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I know that owning a free to air receiver can be a pretty overwhelming and confusing situation at first. There’s so many different terms and words you’ve probably never heard before. Example: FTA, Autoroll, Nagra, firmware, software, flash cards, loaders, receivers, and many more. Hopefully after reading this article you’ll have a much better understanding of all of these words and you’ll be able to more knowledgeably navigate yourself through the setup or installation of your home Free to Air satellite TV system. Please keep in mind that I am going to keep this article as simple as possible. Free to Air satellite TV isn’t as easy as it sounds. Testing with FTA requires one to research and read up because FTA isn’t always fun. Sometimes it can be a very frustrating experience. So, before getting yourself a free to air receiver make sure you read as much on the subject as humanly possible because it will make the road to satellite TV much less bumpy for you. Alright I think we’re ready to get started now. Here is many of the most typical free to air terms you’d hear or read about.
FTA or Free to Air
Free to Air has been around for almost a decade now at least to the general public anyways. FTA is the abbreviation of the phrase “Free to Air”. FTA simply means what it says. Free satellite transmissions that are meant to be completely free to the public. Many different television networks around the world broadcast 100% free channels that anyone can intercept to watch TV in their home or business. This is sometimes referred to as “true free to air” because this is what FTA receivers are essentially designed for. Within recent years FTA has become much more than just this. The free to air satellite market is now a billion dollar industry. All over the world people have started using their FTA receivers to illegally intercept common satellite TV companies that offer channels for a cost by programming their satellite system to decrypt the signals. This is mostly how FTA gained it’s huge popularity.
True Free to Air
True FTA describes using free to air as it was intended. Intercepting satellite signals which are completely free and are in place for the general public to use at their own will. These satellites are completely legal to point your dish at. Some channels that are available for free as true free to air satellite feeds would include, weather channels, some sports channels, and other information type stations. There are some entertainment channels available as True FTA feeds. The only issue with True FTA is that there are not normally any more than one channel per satellite. This means that in order to have 10 channels of free TV you would either need to point 10 different satellite dishes at 10 different satellites or you would have to purchase and install / setup a dish motor. Dish motors are great if you set them up properly. The dish motor would mechanically move your satellite dish and point it automatically depending on which channel you decide to watch from all of the way inside the house.
FTA Receiver
An FTA receiver is a piece of electronic equipment that is connected to your television and a satellite dish pointed properly. Think of it as a cable box for your TV. Except it’s connected to a compliant satellite dish usually mounted on your roof or fence. FTA receivers come in almost unlimited makes and models. Some of the most popular brands of free to air receivers available today would include Pansat, Viewsat, Coolsat, Captiveworks, NFusion, Sonicview, and many more. Any of these brands are completely acceptable as a first receiver for anyone. Each brand has it’s own unique set of features and options. This is why, again, that reading and researching is so important when getting into the FTA “scene”. You want to pick out the receiver that you would benefit from the most. This part is completely up to you. I can’t really help you out with deciding which receiver to purchase. My only advise is get aware of what certain features are including “fast EPG” and “PVR”.
 
FTA Compliant Satellite Dishes
This part is easy. There are so many different satellite dishes on the market today that you could choose from to set up your FTA system. You are basically looking for any type of KU Band satellite dish. KU Band describes a style of satellite dish. You’ve definitely seen KU Band dishes before. They are the small dishes which connect to the side of someone’s house or on their roof. They are not the big ugly dishes that you may remember from the 1990’s. KU Band satellite dishes are very inexpensive and highly available. Starting out around $29.99 USD they can get as expensive as $200 USD depending on what you are looking for. Example: If you want high definition (HD) channels then you would need a dish with an extra LNB for connecting to the second satellite in space with HD channels on it. Many manufacturers sell FTA compliant dishes in electronic stores and online venues. Fortec Star and Ariza are probably the most well known dish names for FTA purposes.
LNB
LNB means low noise convertor. It’s easy to get very technical here but I’ll keep it extremely simple. The LNB is the little box at the end of the arm which extends from the actual dish part of the satellite dish. It’s the small piece of electronic equipment which points at the center of the dish. The LNB receives the signal that bounces off the satellite dish. You connect your LNB to the coaxial cable which runs directly to your FTA receiver inside your house. The coaxial cable runs down through the arm of the dish and to the FTA box. This keeps the cable protected from the elements. Most times an LNB will have 2 separate places on it’s underside to plug 2 different coaxial cables into. This basically means that you can connect two FTA receivers to the one LNB. These LNB’s are called Dual LNB’s. You will most likely want to get a dish with a dual LNB. That way you can watch satellite TV on up to two different TVs.
FTA Firmware
We’ll start with the meaning of Firmware. Firmware is essentially software which is built in to a hardware device. Firmware is built into almost all your home electronics. Even using your remote control on your television is using the TV’s built in firmware. This is the software that tells your TV to change a channel when you press “channel up” on your remote control. The firmware is usually always built directly into your electronic device’s hardware but sometimes using a flash drive that you connect to the device you can update, change or install the device’s firmware. This is what happens when you own a free to air receiver. The firmware which is installed on all FTA receivers today can be altered and changed by uploading a binary image file (BIN File) to the receiver and executing it via your FTA firmware. Your FTA receiver’s firmware is capable of opening BIN files to update, change, or rollback parts of it’s FTA firmware.
FTA Software
Because FTA receivers can be connected directly to a home PC or USB stick it’s sometimes necessary to update your FTA receiver by plugging it in to your PC with either a USB cable or Serial cable. In order for you computer to recognize and utilize the receiver connected to it, you will have to install software on your computer that properly uploads files depending on the model of box you have. Each FTA receiver has it’s own unique FTA software that you will need to download and install on your computer if you want to upload Autoroll BIN files to your FTA receiver. Depending on how old your receiver is, this may not be applicable to you. Newer FTA receivers don’t have the need for FTA software because they use USB flash drives to be updated rather than software on your actual computer.
FTA Files
You may of hear the term, “FTA files” used to explain many different types of files used by your FTA receiver. FTA files is a general phrase used to describe a number of different files, BIN files, software, firmware, and update files. Most of the time FTA files is another way of saying Free to Air autoroll BIN files. If you are going to keep your satellite TV up and running all the time you will always need to be downloading whatever new FTA files are available for your particular receiver model. By FTA files I could mean either new software, firmware, BIN, or update files. On average you will be required to download new FTA files via an FTA Support website at least once a week. This is why finding the right FTA file support is so important when owning a FTA system.
FTA Keys
Depending on what you are using your FTA receiver for, you might be interested in learning about what FTA keys are and what they are used for. FTA keys are sometimes needed in order to update your receiver’s firmware to decrypt certain channels and satellites. If you are changing your FTA receiver’s keys you should be aware of the laws and regulations in your area that in place about doing this. The only reason you’d be changing keys would be if there isn’t a new Autoroll BIN file available yet for your receiver and you really need to watch some TV. The FTA keys are a series of numbers and letters which are currently active with the satellite company for unlocking certain channels. Ultimately you would go to your FTA support website and find the new keys released that day. You would go into the menu of your FTA receiver via the remote control and your TV and change the numeric and alphabetic fields with the new or latest FTA keys.
Read Part 2
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1 Month Free to Air Receiver Files and
