Astra 1 in London area.

[imported_Sean]

Hello all, Newbie on board, My Belgian wife is wanting to get hold of BVN-tv for our kids, we have been quoted £189 for a dish and £349 for a receiver both ex vat.
This seems extortionate, any help would be appreciated, I am not a tech head so try and go easy on me.
Many thanks
Sean

[robbo71]

Originally Posted by Sean

Hello all, Newbie on board, My Belgian wife is wanting to get hold of BVN-tv for our kids, we have been quoted £189 for a dish and £349 for a receiver both ex vat.
This seems extortionate, any help would be appreciated, I am not a tech head so try and go easy on me.
Many thanks
Sean

Hi sean,
Welcome to the forum,

That is a total rip-off I think.

I've just looked up that channel here:-

http://www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html

(12574H in column on left)

and it's a free to air channel. So nothing special at all is required. A bog standard satellite receiver and a 60-70cm dish depending on your location.

The equipment to pick that up including dish and receiver etc you could easily get for less than £100. If you went for the cheapest receiver you could get, probably you could go down to about £60-70 total (exc installation and install items). The installation would be free if you did it yourself.

I may be wrong on this, but I think it can be done with a sky digibox and skyminidish also, but not ideally.


To reccomend a reciever to you at this stage may be a bit premature, as once you realised the potential for channels you could watch with a satellite system you may not necessarily want to buy the absolute cheapest.


But an example would be a Technomate 1000d (£59) and a 60-80cm dish £35 to £40, plus some coax and a mount (cheap). Satellite receivers can alsobe got from as little as £30 odd I believe, if you shop around.

How much would you like to spend?

Robbo

[nanochickin]

You are indeed right Robbo that this could be received on a Sky Digibox as long as it is connected to Astra 2 every few hours to stop it throwing its pre programmed wobbler although this is not ideal it will work

With regards to the minidish I used in the Midlands a Zone 1 43cm Sky minidish for about 6 months at 19.2e with no major problems and I only ever experienced signal dropout through out only the worst weather but usually only for about 10 mins at a time

I would reccommend the Technomate 1000D or 5200 USB as a good FTA receiver for a begginer as it has excellent support and it also can open encrypted channels with the right firmware installed



Nano

[robbo71]

Originally Posted by nanochickin

You are indeed right Robbo that this could be received on a Sky Digibox as long as it is connected to Astra 2 every few hours to stop it throwing its pre programmed wobbler although this is not ideal it will work
With regards to the minidish I used in the Midlands a Zone 1 43cm Sky minidish for about 6 months at 19.2e with no major problems and I only ever experienced signal dropout through out only the worst weather but usually only for about 10 mins at a time
I would reccommend the Technomate 1000D or 5200 USB as a good FTA receiver for a begginer as it has excellent support and it also can open encrypted channels with the right firmware installed

Nano

Yes, that is what I did when I first cancelled my sky contact, swivelled my 43cm minidish round a bit and used the Sky box on 19.2E. I soon got p!ssed off with it though.

A 43cm still OK up in the midlands eh? I use my original sky one for Hotbird and Astra1 and I think I have only lost the signal about once, in the past year. But I suppose a zone 2 would be better to play it safe, but I can't be bothered to change it all the time it works OK.

[imported_Sean]

Originally Posted by robbo71

Hi sean,
Welcome to the forum,

That is a total rip-off I think.

I've just looked up that channel here:-

http://www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html

(12574H in column on left)

and it's a free to air channel. So nothing special at all is required. A bog standard satellite receiver and a 60-70cm dish depending on your location.

The equipment to pick that up including dish and receiver etc you could easily get for less than £100. If you went for the cheapest receiver you could get, probably you could go down to about £60-70 total (exc installation and install items). The installation would be free if you did it yourself.

I may be wrong on this, but I think it can be done with a sky digibox and skyminidish also, but not ideally.


To reccomend a reciever to you at this stage may be a bit premature, as once you realised the potential for channels you could watch with a satellite system you may not necessarily want to buy the absolute cheapest.


But an example would be a Technomate 1000d (£59) and a 60-80cm dish £35 to £40, plus some coax and a mount (cheap). Satellite receivers can alsobe got from as little as £30 odd I believe, if you shop around.

How much would you like to spend?

Robbo

Thanks Robbo and Nano for the welcome, if I understand correctly I can buy the dish, 80cm is better and a decoder may as well spend a little more to get the trimmings, bolt it to the wall run a bit of coax (RG?) to the tv room and Bobs my Uncle? Jeepers the guy selling to me today had me convinced that this was a high tech job.
Now the dumb questions do I need a contract/card or licence or something to pick this stuff up or is it okay as its free to view? Is there anything I am missing out on by not spending a little more?

[robbo71]

Hi Sean,

Yes I would spend a little more than the cheapest you can get. I initially bought a kit from Maplin, that included a 90cm dish, a reciever and a wall bracket. After a short while (I think it was about a week) I realised that I wanted more.

I now have the TM1000D, the main deal with the TM1000D and the TM1500CI and the TM5200 is that you can download modified software to them to enable you to view channels that you otherwise wouldn't be able to view because they are scrambled.

The TM1500CI also has a slot for a CAM (decoder) and an in-built card slot (conax).

I believe the site sponsor is doing the TM5200 USB for £69 , he doesn't do the 1000D.

Personally I would go with the TM5200 USB for starters, I don't think you would be disapointed and it's very easy to use.
You could always sell it or put it in another room, if you decide to upgrade it at a later date.

Oh, and no you don't need any cards, if the latest patch and softcam is loaded onto it.

Of course with the standard software you can watch all the FREE TO AIR channels without doing anything to the box.

Robbo

[nanochickin]

RG6 is not the best cable to go with You would be better with CT100 as this has less db loss than RG6 on long runs

Unless you are planning to look at anything else on the satellite arc you will quite happily get away with a 60cm dish on 19.2e , although on an 80cm dish you could chuck a monoblock lnb on it and you will also be able to get stuff off Hotbird 13e aswell

TPS France and Polsat are wide open on 13e on the TM1000 series and 5200 usb



Nano

[robbo71]

or WF100, it's like CT100 but it has a foam dielectric rather than an air-space one.

But perfomance wise they are apparently identical.


Yeah, I think the 80cm is a good idea for the reason Nano has said. Although it might be best to stick with a single LNB to start with, and upgrade to a monoblock later, when you understand everything a bit more.

[nanochickin]

or WF100, it's like CT100 but it has a foam dielectric rather than an air-space one

They also both come in brown contary to popular beleif :roflmao:



Nano

[robbo71]

and green and red and yellow and white and black.

Why you'd want those colours I don't know

_http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/page8.htm#WF100


Robbo