New Sky socket in my flat (28E?)

[DrF]

Hi, the local council just upgraded our block aerial (for digital and Sky) and the sockets has plug a for Sky which I presume goes to there dish and points to them and them only (28E?), for many years we have not been able to have Sky being on the wrong side of the block. In my old flat I used to watch the free stuff on Astra (19.something) way back with a old analogue box.

I was just wondering what FTV/FTA channels are availible to me and what kind of equipment I need (I saw a Triax somet or other in a local shop for £35). The salesman there said "buy it and see whats there" when asked where the Sky dish would be pointing he said "the sky" so that does not fill me with hope for this.

Thank you for any help and advice

[Analoguesat]

Assuming its a normal sky install the dish will be pointing at 28E

There are 3 things you can do

1) Buy a new/secondhand sky digibox. (200 or so channels but lods of rubbish (religious shopping, slapper on a sofa type stuff) Also gives you the chance to upgrade to pay tv later if you so desire

2) Buy a Freesat box (80 or so channels atm but expanding rapidy - mainly the BBC ITV & C4 channels for now, but more due to be added soon.)

1) & 2) limit you to the given epg system, but do have the advantage of a decent epg system. Unlike

3) Buy a FTA (non sky non Freesat) box. Total flexibility over channels on your epg - delete all the dross you dont want, but only now & next on the epg.

[Robbo]

In my opinion, a FTA box (eg the Triax) is the best option at the moment, as the Freesat boxes haven't currently got all the channels available. I dread the Sky box for the reasons already pointed out by Analogue.

Apart from the lack of decent EPG, another minor inconvenience of the FTA boxes is that if frequencies or other transmission details change, some channels will disappear and you have to put them back manually. But it is easy when you know how. http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html will come in useful then. Also given there is a list of all the channels available, all those with a F in collumn 5 are FTA.
There is no channel 5 available at the moment, for that you would need a Sky compatible box and a FTV card.

slapper on a sofa type stuff

My favourite channels.

[DrF]

Thank you for the advice, I will go and get that Triax thing and see what happens, I read on here somewhere that Sky sell a £20 card (Yellow card?) for a one off fee, would I be best spending a little more on a box with a card slot (I think the Triax I saw had no slots) for the future, I was wondering if I did get the card would I still get all the lovely free stuff and what the card would enable or would it be only for 1 or the other?

Sorry for the silly questions, you've been very helpfull

EDIT: The cheap box I saw is a Triax TX10 FTA, the channel list looks interesting on 28E.

[Analoguesat]

Generally speaking the 20 quid card is for use in sky boxes only. It gives you C5 and its siblings, Sky 3 and Sultana Sports News. And regionalises your digibox for the correct BBC & ITV regions.

[DrF]

Ah, that clears that up then, thanks