Direct TV dish without subscription

[Bogie]

I switched from Direct TV to FIOS and now I have a nice dish in my yard, cables coming out of several walls in my house, set top boxes and no subscription.

Is there anything that can be received even without a subscription, maybe by redirecting the dish or using some legal box available commercially? Are there any interesting experiments that can be conducted with such a setup? Is there any way to detect any kind of signals from the dish with a regular TV?

Or should I just dig out the dish and put it by the road?

[Larry Jacks]

DirectTV receivers have a card in them that authorizes you to process their signals. While it might be possible to receive their broadcasts if the card wasn't deactivated, it would be considered theft of services.

Or should I just dig out the dish and put it by the road?

Speaking as someone with 2 old dishes and 3 receivers taking up space, you'd probably be better off putting it by the road. I doubt there's any resell value for old equipment because new subscribers are given new equipment.

[novaderrik]

i don't know about DirectTV, but after i let my DishNetwork subscription die off, i still got a few channels- like maybe about 10 actual channels and about twice as many useless channels. NASATV was one of the channels that i could still watch, and at least one of the news channels- it kind of fluctuated between FoxNews and one of the CNN channels from day to day. i think the Weather Channel also came in, as well as the music channels and infomercials on some of the PPV channels.

[Bogie]

Now that you mention it, I get a variety of channels when I connect the FIOS cable directly to my TV. Maybe it is the same 10 you get.

When backyard dishes first came out I had a 10 footer in my back yard. I actually moved it several times as my company transferred me around the country (at their expense :)). There was no encoding in those early days and I remember getting everything for free. Instead of a fixed dish I could move it from satellite to satellite. Those were the days :cool:.

Btw, there is a local installer who pays about $20 each for the Dish receivers and will even buy the dish. But he is not interested in Direct TV receivers for some reason.