I’ve been using a FTA receiver for the last few months. Got it just in time for the Olympics. The receiver with DVR capability (non-HD) was just over $100, there are cheaper receivers on Craigslist. The dish was $25, and I had an old LNB that I forgot to return a while back.
Periodic outages whenever DN changes their encryption are annoying, they happen roughly once a week, and it takes 12-36 hours for a new firmware to appear whenever the encryption is changed. But I don’t watch TV all that much and I’m quite pleased with what I’m getting. You can get around 200 major channels and a number of pay-per-view programs (sport, movies, adult) with a single dish and two LNBs looking at satellites 110 and 119. The satellite 148 has a wide range of regional and international channels.
If you can live without HD and with frequent outages, that’s a possible route. If you want HD channels, you’d have to get an expensive FTA receiver ($300+), so it may not make as much financial sense.
Edit: ah, you live in Fairbanks Ranch … nevermind then.
