FTA Satellite TV

[marksroberson]

Greetings Friends, I am finally moving into a house of my own, and am facing an all-too common issue:
HIGH CABLE BILLS
I have been a believer in free OTA antenna TV for many years, but where I am moving, I receive a total of 2 TV channels (and the sub-channels are pointless)
so I believe I am going to try out Free-To-Air Satellite Television (FTA).
Being new, I have some questions. I have an account on Ricks Satellite USA Forums, But they are mostly pro-level TV watchers.
Disclaimer 1: I know most signals via these satellites is foreign and/or religious, But I think I might like obscure things like that, A nice conversation topic. Also, I believe I will love trying to receive random Feeds and backhauls. I have always been a "Behind the scenes media nut"
Disclaimer 2: Being a new home-owner, I would like to be friends with my neighbors, Therefore, I believe I am going to go with a Ku Band system ONLY. No 10 ft dish in my front yard!
*For more context, I will be a few blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, so there is no problem as far as objects blocking my path.
Question 1: My house has a satellite dish from the existing owners, will this work with FTA receivers?
I am currently looking at This setup and believe it is the best way to go about getting introduced, but If I can re-use old hardware like the dish currently on the roof, I can have a much cheaper option like This set-top box.
Question 2: How many satellites can be received at one time if I have a FIXED pointed dish? I would like to receive Galaxy-19 but also receive and scan feeds on Sats like Galaxy-17. Can I receive both at the same dish position?
Question 3: I currently have a list of English Only 24/7 channels and it is about a page long. Should I expect an increase in use in these satellites or decrease (I assume decrease in the rise of Live-U units for news reporting, and Internet livestreams). I have also heard there is a large amount of radio channels on these satellites, are these also monitorable?
Question 4: Let me know if you have a system like this, and what you watch the most, also let me know what the most interesting thing you have seen on it has been.

I have been visiting sites like Lyngsat.com and satsig.net Let me know if there is any other helpful sites I need to know about. Thanks.



Also, This is the only forum category I could find that this would fit in best, as the satellite forum is more for amateur radio comms via satellites, not commercial Satellites.

 

[prcguy]

I would suggest going here and checking out the FTA section. SatelliteGuys.US You can see what others are watching and also ask your same questions there.

Otherwise you would have to post a picture of your dish in question 1. For question 2, If its a Ku dish then you can potentially get whatever Ku satellite is in one particular orbital slot. For question 3 its hard to say, part of C band is going away so some of it may end up on Ku band. Otherwise a lot of satellite traffic has moved to fiber. You might find some single radio stations here and there but pay type radio services like XM are not available for free and most of the feeds for other services like Music Choice have gone to Internet feeds, and they were encrypted when on the satellites anyway.

Lyngsat is pretty good for finding what's out there and if its in the clear.

I have some Ku stuff around here somewhere and used to have a 10ft C/Ku dish many years ago but there was much more to watch back then. I also worked for the largest direct to home satellite provider in the US and had racks and racks of every kind of receiver available and dishes pointed everywhere to play with. As years went by there was less and less to watch in the clear and 6 or 8 years ago I just didn't bother looking around for FTA stuff anymore. But at the same time I had over a thousand TV channels piped into my office with wide open receivers that got everything my company and its affiliates had to offer.