For those in the television backwaters — the places that have lost one or more network TV signals due to the switch to digital television — there are alternatives, in a little known form of satellite television.
It’s kind of like one of those “good news, bad news” jokes.
The good news is that there are dozens, even hundreds of television signals available absolutely free, and the reception is almost always crystal clear. As long as you have a clear view of the southern sky, and aren’t prohibited from setting up a satellite dish (if someone — landlord, homeowner’s association, zoning authority, anyone — tries to tell you that you are prohibited from having a dish, that prohibition may be illegal under federal law), all that television is yours for the viewing.
The bad news: There are many “catches”.
First of all, don’t expect to get the equivalent of cable or commercial satellite TV. While there are a handful of cable channels that will occasionally become available for short periods of time, most of the stations are the sort you’d find on low-power local television stations, or on the secondary channels of local HDTV stations (those channel-02 and channel-03 channels, for example). Many are in Spanish, or some other foreign language. If you are really lucky, you might pick up a major network feed, but if you do, you probably don’t want to tell anybody, because if too many people find out, that channel will almost certainly disappear.
And that’s the biggest rub with this service — unless you’re really good at scrounging used equipment and figuring out what needs to be done to make it usable with the free signals, you’ll spend at a minimum two to three hundred dollars to get a working system going, and even more if you want to receive signals from multiple satellites or if you want to receive true HDTV signals (note that almost all satellite television is digital these days, but not all of it is in high definition). And once you have spent all that money, the stations you enjoy today could be gone tomorrow.
There is an apocryphal story that went around in the satellite forums — a cable television company in Alaska fed several of the Anchorage TV stations to one of the satellites in the clear, presumably for the purpose of feeding this signals to remote cable systems in cities and villages around Alaska. Those “in the know” enjoyed these stations, particularly viewers in the Eastern half of the U.S., because they provided the west coast feeds of all the major networks. That much I know to be fact, everything else is just rumor that was floating around the satellite forums a while back.
One day, as the story goes, some bigmouth in a bar was bragging about how he could watch the Saturday baseball feeds from both coasts. What he did not know was that the president of the cable company was there, and was unaware (to that point) that his technicians were uplinking the signals in a totally unencrypted format that anyone with the right kind of receiver and satellite dish could view, no subscription required. He overheard the bigmouth, and ordered his technicians to scramble the signal, but that wasn’t the end of it.
As the story goes, FOX got wind of the incident and realized that by feeding games to the East and West coasts separately, some folks could watch TWO MLB games on Saturday, just by changing feeds. I’m not sure if this violated some contractual agreement with Major League Baseball or what, but all anyone knows for sure is that in subsequent seasons, they started doing all Saturday baseball feeds starting at 4:00 PM Eastern nationwide – no more 1:00 PM games for the Eastern and Central time zones.
So the lesson is, you could spend considerable $$$ on receiving equipment, but that doesn’t guarantee there will be anything you want to watch. Here today, maybe gone tomorrow, and loose lips sink channels.
What about the legality? Well, I am not a lawyer, and I’m definitely not going to give you legal advice. But to the best of my knowledge, no one in the United States has ever been prosecuted for watching unscrambled signals. The thinking in the U.S. seems to be that anyone with a signal they want to protect has some duty to mitigate losses, by employing some form of encryption. I’m sure that certain content owners would disagree about the legality of watching just any unscrambled signal you happen to find, but I don’t think any court would be too sympathetic — and besides, are you really going to run around telling everyone just what you’re watching? Assuming you’re not drunk and shooting your mouth off in a bar somewhere, that is.
However, in the past there have been unscrupulous people who have sold “hacked” receivers that pick up signals they are not supposed to be able to receive without paying. If you buy one of those, you are an idiot. Why? Because those receivers will not continue to pick up those signals indefinitely, because companies change their encryption methods from time to time. So, after a while you’ll have to go back to the guy you bought it from and see if he can unlock it again, assuming you can even find him. But chances are, the FBI or some other government agency will find him first, and will obtain his customer list, and next thing you know they’ll be at your door and you’ll be charged with theft of service, a federal felony. There is a HUGE difference between watching the unencrypted signals that are freely available, and using “hacked” equipment to try and receive signals that are encrypted. Try the latter and you may be doing most of your TV viewing on a communal TV in an inmate recreation area.
Most people who watch the free, unencrypted satellite TV realize that the hackers are a menace to the hobby. The last thing they need to to be labeled “pirates” and lumped in with those who just want to steal signals. So on many of the online satellite forums, any request for information on hacking a receiver will likely get you banned for life. That’s no small thing, considering that there are very few good sources of online information on the subject.
One of the best sources of information is the Free To Air (FTA) Discussion forum at SatelliteGuys.US. And make no mistake, if you really want to explore this, there’s a learning curve. For one thing, satellite dishes have to be aimed fairly precisely – getting just “sort of close” DOES NOT count. For another thing, satellite signals don’t pass through solid objects of any kind, particularly trees with leaves or needles on them. Even a small branch with four or five leaves can cast a shadow across a dish that will reduce the received signal to a point where it’s unusable. And, for the most part, you can’t just take an old Dish Network or DirecTV dish and reuse it (although if you have an old PrimeStar dish, that will work, and the larger sizes of those dishes are much valued by those who view these free signals). You will need to learn about setting up a dish (best to use a pole in the ground set in concrete — with a satellite dish, additionl height does not get you more signal, but makes it a lot harder to clear accumulated snow off the dish in the winter, something else that can interfere with the signal), grounding the dish, aiming it at the desired satellite, and getting the signal to the receiver.
Still, for those who are into technical things, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of getting your first free TV signal from the sky! And unlike the shortwave radio signals that excited our fathers and grandfathers, these signals rarely fade out, so once you’ve “peaked” the signal you can watch the stations on that satellite until you get sick of them or they go away, whichever comes first. And with many people losing free “over the air” television due to the DTV transition, now might be the time to explore the world of Free To Air television, if you are so inclined (and are not adverse to the risk of spending money on equipment that may not be usable after some period of time).
Just one thing, DON’T call your local TV antenna installer and ask him to come out an install one of these systems – unless he’s also into this, he’s probably not going to know what the heck you are talking about. This is definitely a Do-It-Yourself project for most folks. Commercial installers know about commercial systems, like Dish Network and DirecTV, and they would be happy to install one of those systems for you. My only advice with regard to those services is, seriously, make them put the dish on a pole in your yard, unless you like leaks in your roof, unsightly cable runs, and no TV after a wet, heavy snow (unless you climb up on a wet, slippery roof to clean the snow off the dish). Installers hate pole mounts because they have to make two trips (one to mix and pour the cement, then a day or two later to finish the install) so you may have to put your foot down and say “no yard pole, go away and I’ll get someone else, because you’re not putting a dish on my roof!!” But just remember, even if your roof doesn’t leak immediately after an install, that just means it’s going to take a while for the leaks to form — but once they do, what do you think your chances will be of getting that installer to come back and fix the damage?
Anyway, I’m not trying to talk you into this. Most people who read this article won’t pursue Free To Air satellite any further, and that’s fine – too many users might hasten the departure of the remaining free (unscrambled) feeds. But on the other hand, too few users and it’s not worth it to the equipment manufacturers to build and market the receivers. So if you are truly interested, check out the forum mentioned above, and the sponsors on that site (and also the Global Communications site, run by an enthusiast and equipment dealer in Wisconsin).
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