What does it mean to decode channels???

Question

And what do these receivers do??

http://www.satsw.com/default/products/receivers/freetoair.asp

And also, what does free-to-air mean??

I'm new at this so PLEASE HELP ME!

Thank You!!!

Answer 1

This is a controversial topic in some circles, but I will be careful to give you a fair answer.

FTA or "Free to Air" means just that; there are no fees involved with the reception of the product. These are satellite programs that are placed on certain satellites that have no encryption involved with them, and can be received with FTA receivers with very little setup other than the initial installation. Much of the programming in this area would be ethnic or international in nature, however there's also religious programming, infomercials and my favourite, news feeds.

There's lots of folks out there doing "pure FTA" with the types of receivers you link to and I am talking about; this is usually legal in most areas which is why the receivers can be sold legally.  Some of these "hobbyists" also look for strange broadcasts and network feeds that are transient in nature on some of the satellites.

"Decoding" channels is generally referring to the practice of installing software patches on those same FTA receivers to receive programming from Dish Network or several other providers  for free. This practice is clearly illegal, although for the most part the network providers have so far only tried to target the manufacturers or coders that are writing the software. DirectTV used to be picked up with similar methods years ago, however they changed thier setup and now are pretty well not watchable by any other means than legal ones. In that case they also threatened thousands of people who were watching the programming for free with legal action if they did not desist from thier activities.

Summary; there is "Free TV" out there, but if it's programming that you would normally have to pay for that you are trying to get for free... it's probably illegal.  The choice is yours...