Complete novice advice please.!!!!!!

[remarkable1967]

:?
Hi all,
Complete novice seeks advice.......
When I moved into my new house it already had a sky minidish on the wall and the cable running through to the lounge. The dish seems in good condition. As we had freeview previously, we never bothered with Sky but left the dish up. Now 18 months later, we were considering Sky TV when I stumbled across this forum and realised that there may be some alternatives to Sky. So I would like to look at what options I might have at putting together my own system. So, with that in mind, I have some questions...(please excuse my ignorance if the answers are stupidly obvious).
1, Will the sky minidish be any use in a system or should I just dump it?
2, Is the normal direction that sky dishes are pointed ok for a new system so that I could perhaps use the bracket and cable. Or will I need to point in a different direction. (my dish seems to be pointing in the same direction as everyone else's on the estate).

I cant pretend that I have lots of money to spend but if I could offset a monthly subscription against setting up my own system I would certainly consider it. Also, am I basically just gonna end up with loads of foreign channels??? or are there plenty of English speaking ones out there. And, can I still get all the BBC, ITV channels etc that freeview gives me??

Any help appreciated please.............Regards...Mark

[nanochickin]

:welc1: to the forum mate

Right where do we start :?

Your Minidish can be used for picking up 19.2e (Astra 1), 28.2 (Astra 2 - BskyB) and Hotbird (13e) when the weathers good. You should also get 5w and 30w if you dish has the type of lnb which allows you to adjust the skew to get these birds. (Skew = angle of lnb from vertical) Unfortunately most sky lnbs need the plastic body cutting out to allow you to do this apart from Wistron - WNC lnbs.

I am using all the cabling left behind by Sky and have kept the minidish as a spare (left @5w) so you won't need to spend any money out there

The only outlay you might have to spend is on a new receiver as the Sky Digibox is not that good for picking up anything else other than sky, I would recommmend an Technomate 1000D as there are currently quite a few patches and keys available for it to open up lots of stuff at the moment like Digital+ 19.2e, TV Cabo 30w , TPS 13e, & Premiere 19.2e. Only trouble is you will only be able to see one bird at a time with the minidish so it will limit your viewing. Best to stick it at 19.2e IMHO

Even though these are broadcasts from the likes of Spain, France and Germany many of the broadcasts do carry the original English soundtrack aswell as their own countries language track so there's no problem there



Nano

[remarkable1967]

Hiya,
Thanx for the advice.
So, if i get something like the Technomate TM-1000D or the 1500CI+ and a decent dish / LNB I should be able to pick some stuff up using the original minidish mounting point and general direction?? Of course I appreciate that direction would need tweeking....
Also, what sort of channels & qty of channels can you get just by having the kind of set-up as mentioned above and literally just turning it on straight out of the box? Do you then need to buy viewing cards or subscribe to anything? I have also seen the term "CAM" mentioned.. I searched on the web and a "CAM" looks like a card that you insert for viewing.!!! Sorry about the amount of questions but I really am new to all this stuff. I know that you basically have a dish / LNB plus cabling and a receiver but other than that its all like another language to me i'm afraid... Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanx........Mark

[Jimdefruit]

Welcome to the forum.

If you are thinking even a teensy bit about fitting another dish, then I would suggest you consider fitting a motorised jobbie. It means that you will be able to get a multitude of satellites each with several hundred channels rather than haivng to move the dish every time you fancy a new set of channels.

If its not a problem you can start with the existing sly dish and see what you can pick up.

A cam is a 'conditional access module' which allows a receiver to read certain decoding cards. Forget about that for the time being because until you decide what you want you wont know which if any cam you need.

In terms of channels there are literally thousands up there and a lot have English soundtracks. Start searching and you will no doubt get hooked like the rest of us.

[BGonaSTICK]

But you will end up with loads of foreign channels

Some are in English, and some have the option of English audio. Especially the movie channels, most of which are encrypted and require a card or CAM to open them, or some fancy software.

This thread will give you a flavour of the free English channels.