Sky box for Freesat

RichardDavis · 17-11-2011, 14:27

Hi everyone, Im new here. I was given a huge flat screen TV and a Sky Box HD by a friend who went back to USA. The TV worls great on my standard TV areial and has Freeview built in.
I don't have satelite dish but I'd like to receive Freesat for the extra channels it has. I don't want a subscription to anything, just whatever services are free.
I'm not clear on couple of things that you experts might be able to help with.
1) I can walk onto our roof and fix the dish myself easily, but will any dish work with a sky box?
2) The sky box has two inputs for TV ariel cable, but do I need to run two cables down the side of the house for the sky box?
3) If I align the dish to Astra (145.6deg magnetic - I checked already) how do I know I'm not picking up Astra and not another satelite?
4) I would also like to receive TV from Brazil, but that's not on Freesat. Should I buy a motorised dish to tune to another satelite? If so what dish should I buy for that?
Thanks, Richard, North London, UK

muppetman11 · 17-11-2011, 15:15

A sky box will only pick the FTA channels up on 28.2 E , you can pay Sky around 20.00 for a viewing card and receive the following http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/what-can-i-watch/

The only problem is its harder to find channels , much easier on a freesat box as the EPG doesn't contain tons of subscription channels.

**Chris** · 17-11-2011, 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardDavis

Hi everyone, Im new here. I was given a huge flat screen TV and a Sky Box HD by a friend who went back to USA. The TV worls great on my standard TV areial and has Freeview built in.
I don't have satelite dish but I'd like to receive Freesat for the extra channels it has. I don't want a subscription to anything, just whatever services are free.
I'm not clear on couple of things that you experts might be able to help with.
1) I can walk onto our roof and fix the dish myself easily, but will any dish work with a sky box?
2) The sky box has two inputs for TV ariel cable, but do I need to run two cables down the side of the house for the sky box?
3) If I align the dish to Astra (145.6deg magnetic - I checked already) how do I know I'm not picking up Astra and not another satelite?
4) I would also like to receive TV from Brazil, but that's not on Freesat. Should I buy a motorised dish to tune to another satelite? If so what dish should I buy for that?
Thanks, Richard, North London, UK

1. You can install your own dish. Any dish sold for use in the UK will do. But aligning it is not nearly as simple as aligning a terrestrial aerial. Consider purchasing an electronic satellite finder to assist you.
2. Yes. There are two inputs because the Sky+HD box has a hard-drive-based video recorder inside it (a PVR, Personal Video Recorder) and can record one channel while you watch another. To do this it has two tuners built in. You can't split the cable from a dish the way you can from a terrestrial aerial. Every satellite tuner in your house needs a cable all the way back to the dish and the LNB (the box that sits on the end of the dish arm) needs enough terminals for all the cables. You will need a dual-LNB for your box. Or, to allow for future expansion, a quad-LNB would give you four terminals for up to four tuners. Having said all that, the PVR functions of a Sky box will not work unless you pay a monthly subscription to Sky.
3. You point your dish at 28.2 degrees east for Astra and Eurobird satellites broadcasting free-to-air channels to the UK. You will know if you got it wrong because the box will fail to find any of the channels you want.
4. What kind of rig you need if you want to also receive Brazilian TV would depend on exactly where those satellites are located. It may be possible to mount a second LNB on the dish for the Brazilian stuff and still have a static dish, but my suspicion is that the relevant satellite may be too far removed from 28.2E and may require a far larger dish than one designed for UK channels. In that case you're looking for a large motorised dish that will be controlled by a Diseqc-compliant satellite box. Sky boxes are not Diseqc-compliant.

Kymmy · 17-11-2011, 16:56

I doubt very much if you'd get Brazian sat TV from the UK, the footprint of the sats involved just wouldn't cover the UK even if you had line of sight to the sat.

...Unless of course you had a dish the size of jodrell bank then you should be able to pick up a semi good signal

danielf · 17-11-2011, 17:46

There's at least one Brazilian subscription channel on the Hotbird 6.

http://www.ddelec.com/chan/brazil.htm

RichardDavis · 17-11-2011, 19:53

Great, many thanks. I have a few more questions of you can help me.
I can get freeview on the TV now. Is it worth me installing the dish? What extra channels do I get in HD for free using the sky HD box without a subsciption to sky?
The Brazilian channel mentioned above looks great but the subscription is prohibitive. Thanks anyway...

muppetman11 · 17-11-2011, 20:08

Without paying for a viewing card from Sky you'd get BBC One HD , BBC HD and ITV1 HD if you paid around 20.00 one off fee I believe you would get C5 HD and C4 HD also.

danielf · 17-11-2011, 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardDavis

Great, many thanks. I have a few more questions of you can help me.
I can get freeview on the TV now. Is it worth me installing the dish? What extra channels do I get in HD for free using the sky HD box without a subsciption to sky?
The Brazilian channel mentioned above looks great but the subscription is prohibitive. Thanks anyway...

Yes I thought that about the Brazilian channel. Alternatively, it should be possible to get Portuguese channels? Not the same, but the right language at least?

Matth · 17-11-2011, 23:10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_channels_on_Sky - If a channel is marked as Free to air, it can be received on a Sky box without needing a valid card.
If it is Free to VIEW, then a valid Freesat from Sky or former subscription card is needed - though with the re-issue, older cards will no longer be valid.

**Chris** · 17-11-2011, 23:32

Bear in mind you do not get the correct regional variations on your Sky box if it doesn't have a card in it.

RichardDavis · 18-11-2011, 09:33

Thanks, the sky box has a flap on the front. It is a Sky + HD box. Inside the flap there is a card with a chip on it. My friend didn't know wether he had to return that card to sky. Apparently in the USA you can only hire digital receivers so he was suprised when he moved to London and had to purchase one.
I do not want to subscribe to sky, but just to receive the freesat channels.
Thanks for everyone's invaluable help on this. If anyone has any other suggestions for a dish, cables etc please let me know.

Matth · 19-11-2011, 17:39

You do not return the card to Sky, if it's an ex-subscription card, then it becomes a free to view card until the next card replacement cycle. Last was 2009, when they switched to the white cards.

Without paying a subscription, you cannot use the recording bit at all - there is a seperate subscription if you want Sky+ recording function for the free channels. You can't even view your old recordings without paying, so although you keep the box, they still dictate the terms - so it operates as a standard box only.

RichardDavis · 19-11-2011, 20:35

Wow! Murdoch has certainly got things sown up eh?
I though the recorder bit would work but as I got the whole thing for nothing I guess I have nothing to complain about.
One thing I am wondering about is the size of the dish. I know London is well covered for Freesat with the smallest dish but some web sites say that the larger the dish the better it is to tune into a particular satellite. I've checked how to align it for Astra, which would be 147deg magnetic, but would I be better buying a sky zone 2 dish instead of the smallest? I don't mind what size dish I have as no one will see it on my roof except for any pilots!
Thanks

muppetman11 · 19-11-2011, 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardDavis

Wow! Murdoch has certainly got things sown up eh?
I though the recorder bit would work but as I got the whole thing for nothing I guess I have nothing to complain about.
One thing I am wondering about is the size of the dish. I know London is well covered for Freesat with the smallest dish but some web sites say that the larger the dish the better it is to tune into a particular satellite. I've checked how to align it for Astra, which would be 147deg magnetic, but would I be better buying a sky zone 2 dish instead of the smallest? I don't mind what size dish I have as no one will see it on my roof except for any pilots!
Thanks

If you only want 28.2 E this is fine

http://www.satgear.co.uk/product/109...win-cable.html