Sky Box and Card on ebay for Spain

[dawooya]

Hi All,

Hope all is well. Just a few questions that really need all your attention pls. I am purchasing a Sky box & card from ebay to take to spain so I can watch TV over there. I have a 1.2M plus dish but need a NTD for it. My questions are as follows.


1. With a unsubscribed card can I recieve sky sports and movies from San miguel Spain? If not do you know how I can. I am not with sky.

2. Will a 1.2M dish work in that area?

3. What NTD do I need?

4. Do I need anything else?

Pls help me out people I would love to be able to watch tv over there I cant go out everynight because my daughter is to young.

[Robbo]

Hi,

This post by analoguesat gives a map showing the dish sizes needed for Spain and Portugal to receive from Astra 2D. Not sure whereabouts in Spain you are going.

To get the Sky channels are subscription is needed.


If you go to lyngsat.com, you would be able to check the approximate footprints for the other satellites in the 28E cluster that Sky use, as far as I know a good quality 1.2m dish should be fine for the South beams, but you may have problems with the North beams depending on your location.

What is an NTD?

Robbo

[dawooya]

hi,

my place is near Mercia. The part im on about is the part that goes on the dish. moise reductor or something. what channels will i get with a digi box and unsubscribed card

[Robbo]

Oops forgot to put the link in before:-

Before buying sat equipment...


Murcia, looking at the map is one of the worst places for 28E Astra 2D, with at least 2.4m needed.

To find out roughly what you would get with FTA, you need to check on here:-
http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

The FTA channels have an F in collumn 5. The penultimate column gives a footprint and approx dish size needed. If you flick through those you can check what a 1.2m dish will give you. At a quick glance, Eurobird 1 fixed beam should be OK, so should the south beams.

With an ex Sky sub card, that is still alive, Channel5 should be possible too, as it is on Astra 2C

footprint here:-
http://www.flysat.com/astra28-beam.php

The thing on the dish arm is an LNB. The best one as reported on another forum for picking up 28E in a fringe area is an Invacom quad.

[evans88]

I've looked at the links mentioned above and am confused. Freesat is mentioned but is this the same as free to air. In other words will a free to air box be able to receive all the freesat channels or is it those only with a skybox.

Also when south beam is mentioned I understand what this means with a skybox (reprogramming via the installers menu etc). But is it necessary to reprogramme a free to air box when a box is being used in Spain.

Thanks.

[Robbo]

The Freesat channels are all FTA, and apart from ITV HD, all can be received on any digital satellite receiver, including an ordinary FTA one. (you need a HD receiver for the other HD channels obviously)

Freesat is not the same as FTA, Freesat is just a name branded by the BBC/ITV Freesat consortium. The channels themselves are FTA.

The confusion with Sky boxes can also occur because SKY were using the term Freesat also (Actually Freesat from Sky). A sky box is only needed for FTV (Free to view) channels.

The bottom line is the FTA channels (on 28E) picked up by the various boxes are ALL the same ones.

No, it is not necessary to specifically program a FTA box for use in Spain, the procedure is exactly the same as in the UK, just scan all the relevant transponders, store the channels, and put them in whatever order you feel like.

The default transponder stuff is only needed for the SKy box, presumably for the Freesat boxes too?

[evans88]

Thanks very much for your quick reply. I was thinking of using 2 boxes in my motorhome for use in France and Spain: One free to Air and one Sky box linked together. I intended to use the FTA box inbuilt satellite finder to locate Astra 2 and then use the Sky box for most of the viewing. However, this may not now be necessary.

If my interpretaion of your response is correct I need only the free to air box as the Sky box would only be useful for the encrypted (premium) channels which I do not have.

Is this correct?

Thanks again.

[Robbo]

Partly true, the Sky box is only necessary for the encrypted channels, this includes their basic offerings and premium channels, as well as channel 5 at the moment. There are a handful of channels that you get included on the £20 freesatfromsky card, Ch5 is one of them, these are the FTV channels. The others include Sky 3, Five US, Fiver ,FIve Live or something like that.