Total Newbie, can anyone answer some questions for me???

[rimmet]

Hi

I am looking at installing the following,

Maplin > Motorised Digital Satellite Kit

Can anybody answer a few questions for me before I go out and purchase one.

I currently have single receiver sky through a minidish going to one tv in the house. Our freeview reception is fairly poor on certain bands of channels, e.g. channel 4/ 5 (North West, running off Winterhill) so I am looking at installing a satellite that will replace my freeview box in another room in the house.

Q1. Is it difficult to install and setup for somebody who has no real knowledge of satellites but is technologically literate.

Q2. Will I be able to receive all the channels I can currently receive through my freeview box, e.g.

• BBC1
• BBC1
• ITV1
• Channel4
• Channel5
• BBC3
• BBC4
• E4
• MORE4
• ITV2
• ITV3
• ITV4
• DAVE

Q3. I understand this setup has a motor on it which will enable me to position the dish to receive from other satellites from around the world, does this mean I will be able to receive some premiership football broadcast in different countries that is not broadcast live in the UK?

Q4. Am I able to take multiple splits from the dish to attach to other receivers around the house? If not is there an extra part I require to do this and by doing this will I be able to watch different channels on different receivers at the same time?

I really appreciate any help and advice that anyone can give me.

Thanks for your time and efforts
Tom

[Jimdefruit]

Welcome to the forum rimmet.

1. If you follow the guides given in the forum help sections, installation is not difficult.

2. To get hte UK channels the cheapest way is to fit a dual or quad lnb to your existing minidish, buy another digibox and run another cable from the dish to the new receiver and then get a free to view card (£20) one off payment. You will get a lot more than the channels you have listed.

3. Not with a free to air receiver. There are better receivers around and you should do a bit of reading on here to see what is available.

4. To feed multiple receivers, you need an LNB with several outputs. In simple terms, each receiver needs a separate LNB (dish) connection. It is possible to put in a distributed aerial system (a la apartment blocks) but it is very expensive and not what I think you need.

[rimmet]

Thanks for the quick response,

I really wanted to leave the current sky installation alone and start a fresh with a new dish, If Iam only going to be able to get the freeview channels I listed before do you think I could get away with this setup,

Maplin > Black Mesh Dish and Set-Top Box FTA Kit

with a quad lnb, or should I still go for the bigger dish?

Thanks again
Tom

[Robbo]

Hi,

With a new dish pointed just at 28E, you would NOT get all the freeview channels you listed before, with that maplin kit.

You wouldn't get CH4, CH5, E4, Dave or more4 because they are encrypted in NDS videogaurd, which that box cannot dycrypt.

What you would get are all the Free to air channels:-
(red F in column 5)
Eurobird 1 & Astra 2A/2B/2C/2D at 28.2°E - LyngSat

or the ones with a FTA next to them in this list:
Free To Air Satellite TV ¦ FTA

(subject to lists being completely up to date)

Robbo

P.S- terminology.
Freeview- Digital Terrestrial TV, free channels
Free to View (FTV) - Satellite Digital TV, free to view but encrypted, so a Freesat from Sky card, or Sky subscription needed.( and a compatible receiver, the Maplin one isn't)
Free to Air (FTA) - Satellite Digital TV, any Digital satellite receiver can view ( no subs, nothing)

[rimmet]

Thanks for clarifying that for me, I have read around and was kind of getting that point but wanted somebody to clarify it for me.

Sooo....

From here I can buy a dish but I need a box and a £20 card from sky?

Can it be any sky digital box, e.g. one purchased from ebay? do you need a specific dish to get it to work with a sky receiver? Am I best purchasing the equipment from sky or are they overpriced?

thanks
tom

[Robbo]

No special dish is required for Sky, the cheapest option is just to change the LNB on your existing dish for a quad.

If you really must put another dish up, then another sky dish would probably be the most cheapest and easiest.
( Does your existing one work OK in all weathers, or do you get break-up, when it rains hard?)

Any sky digital box will work with the freesat from sky card. Obviously some are better/faster than others?

There are loads of them kicking about on ebay, so that would probably be the cheapest.

[rimmet]

Yes, my original Sky is fine, no break up or anything.

I really dont want to touch the existing dish for a couple of reasons,

1. incase anything goes wrong running up to christmas and I have to get a sky engineer out, at a ridiculas cost and with no guarentees of availability at this time of year.

2. I really would like to have a go at doing the whole system, from start to finish for myself.

Really appreciate all the help and advice everyone has given me so far and now im fairly confident in what I have to purchase and what is the best course of action.

Thanks again
Tom

[Robbo]

If you put the new dish right next to the existing,(if accessible), it would be a doddle to set up, just point it in the same direction, and give it a quick tweak to maximise signal quality.

[rimmet]

I was going to try and put it as close as possible, but the other dish is fairly inaccessable without climbing on the roof, but I will hook it put roughly in the same direction and then use the signal metre on the box to perfect the angle.

Unless you think it is worth investing in a signal meter?

Tom

[Robbo]

Give it a go without, but if you get stuck, then get one, they do make it a bit easier.