Dear SILICON CHIP,

I am somewhat confused. Having read the "International Satellite TV" articles (December 2002 & January 2003), I thought I understood what the general message was; ie, that unless we are prepared to pay a service provider, there is little point in playing around with Ku band equipment, because it is (a) illegal and (b) we need a "box" to decode the information - unless one is obtained from an unknown character in a pub (which is also illegal and only operates for a short time) you have to pay up to Austar, Foxtel or whoever.

So as I read it, the (legal) free-to-air stuff available without ongoing costs to the general public is confined to C band.

If one wishes to watch free-to-air satellite TV, the only Australian program which can be seen is ABC Asia Radio Australia, which originates on PAS8; or perhaps Bloomberg Radio/TV, which apparently also has ABC Asia and Radio Australia, which appears to originate in USA (in PAL?) or Fox MUX (whatever MUX means) which is stated to be NTSC and also originates in the USA. These are all on PAS2.