Satellites

[Magnum]

Please forgive me if this has been posted before because I cannot find it;

I have a few satellite dishes laying around and I believe one of them is a two-way (not sure), however, I do not have the equipment that is used with them, just the dishes. Is there anything I can possibly do to make use out of them, I have heard there is a way to get Satellite-TV by using the computer, or even getting High-Speed internet. If either of these are possible, or maybe something else pretty cool, please let me know or tell me somewhere I can possibly find out.

[hackajar]

Satellite Dish Wi-Fi

I have the answer to all your problems. You will only need an empty can of corn (or any can of the like), a N-Connector, pig-tail connector and, of course, your satellite dishes. Here's the HOWTO you will need. Now you got a great use for all those dishes!

[HCentral]

Insert a small electret (or any) microphone at the focus (where the LNB was) and run to a small amplifier w/headphones. Point at interesting person/house/bird and listen from a suprising distance. Cheap parabolic mic.

[Magnum]

Thanx

These are both great ideas and i will probably do them, however, would it be different if i had the box for the satellite? Would i then be able to actually get satellite tv and if so, where could i find one?

[spoof]

I'm guessing you have KU-band dishes. People used to hack Dishnetwork and DTV receivers &/or cards (or have computers emulating the cards) to get free service but that's mostly dead now. The latest rage was "FTA" receivers which were generic MPEG4 satellite receivers that were (ostensibly) used for receiving free satellite programming (FTA=Free To Air) available on a small number of satellites in the western hemisphere (legitimately free satellite channels are much more popular in other parts of the world). However, certain FTA receivers were particularly accomodating of 'bootleg' firmware upgrades that turned them into descramblers for Dish Network or Canadian BEV (Bell ExpressVu) systems. I believe there are still some channels on BEV that can be received in this manner, but once they roll over to a new encryption scheme in a few months (the porn and pay per view channels are already using it) even the 'basic cable' type channels will be gone until such time as the proverbial 'someone' hacks the new scheme (if ever).

So what can you do?

1) Buy an FTA receiver (but be careful, I'm not sure what LNBs are compatible- I'm using an old DSS LNB with mine and it works) and attempt to watch the few free channels available (assuming you are in the US). The only interesting ones I remember are PBS and NASA-TV.

1b) Flash the receiver with new firmware and descramble BEV for the next few months.

2)IIRC, the "CD Music" channels on most satellite providers' systems is still hackable. I believe even the old "H", "F", and even "Battery" cards are still receving free music chanels. Most people scoff at this but it's still kind of cool, especially for free. Think of it as the poor man's XM or Sirius.

Oh, assuming you have a dish and LNB, you'll also need some RG-6 coax, and a compass to correctly point the dish at the satellite you want to receive.

[spahkle]

and THAT [points at spoofs post] is a great example of a first post. Joined in March, lurked for a few months, and then jumped in with some relevant technical information in response to a question.

/golf clap