchoice equipment that I would practice setting up a dish in anticipation of when I get an FTA setup. I know some of you are thinking - 'Why bother, you can't get any channels unless you subscribe' - Well I asked myself that question a dozen times while I was getting all the tools necessary for the job. 'Well because!' I say to myself 'This is great opportunity to see if my exposure to the satellites is any good, and If I can actually setup this dish and lock on to Anik F1, I could get an idea of how many Sats may be visible from my yard'. You see I have an entire row of poplar trees to the east of my "South Viewing Window', and a huge set of trees to the west, AND to make matters worse there is a 2 story house not 20 feet from my house and RIGHT IN THE WAY.
So, feeling justified now because of the above factors, and with my ladder in hand I proceeded to scale the various heights of my house to look for the best location for my test dish. Well within 15 minutes of surveying (my wife shaking her head and muttering from time to time in the yard below) I found the best spot possible in my location which was 20 feet up on my south facing wall. I won't tire you with the exact steps I took to get the dish up but I will say that you should not do this yourself unless you are very confident in your ladder and tool handling abilities.
So two hours later the dish is up (Starchoice Elliptical, dual LNBF-with quad output) and roughly pointed southward. I ran a hundred feet of RG6 to my receiver, turned it on to ch 402 and got a signal strength of 15. I figured that this was just background noise and I did not blink twice at it. Now, with two cordless phones, my wife (still mumbling and shaking her head) with one of them watching the signal meter display on the TV, and me on the other phone up the ladder doing the 'sky dance' with the dish and thinking this is crazy.. Well, within 5 minutes of searching for Anik F1, moving the dish left to right, then up and down, then left and right again, etc, we had a signal strength of 65 on the meter which I heard is fine for Starchoice. 'Wow'. I thought. 'That was easy'. So with a bounce in my step I headed back to the house to see this miracle for myself. Sure enough on the TV in all it's wondrous glory...."Star Choice TV" ...in Digital..! Now realize that we have been on Antenna TV for quite some time now, and seeing such a rock solid signal where once we had fuzzy, and often double vision signals, was for me, quite thrilling, even it was just a 'Buy Starchoice' commercial channel. Even my wife was sitting up and taking notice now, and I could see that the 'Spouse Approval' meter for the FTA system I want to buy just went up a notch or three.
To top that off, my wife found two channels that are unscrambled and came in beautifully clear. (Watching her work the remote control was akin to watching Commander Data switch memory modules.. ) The channels are, 'The Knowledge Network' out of British Columbia, and 'Access TV' from Calgary,Alta. I did some research and apparently they are Free to Air.
Click...Click...the 'Spouse Approval' meter just went up a couple more notches...
So to sum it all up... Doing this 'Test' install was more than worth it. I figured out the best location for my FTA, I believe that even with the giant trees on both sides I will have an arc from about 85*W to 140*W
(how do you do degrees symbols?) as well has getting my hands dirty so to speak, will help me to better install a motorized system, and let us not forget the important 'Spouse Approval' meter...
FTA here we come.....hope I didn't bore anyone.
Cheers All.
. lol
