How to get from Sky to a better place?

[Gav]

Hi there. I'm a bit of a newbie to this satellite lark, but I've been researching for a while and sorta get the gist of it. Anyway, I am in Wales (UK) and have a Sky Minidish (was installed last month so I presume its the newest 'model') which is currently connected to the latest standard sky box.

What I want to do is this:

• Have the Sky Box connected to the mini dish which will allow me to watch the channels that I subscribe to.
• Upstairs in my PC room, I want a PC Card that can receive and record anything and everything that is freely available at 28 Deg East - Which I PRESUME is where my Sky mini dish is pointing (although I may be wrong!).

And to do this I think I need to:

• Replace the single LNB with a Quad LNB (Sky).
• Run some sort of cable from the LNB to my PC.

And finally, what I need help with from you guys (The experts/nerds) is:

• Do I specifically need the quad LNB from Sky (Which is about £50), or can I use a cheaper one?
• What sort of cable do I need?
• Will this affect my current setup from Sky at all?
• Which card is best and will I be able to receive HD for free?

Many thanks guys... ANY help is appreciated!

[BGonaSTICK]

Hi Gav, and welcome to the forum

OK, you'll be pleased to know that all your assumptions etc. are correct, so well done - top marks for your homework!

The Sky quad LNBs can be had brand new off eBay for around £10, so just swap it over. It's an easy job. Disconnect the old one and pull it free, then just push the new one in and reconnect your two cables. Waterproof the 'F' connectors with self-amalgamating tape. Unplug your digibox from the mains though before you start, and be carefull not to move the dish alignment while you're changing the LNB.

Good quality digital satellite cable is required. You should ask for CT100, which is double screened in copper. Don't get the cheap rubbish.

Your current Sky setup won't be affected in the slightest by this mod.

The Skystar2 card is the best allround budget PCI card, and it will even decode a little bit of free HD (BBC HD) if you have a stonkingly fast PC.

Hope this helps.

STICK

[Jimdefruit]

Welcome Gav.

If you are running Vista on your pc, you may have trouble with drivers for the Sat card. The drivers are available but I have big 'bovver' trying to get them to work properly. If you find one that works with Vista, it doesn't work with sat software and vice versa.

If you are running XP then you will have no trouble at all.

[Gav]

Many thanks for your help.

Another question now, will I be able to get any 4:2:2 from 28 Deg East and if so, will I be able to use this card to pick it up?

EDIT: Also, I presume with this card I will NOT be able to pick up C4 and C5 ?

[BGonaSTICK]

The Skystar will do 4:2:2 OK, but there is precious little on 28.2E.

You can only get Channel 4, Five etc via a valid Sky subscription card. That could be in a digibox, Dragon CAM, or remotely across either your home LAN or over the Internet.