Just adding some info to help clear up some of the previous questions various people asked, and maybe others haven't asked. I'm from North America.
1- A linear lnb will pick up circular polarization with a loss of -3dB.
2- Inserting a dielectric slab at 45 degrees into the feed horn will get rid of most or all of this loss.
3- A universal linear lnb will work for the frequencies that 61.5W and 72.5W uses. Add a dielectric for best results.
4- All of the Mpeg 4 and Mpeg2HD channels used on 61.5W use a proprietary modulation called Turbo8PSK. This is not the same as what FTA DVB-S2 receivers use. Some of the NA DVB-S2 receivers have add on boards made for this modulation type but they are model specific and may not be able to be modified for other receivers.
5- Any of the Mpeg 2 channels that are unencrypted can be picked up with any FTA receiver.
6- A right circular polarization will be logged as vertical by a FTA receiver and a left circular will show up as horizontal.
7- Forget about getting any of the spot beams. They are very tight in size. More than about 300-400 km away from center of beam and it won't come in even with a 3m dish.
8- The DTV bird at 72.5W degrees does not use a compatible format that FTA receivers do. You will need a DTV receiver. There was code a few years ago that allowed one DVB computer card, the twinham 1020A, to receive unencrypted DTV signals but it has since been removed from the web by the author. Echostar6 uses DVB but it uses Turbo8PSK.
9- All of the other birds east of 61.5W and between 61.5W and 72.5W use linear polarization except for a few C-band satellites that use circular. All of the satellites west of 61.5W are linear except for the ones used by Dishnetwork, DTV, and BellTV.
I hope this helps some of you DXer's that need questions answered. I myself would love to try to get some European tv but the bird at 12.5W is as far east as I could theoretically get with an elevation of 0.3 degrees (and no line of site currently due to trees). The farthest east I have gotten is 30.0W (Hispasat) but I can only get the North American beams since I'm only using a 90cm dish. Wishing all you DXer's the best of luck.
