Is Anyone Still Using a C-Band (big) Dish ?

Jenkins003 · Aug 28, 2008

Is anyone out there still using a C-band (big dish) ? Seems there is less of us all the time. I still use mine and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I upgraded a few years ago to the 4DTV receiver, you need these now to receive the digital channels. I subscribe to about 75 digital channels and 12 HBO channels plus 2 high definition HBO channels for less than $46.00 a month. There is also all the free channels out there. I don't think you can get anything close to that with the small (pizza) dish. I know there is the downside of having to wait for the dish to move to change satellites but with the faster motors out now it only takes a matter of seconds. I never loose my signal every time it rains so there is good and bad in both. My mother has the small dish and is always having some kind of trouble and never ending price increases. I have about got her convinced to go back to the big dish.
A friend gave me his 7 foot dish for free and I set it all up myself with no trouble at all. I had a 10 foot dish for years but most people don't need one that big now. There is plenty of instructions on how to set one up on the internet but it helps to have some electrical experience I guess. You can go to NPS - Your One Call Solution - CBAND Satellite Programming C-band to check out the programming prices and parts are easily obtained from places like Skyvision. We big dish users may go the way of the ham radio but until then I wouldn't have anything else.

schmism · Aug 29, 2008

id really like to get one. ive heard you can buy all the discovery network channels for like $20 a month...

discovery
discovery HD
discovery wings
history
TLC

last i heard the big cable/sat providers wanted to squeeze out the old c-band guys because the priceing was out of this earth.. like $40 a month for like the 20 channels people really watch.

JESSE1 · Aug 29, 2008

I still have a 10' dish up but we switched over to DirectTV a few years ago. It was going to require a lot of changes to our equipment to get the ku band satellites that were needed to receive a lot of the channels we had been getting on c-band. We had the 4dtv receiver. I liked the reception on the big dish a lot better than Direct TV. No loss of picture at any time, really good reception. It seemed like at any time we were going to finally lose all support and programming so we switched to the small dish. It's better now but is definately too expensive.

sunspot · Aug 29, 2008

I still have my dish but switched to the small one a few years back. At the time I switched, the big dish was more expensive with less programming. I do miss the wild feeds from the old dish. I also liked some of the Canadian feeds.

Jenkins003 · Aug 29, 2008

Yes the cable/sat providers have been trying to get rid of the big dish for a long time. I recently asked a Dish Network installer about a big dish and he told me he thought there was almost no programming left. I don't know if he just didn't know any better or was told to say that.
As far as KU band , there was a lot of popular programming on one certain satellite. That has now gone back over to C Band. I have a KU band LNB which I bought off of Ebay for almost nothing. There are so many people getting rid of their big dishes that a lot of the equipment can be had for free or very inexpensive on Ebay and places like that. Any new parts can be bought from places like skyvision.com or dozens of other places on the internet.
As far as price for programming like I said go to callnps.com and check for yourself but there are many more sellers out there on the internet besides them. I get the "Absolute Digital Package" and HBO and this has everything I could possibly watch. I pay directly to them which cuts out any local middle man. There is also the Free-To-Air receivers out there now but I haven't tried one of those yet. I know what my mother and my friends pays per month for what they get on Dish Network and Direct and it's far more expensive than what I pay.

sunspot · Aug 29, 2008

NPS has the "Absolute Digital Package" listed at $90. Dish Network has the "America's Everything Pack" for $95.

Jenkins003 · Aug 29, 2008

sunspot said:
NPS has the "Absolute Digital Package" listed at $90. Dish Network has the "America's Everything Pack" for $95.

I think you are referring to the NPS "Get It All Pack" which is $90 dollars a month. If you pay annually, which is what I do, then it is about $75 a month. The Absolute Digital package averages out to about $34 a month. I'm no spokesman for NPS. It's just who I happen to be with. There are many more sellers out there.