Greetings from Canada!

[FTA Newbie]

I wish I had found this forum earlier. My parents had a huge dish with Uniden receiver. They stopped using it to watch TV when everything turned to pay instead of Free. Back in the early 80s they used to get some awesome shows! We got a Bell Expressvu satellite dish and were hoping to expand our viewing and so recently purchased a Coolsat 6000 receiver. We were told that since the dish was already setup all we had to do was plug in the Coolsat to get hundreds of Free to air channels. We did this and found that we do get hundreds of channels but only 16 are free and those 16 are advertising. They failed to mention that you have to download Coolsat programming using a RS-232 cable and a PC. Is there some way to download the necessary programming using a Mac or does it have to be a PC?
I am just so full of questions. I didn't realize that there would be so much to learn!!! I would really like to understand the process. Is there some place I could go to get the basic info without boring everyone with my stupid questions...like what does a LNB switch do? and does the dish have to move? etc.

Thanks for your patience in advance.

[BGonaSTICK]

Hello m8, and welcome to the forum

We really only cover European satellites and packages as that's all we can receive, but there are lots of similarities so I'm sure most stuff we can help you with.

I believe that the Coolsat is the same as our Technomate 1xxx series (certainly looks the same), but to be on the safe side you should find a provider of patches and loaders from a Canadian or US site, as using the wrong patch could easily render your box useless (...and permanently).

I think you'll find that the loader program is written for the PC, and so won't run on the Mac unless you have some sort of emulator :?

Any Mac users out there care to comment?

I believe that BEV is Nagra 2 and currently wide open, so you shouldn't have a problem locating suitable software.

As for all those questions that you might think of as stupid, we certainly don't - and this is the place to ask them. Just ask one or two at a time and in the most suitable section, and we'll get right to them

We are keen to accommodate raw beginners, so no problem.

Once again, welcome to our forum and have fun

STICK

[Analoguesat]

Welcome to the forum

Edit - must type faster - BGS beat me to it

For the very basic stuff you are in just the right place - this site is all about helping folks new to the hobby get at least a basic knowledge of satellite tv reception. For the stuff specifically applicable to Canada / USA you may need to look elsewhere, although we will try to help as far as we can. However, most if not all of our senior members / admin team are Europe based so bear with us if we cant answer all your questions. Ask away - no-one will think any less of you for asking the most basic questions here - we were all beginners once.

Right as to your first queries.

an lnb switch allows you to change between lnb's on either two or more dishes, or 2 / 3 lnb's on one dish.
The dish doesnt have to move if you only want cahnnels off one orbital location. If you want to watch multiple satellites in varous orbital locations, then you need to move the dish. here is the complete list of satellite hovering up above the Americas:

http://www.lyngsat.com/america.html

Now note - not all of these will be visible in any one area due to the different coverage areas of the satellites


As for the free channels:

If you look at some of those satellites on the list you will find that most of the services firing at Canada & the USA are scrambled - the joys of the free market economy Im afaraid.. Coolsat receivers can have modified software loaded into them which can descramble some of the pay services. Now Im not saying you are going to get everything as *I dont keep up with all the latest happenings on the American scene. This is probably where the referrence to programming the receiver comes from.

[FTA Newbie]

Thanks for the warm welcome.
The information you have given me has already helped somewhat. It is just nice to find someplace to ask questions.

Thanks!