Free to Air

Free To Air

THIS PAGE IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY! WE DO NOT RECOMMEND OR CONDONE THE USE OF FTA RECEIVERS FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES. FTA RECEIVERS HAVE MANY LEGAL USES WHICH WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION.

Free to Air Description:

Free to Air televisions is, quite simply, short wave (high frequency) televisions signals that can be picked up via a satellite dish and displayed on your television. It is called free to air televisions because, although some signals need decoding, the signals are free and not subscription based. An example of subscription based televisions is Dish where the subscriber pays a fee to receive the signals and have them decoded with their Dish hardware.

There are literally tens of thousands of television signals in the ‘air’ today. You can receive these signals by simply pointing your satellite dish in the proper direction. In the past, this process could be very difficult for a ‘newbie’ – furthermore, the cost of what was then ‘new’ technology made free to air viewing fairly unknown. As technology progressed and became more cost effective, more and more people started using free to air. These days, simply buying a satellite dish and free to air receiver, people can be up and running watching 1000’s of channels in mere minutes.
As mentioned, although free to air television is not the same as ‘pay tv’, the free to air signals are encrypted (for various reasons). Further, the encryptions, or FTA keys, change over time. These days there are a plethora of free to air receivers where you can easily input the new key, having your free to air television up virtually instantly.

Hardware requirements:
To view free to air signals, you simply need 3 components: a satellite dish, a receiver and an LNB (low noise block converter). In brief: The satellite dish picks up the signals, the LNB converts the signals to be passed through the cabling to your receiver, and the receiver decrypts the signals so that you can view them on your television. Again, technology is growing so fast that you can find this equipment for a fraction of the cost of even 10 years ago. Simply typing FTA Receiver in Google gives you hundred’s of Free To Air pages.
When purchasing your hardware, make sure you find an authorized FTA dealer so that you are sure you are buying the proper gear. Dishes for example are getting smaller and smaller, so there is no need to buy a 5’ satellite dish. In contrast, there is no reason to buy a 6” dish for $100’s more when an 18” will work just as well. Shop around, do your research and always read the reviews.

Decryption:
After you have purchased all of your necessary equipment, there is one last cost to consider – decryption. As described above, decryption takes place at the receiver level. Free to Air receivers are usually “set top” machines (like a VCR or DVD player) and require you to enter an FTA Key to view your channels. Different receiver manufacturers have different codes. To find the proper codes, it is easiest to subscribe to a website that offers FTA Keys on an ongoing basis for your model of receiver. Be careful – some FTA Key sites are either out right scams or get their keys very late (usually because the owner actually subscribes to another site to get their keys) and support is minimal. Try to find a site that has good reviews and offers 24h support. Find one that has a one month trial so you can be sure of the quality. A good site that supports setup and all FTA Keys for almost every brand receiver brand imaginable is N2News, a site that has been around since FTA started appearing on the internet. These guys will help you set up your machine, get all your channels working and then provide instant FTA Key updates for your particular receiver at very reasonable prices.

THIS PAGE IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY! WE DO NOT RECOMMEND OR CONDONE THE USE OF FTA RECEIVERS FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES. FTA RECEIVERS HAVE MANY LEGAL USES WHICH WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION.