To keep the CW700S or.....?

Hey all. Been a while, but life has been hectic for me lately (to say the least!). Nothing bad, but there are never enough hours in a day, days in a week, etc.....

I have a CW700S sitting in my basement. I am wanting to flag down some birds (82, 91, plus 110 and 119?). I know this is not hd, but that may do for a while (at least for my wife it will).

I was given a dongle, but still need to go grab a dish, lnb, whatever switch(es). Should I just go with the dongle, or would yous all recommend going private IKS? I would imagine this receiver is still useable???

I should have some extra $ to get this going hopefully soon. Taken longer than I expected.

Yes, these boxes still work moderately well but have been replaced by much better/newer FTA units. But if you already have a CW700 its a great starter FTA unit. The dongle was provided by IKSJapan if I remember correctly, they offered their public service with it but they have since been shut down (for several years). So you will need a private IKS service to use it, you can go with the cheap yearly ones if you're short on cash (NFPS/Rocket).

Only big issues I noticed with these is EPG guide updates will be lacking. Usually miss program data for many channels and it only fetches a few hours. Doesn't effect watching actual channels though. Since you have the dongle use that but it also works with a null serial cable and rq-sssp. These will work until the stream goes 8-psk/MPEG4 which will still be a long time from now.

I think the box says X-FTA for the dongle. Are you saying this won't work now?

Nope, quite the opposite X-FTA will work just fine. I was just assuming it was a IKSJapan dongle since they are the most recent. In any case you are always going to need to purchase a private IKS since nobody offers public services anymore (like IKSJapan use to). Just update the software on the X-FTA (if needed) and you should be able to just put in the server info you obtain happy viewing.