Hi guys can anyone tell me why plastic lasts longer than the fta as I have a Dishnet 301 receiver with a card and I got it programmed in April and didn't have to get it done again until October, wheras my viewsat I have to manually program every week. I always thought when the fta's got hit, the plastic got hit as well.
The short answer is they work differently than FTA and DN can send code to them to make them useless FTA is safe from that...
That is gamble even more than the FTA game. You said in your post you had it programed thats the biggest deal with them it is complex to get those to work as appose to simply putting in a small bin file in a FTA receiver. You have to have all the knowledge and special hardware, extra cards, and TIME to learn to properly get the cards to work..or pay someone to do it for you or if your lucky have a buddy...
On the other hand now lets compare FTA receiver to a dish receiver for a min..
FTA receives all 7 DN SAT"S, 2 BEV SAT'S, 13 or so FTA sat's....FTA receiver can use a motor..A example is mine here I have 2700 channels now..
DN Receiver can only get programing on the DN sat's it is pointed at NO Motor....No BEV, NO FTA
To me its no comparison so I still advise not to go with the card modded DN receivers..
right, plastic is more stable, fairly cheap, but harder to do. BUT, it is a way to test. Its more involved than the dtv days for sure, but still very easy.
I use my plastic mostly, but on Sunday I like to plug in the Viewsat b/c it gets me more local channels than my plastic so I can watch more NFL games. Aside from that I use plastic on all the other days. Also I do pay someone to program my card whenever it goes down but lately it's been working great.
Locals are mostly spotbeamed meaning they send the signal for the ones in your area to you....you will get the ones for about a 500 mile circle around you except the ones on regular transponders that we all get.....hope that helps
I am not sure why I get more locals with fta as opposed to plastic as I don't program my plastic since I send it to someone. I guess I'll ask him if he knows if there is a way for the card to get the same locals as my viewsat b/c all I do is unplug my receiver and plug the other one in and thus no movement of the dish is necessary.
with plastic there is a danger of targeted ECM, you can get tagged for ECM if you have toooo many locals, it can also overload your card, sort of. you are better of making tiers smartly i.e. dont have him add anything u rarely watch.