Help

[pantyvest]

I am thinking about using a free to air satellite system. I live in Wales (that's not my fault ).Would I be able to receive ITV London and all the other channels in the current list.Also, I have an existing 'sky digital' system. Could I use this satellite dish with a free to air receiver.

One more point, where do I buy receivers and what sort of price are we looking at. I don't need a hard drive version at the moment

I have read about ( or heard somewhere ) that ITV 1 and a few others are going free to air.

Please enlighten this ignoramus.

[BGonaSTICK]

Hello m8. Welcome to the forum

Yes, all the ITV regions are Free to Air now

If you have a look at www.ftasat.co.uk, you can see that ITV London is actually available on your digibox on EPG number 993. Everything that's available FTA where your dish is pointing at the moment can be received on your digibox with no card, but if they're not on the EPG then they're a bit fiddly to tune in.

FTV channels (Free to View) include Channel 4, Channel 4 London, FIVE and Sky three for which you would need an FTV card from Sky at £20 one-off payment.

If you were to buy a basic FTA receiver, it would be a lot easier. Your current Sky minidish would have no problem receiving all those channels as long as they work OK using the digibox. FTV channels are only available on the digibox though, unless you want to fiddle about and invest extra cash.

Is it a tiny 43cm dish, or the bigger zone 2 (60cm) dish you have?

Where your minidish is pointing at the moment (28.2 degrees East) is where most of the English-speaking TV and radio is, but there is a lot more in the sky. A different dish arrangement would allow you to explore any number of them, allowing you to watch legal Premiership football, movies etc etc. It's worth thinking about whether you would want to do that at the same time you upgrade your receiver.

FTA receivers can be had from a number of reputable UK dealers, but most of them operate on a mail-order basis. They are reasonably few and far between, so unless you happen to live near one, it's mail order.

If you can narrow down your choice of receiver, then we may be able to give you some guidance on where and how much, but a good quality, value for money receiver is the Technomate TM-1000D at around £60.

Hope this gets you started. Please feel free to ask as much as you want

STICK

[Jimdefruit]

Hi Pantyvest, welcome to the Satellite Help forum.

If you already have sky digibox system, then you can use it as a free to air television receiver. With a sky card you can also get the free to view channels.

Unfortunately the digibox is not the most friendly when it comes to trying to find other regional channels. Sky produce an electronic programme guide that is based on what sky consider is your local programme and make it very difficult to find the other regions.

Other receivers such as the Technomate range will get you all of the free to air channels on the Astra 2 group of satellites i.e. sky uk. and if you have a motorised dish or have multiple lnbs (receiving bits in the sat dish) then you will be able to get many more free to air channels on satellites transmitting to other continental countries.

To start with, you could use the existing sat dish and add another receiver. No doubt, like most of us you will want to go further when you find out what else is available.

I will leave it to others to give you info on the specific receivers and approximate prices.

[pantyvest]

Well Stick and friends, you've got me hooked. I am sure there will be a few thousand more questions I shall need to ask, but for the time being, a big THANK YOU.

Best Wishes

Pantyvest

[BGonaSTICK]

Hey, no problem m8. There's so much up there, and you can have as much or as little as you want

We'll help you do whatever you choose - we're not satellite snobs!