10 Best Fta Receivers 2024 in the US

If you want to watch your local TV stations, a regular TV antenna will suffice. You may debate with yourself whether to get an indoor or outdoor antenna. But, if you want to expand your options dramatically, perhaps you should consider an FTA receiver. “FTA” (= Free-To-Air) refers to television and radio signals that can be enjoyed without any subscription fee. Simply put, an FTA satellite receiver is a TV receiver that hooks up to a satellite dish antenna and can pick up these free TV and radio stations.  With an FTA receiver together with a satellite-dish antenna (and a low-noise block (= LNB) downconverter--more about that later), you can get free stations from pretty much anywhere in the world! 

An FTA receiver is essentially a computer--you just download and install the software for your model, and it will process the incoming signal from your satellite dish. Just as a shortwave radio lets you listen to radio signals from much further away, an FTA satellite receiver will let you get distant TV stations. This is something especially attractive if you’re interested in content in a foreign language. You can choose a number of overseas stations that you are fond of, search from which satellite to receive the respective TV or radio signal, and enjoy! 

However, there are a lot of specs to consider, with a whole sea of abbreviations and technical features. It’s worthwhile getting familiar with some of the lingo before purchasing an FTA receiver. We’ve composed this buyer’s guide to help you make the right decision when selecting an FTA receiver. It'll help you:

• Choose the right type of FTA receiver,

• See useful tips about that type of FTA receiver,

• Read reviews of different FTA receivers, and what customers are saying, 

• Select the right brand of the best FTA receiver, and 

• Compare prices and find the best deals.

• Relatively inexpensive: Most FTA receivers are an inexpensive piece of hardware, going for $25-$40. If you already have a satellite dish, they can give you access to hundreds of extra channels, for just a few more dollars!

• Not for subscription satellite services: Some customers were disappointed when their FTA receiver wouldn’t work with a satellite subscription service like DirecTV. You can use the DirecTV satellite dish with an FTA receiver--but it’s a different system, so you won’t get the DirecTV content!

• Searching for stations: There is a search utility on most FTA receivers allowing an automatic or manual search for channels. There is also a “blind search”, which starts at the lowest signal frequency and sweeps up to the highest frequency, finding all the available channels for a particular satellite.

• Equipment that you’ll need: As we mentioned in the introduction, you’ll need a satellite dish. It is recommended to get an 8-foot diameter satellite dish for the C-band channels, or a 35” disk for the Ku-band channels. It’s also recommended to add:

A satellite tuner: This allows you to position the satellite dish, to zero-in on the satellite, by adjusting its horizontal and vertical position. The elevation and azimuth data tells you the position of the satellite. The Satellite Oasis Universal Satellite Finder is a device that you place in between the satellite dish and the FTA receiver, to help do that fine-tuning. It has a frequency range of 950-2150 MHz and has a compass to help with the alignment. The satellite finder will emit beeps that get quicker as you zero in on a satellite.

Satellite Oasis Universal Satellite Finder

A low-noise block downconverter (LNB), which is placed on the satellite dish, to amplify the signal coming in and send it to your FTA receiver. There are different LNBs for different frequency bands: X-band, C-band, K-band, Ku-band, and Ka-band. (Ku-band is the one primarily used for satellite TV),

A coaxial cable, to hook up the FTA receiver to the satellite dish,

An HDTV, which hooks up to the FTA receiver with an HDMI cable. (However, you can also use older TVs as well, since FTA receivers will allow you to connect via AV cables (red/yellow/white RCA jacks), or a SCART cable, which are to be found on older TVs. Smart TVs don’t usually have a SCART socket presently--they’re more on VCRs or game consoles.)

RCA connectors--the yellow is for a video signal, and the red and white are for stereo audio

SCART connector and socket

• Hooking up the FTA receiver: To understand how to hook up the FTA receiver, let’s look at the front and back panel of the GTMedia V8 Nova Full-HD Digital Satellite Receiver:

GTMedia V8 Nova Full-HD Digital Satellite Receiver 

The various ports in the back of the GTMedia are:

LNB In: This takes a coaxial cable from the satellite dish, or the satellite tuner (if you decide to install one),

HD out: This will take an HDMI cable out to your TV screen,

SCART: This will take a SCART table out to the TV screen, in the older TV sets, or to a video cassette recorder,

AV out: This is an audio-visual signal that you transfer with RCA cables to an older TV set,

RS232: This will allow you to connect to an RS232 port on your computer. This will allow you to get firmware updates for your FTA receiver.

USB port: This is for attaching a flash memory to store the installation files. You can also have the FTA receiver play video that you have saved on a USB flash drive or USB HDD,

Ethernet port: This will allow you to attach an Ethernet cable to your router or modem, to allow Internet access. This way, you can watch Internet content such as IPTV in addition to satellite content.

Other FTA receivers have eliminated the SCART port, as we see in the Vmade SAT Digitaler Satellite Receiver.

 Vmade SAT Digitaler Satellite Receiver

• Installation: Attach a coaxial cable from the satellite dish to the “LNB In” port on your FTA receiver. You then hook up the FTA receiver to your TV screen, turn the power on, and you’ll see a display just like a familiar Windows desktop. If you go to the American Digital Satellite website, it will display the available satellites from your location. It will display a menu with the list of channels available, and which satellite will allow you access to that channel. You can save the satellite’s name and coordinates in your receiver, so as to access that station when you want.  

• Access to code-protected transmissions: Even though FTA receivers are generally for accessing free TV and radio stations, there are also code protected and encrypted stations that you may want to access. You’ll notice FTA receivers can accept TV programs that are encoded by means of a BISS key. “BISS” stands for “Basic Interoperable Scrambling System”. These are transmissions that are code-protected by a session key or encryption. There are FTA satellite receivers that have BISS key support, such as the GTMedia V8 Nova 4K FTA Digital Satellite TV Receiver. Other such encodings include PowerVu, DRE (=dual-receiver encryption), CCcam, GScam, and others. It’s good to check that your FTA satellite receiver can find a work-around to access these programs.

• Video compliance: You’ll notice a lot of acronyms regarding the type of video content that the FTA receiver can support. For example, there is DVB-S and DVB-S2, which stands for "Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite", and DVB-Satellite 2nd Generation". The DVB-S2 gives better channel capacity and error correction. You'll also see H.264 and H.265 video coding (also called AVC = Advanced Video Coding, and HEVC = High-Efficiency Video Coding, respectively). Some FTA receivers are compliant with H.264, such as the Full HD Digital Satellite Internet Combo Wifi DVB-S2 Decoder Receiver, while some are also able to handle the H.265 standard, such as the Skysat S2020 Dual Tuner. You’ll also notice MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts Group), a generic coding of moving pictures and audio information, and  MPEG-4 which allows coding of audio-visual objects.

• Edision is a maker of terrestrial and cable TV receivers, satellite receivers, Linux receivers, and TV accessories such as HDMI splitters and antennas. The company was founded in Germany in 2002, but they also have a headquarters in Thessaloniki, Greece.

• Koqit is a maker of IPTV players and satellite receivers, as well as network cable adapters, PCI controller cards, indoor TV antennas, TV converter boxes, and much more.

• GTMedia is a manufacturer of satellite TV receivers, as well as satellite signal finders.

• Satellite Oasis is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They make equipment for satellite TV such as mobile RV satellite dishes, DirecTV equipment, Satellite Dish equipment, satellite meters, and more.