My local cable TV provider (UPC Hungary - yes you really suck) started to piss me off. They constantly removed the for me interesting German channels and added other dubbed ones instead of them. Complaining lead to no cahnges. That's when I decided to say good bye to them and their ever deteriorating list of channels. I was looking for something much more flexible where I could choose the channels I want to receieve. The solution was easy: satellite television channels.

While cable TV authorities in Europe totally failed in deploying digital channels via cable TV as up to this writing in Europe, the satellite technology has evolved a lot over the past decades. From analog to digital television signals, offering hundreds of television channel per satellite including EPG (electronic program guides) showing you what's aired today. And in contrast to cable TV channels, most of the satellite channels are absolutely free. You needn't pay a monthly fee. See Figure 1 and Figure 2. Both images are taken with a camera.

Figure 1: Watching a German football game on ARD (via the Astra 1 satellite)

Figure 2: Watching a horror series on Zone Horror (via the Eurobird 1 satellite)

The easiest way of setting up a satellite dish is a single receiver solution. Figure 3 shows such a setup that is the most common and you'll see mostly while wandering around in a city. This is what people mount if they are minimalistic or have no clue what possibilities are available.

Figure 3: A one LNB and single receiever satellite setup

Since I'm a perfectionist (it is a boon and bane), I was first looking up a lot of information on satellite dishes and possible setups. I bought some magazines and a small book about satellites, because I wanted to know how they work. Let me tell you: in the end I ended up mounting the whole thing on the house on my own.

Figure 4: Advanced satellite setups

Unfortunately not all channels are available on all satellites. Some I would like to watch are not even available here in Europe. If you want to receive channels from multiple satellites, there are three possible solutions. The obvious solution is mouting multiple one LNB satellite dishes. Figure 4 shows the other two possibilities: on the left a multifeed LNB system and on the right a satellite dish with a DiSEqC motor. Let's take a look at their advantages and disadvantages.

Multiple one LNB setups:

• Optimal signal quality

• Expensive
• Takes longer to setup
• Looks quite ugly on small buildings

Multifeed LNB setup:

• Cheaper
• Faster setup

• Not the optimal signal quality

Satellite dish with a DiSEqC motor:

• Optimal signal quality
• Watch all satellite channels available in your region

• Expensive
• Takes longer to setup
• Requires power cord for the motor
• Only one receiver possible

Any of the above three setups will require you to deal with DiSEqC. For the first two you need a DiSEqC relay (sometimes also simply called coax relay) to combine the cables/signals coming from the several LNBs. The third setup requires the already mentioned DiSEqC motor to be mounted.

I prefer a multifeed satellite system, because it is cheaper, easier to setup and enables more users (each with their own satellite receiver of course) to watch different channels at the same time, if Twin LNBs or Quad LNBs are mounted. This is not possible when using a DiSEqC motor, because only one receiver can control the motor at a time. If you connect multiple receivers, all of them can only watch channels from the satellite that the dish is pointed to.

From here on this article is going to give you a brief introduction into setting up a multifeed satellite system. Here are the steps you need to accomplish:

1. The fun part: choose the channels you want to watch.
2. Complete your shopping list with the dish, cables, the receiver, the DiSEqC relay.
3. Mount everything.
4. Enjoy your work.

Step 1: Maybe you already have an idea of what you want to see. If you live in Europe, you should go to http://www.lyngsat.com/europe.html and check out the satellites listed there. By clicking a satellite you are transferred to its channel listing. Take your time and have a look. To help you a bit, here is what looks interesting to me:

• Hotbird 6/8/9 (16°): Duna TV, Duna TV 2, MTV 2, HRT 1
• Astra 1 (19.2°): Sat 1, Pro 7, RTL, RTL 2, ORF Sport, VOX, Kabel 1, Das Vierte, ARD, ZDF, Tele 5, MDR Sachsen, HR, Bayerisches Fernsehen, KiKa, DSF, Euro Sport
• Eurobird 1 (28.5°) / Astra 2 (28.2°): Film24, World Movies, Movies4Men, Movies4Men 2, Simply Movies, Zone Horror, Zone Thriller, Travel Channel, Zone Reality, Paranormal Channel, True Movies, True Movies 2, Zone Romantica, Rockworld TV, Flava, Scuzz, Bliss, BBC Sports 1 - 6

Step 2: Step 1 above already determines the number of LNBs you'll need to purchase. For each satellite you will need one LNB. (This would mean 3 LNBs for my demands.) What type of LNBs you need depends on the number of the so called participants. Meaning how many different locations in your home are willing to watch the channels. If there are two locations, you'll need LNBs with two output jacks; these are called Twin LNBs.

Figure 5: Available LNB types

As far as I know there are Single LNBs, Twin LNBs, Quad LNBs (not to be confused with Quattro LNBs that are used in large buildings with dozens of participants) and Octo LNBs; meaning 1, 2, 4 and up to 8 possible participants respectively. The more participants there are, the more stuff you need to write onto your shopping list. My shopping list would include the components listed here. Take a look at that site. It is very useful and explains all possible setups with the corresponding shopping list (cables not included).

Step 3: After everything is bought, the real work begins. Mouting all the equipment can be really time consuming, especially when it is done for the first time. You can of course call a guy to mount it for you. If you are willing to do it yourself (you are a hero!), I would suggest browsing this forum first. This article of mine won't tell you the steps you need to accomplish. There are other sites on the internet (like the mentioned forum for instance) that deal with this procedure. You'll have to get familiar with the domain yourself. Take a look at how the components you bought function, what satellite footprints are and how a satellite finder works. These things will come in handy, in particular when experiencing problems. Good luck mate.

Step 4: You did it mate! Take pride in your work and enjoy the free channels. No more monthly fee for you.