Noob needs help with equipment

[Rick]

Hi all, I am failrly new to the satellite world though had sky for years. A couple of questions if anyone can help.

First, my girlfriends sister is moving into a new house. It has no ariel but does have a Sky Dish with dual LNB. My first thought was to sort her out with a cheap reciever and just plug it in. But that will only recieve the free to air programs. Are there any compatibility issues here ? Is there a box that will take one of the £20.00 free to view cards from sky, without having to buy a box from sky?

Second looking at upgrading my own equipment. I would like to keep my sky subscription and access other satelites like hotbird etc. Idealy I would like to use one reciever so as to keep things in the living room tidy and would like the reciever to double as a HDD recorder. I was thinking of keeping the sky dish with one feed and using a second dish possibly motorised as a second so I could watch say sky 1 and record of another satelite or free to air channel. Is this possible and can anyone suggest equipment. I am on a budjet but don't mind waiting a while to afford reasonable quality.

Any help and advice greatfully recieved.

[Jimdefruit]

Unless your girlfriend's sister is a tecky geek, like the rest of us, then her best bet would be to use a sky digibox and get a free to view card. That will get a lot of channels without having to subscribe. She will get the normal programme guides which are missing from most other non-sky receivers. The other option would be to buy a freesat receiver.

HD receivers are getting better but are still suffering bugs. It should not be much longer before they are reasonably reliable.

I am not going to recommend a HD receiver because I dont have one and although I foillow other peoples experiences closely, I haven't seen a good recommendation across the board. You will need a twin tuner receiver that can watch one channel and record another and a few boxes cant do that even if they have twin tuners. They can only decrypt one channel at a time so they are a waste of space.

No doubt a few members will list their experiences.

[Rick]

Thanks jim, decided to take your advice re girlfriends sister and caught a panasonic sky box on ebay for £10 + £10pp. Beats what sky want 4 a box.

Been looking at the dreambox 7020 4 myslef. Still unsure though on if I can put my sky viewing card into one cause I really don't want to loose some of the sky chanels and tune into other sats as well. But I would really like to do the sat with 1 box cause I already have 4 boxes under the tv and really don't want to make it 5 cause it wouldn't fit in the cabinet.

[Jimdefruit]

The 7020 will read the sky card without any probs.

[Robbo]

I use a TM6800 HD receiver, it can take a Sky card and will work with a motorised dish etc, no problems with it so far. It only has a single tuner though, so I use my other SD receiver if I want to record and watch at the same time. Not a single box solution unfortunately, but I'm sure there are some HD twin tuner PVR models around, like this one for example:-

Topfield.co.uk - Topfield TF7710HDPVR

Don't know if it reads a Sky card though.

Most non-Sky receivers that take a Sky card need it to be put back into a Sky box periodically though, to keep the card alive, The Dreamboxes don't though apparently.

[Rick]

Thanks robbo. Think maybe might be worth waiting to see what the Dream Box 8000 is like as that will have twin tuners according to Dream Box and all the reviews that I've seen on the 7000 series are good. Anyone heard when these are due out ?

Any suggestions on dish setup. Would I be better with a motorised dish or multiple lnbs ? What size dish ? and do I keep my sky dish as is or scrap it?

[Robbo]

Yes, I think that when it finally gets released it will be the ultimate.

If you just want to run one receiver, motorised is best. If you want to run several receivers then multiLNB can be better, as all receivers will have access to all sats, whenever. With motorised only one can control the motor.

Minidishes are good for Sky digiboxes, so that they maintain a signal from 28E.

For other receivers, with a motorised dish,it doesn't hurt to keep a minidish though, saves waiting for the motor to wang itself round.

I would always reccomend a 1m dish if you can accomodate it, otherwise, the biggest you can get away with.

[Rick]

Thanks think i'll look at a multi lnb setup a bit more. I suppose that if I leave the minidish alone I wont have to setup a lnb for the normal sky stuff.

Am I right in thinking that having 2 tuners is basically having 2 boxes and that only 1 box/tuner can control any lnb at any one time, for example you couldn't tune into sky1 on one tuner and bbc1 on the other because they are both carried on the same sat therefore lnb. So IF i'm right I would need to use dual lnb's throuought including changing the one on the minidish.

Sorry if that seams a bit thick, but would hate to get this wrong and not order the right stuff.

Which is easier to setup ?

Also does anyone know if there is any issue with using a standard sky subscription on a twin tuner reciever? Should I really leave the minidish alone and just connect it to one reciever and the other lnbs to the other?

[Robbo]

Having a twin tuner is precisely that. They are independent of each other, with their own LNB feed. With a motorised dish they would both have to be on the same satellite, unless used in conjunction with an addition fixed dish/dishes of some sort.

With a multiLNB setup, each tuner would have access to all satellites independently.


A Multi LNB setup is easier to do with the right equipment, see below for an install I did yesterday. The guy wanted 1W, 13E ,19E and what ever else, I gave hime 9E.

A motorised setup is a little harder as everything has to be more precise.

However time wise, a motorised installation is much quicker, 2nd photo for a recent motorised install I did.


I don't think there would be any issues using a sky card on a twin tuner receiver specifically, as long as it could read the card.

Whatever, anyway, you can still leave your sky dish up and switch it in to the receiver using diseqc, if you go for mult-LNB, you might as well try and get as many on there
as you can, without wasting a spot for 28E. or example below, I'm sure I could have got another LNB on there, perhaps two if the customer had supplied the narrow feedhorn
LNBs instead.

Robbo

[SAT-WORLD]

Originally Posted by robbo71

I use a TM6800 HD receiver, it can take a Sky card and will work with a motorised dish etc, no problems with it so far. It only has a single tuner though, so I use my other SD receiver if I want to record and watch at the same time. Not a single box solution unfortunately, but I'm sure there are some HD twin tuner PVR models around, like this one for example:-

Topfield.co.uk - Topfield TF7710HDPVR

Don't know if it reads a Sky card though.

Most non-Sky receivers that take a Sky card need it to be put back into a Sky box periodically though, to keep the card alive, The Dreamboxes don't though apparently.

No,it doesn't.
It needs a CAM,like the Dragon/T-Rex cam,nor will it be keep the Sky card alive.
So needs to be placed in a Sky digibox,every 3/4 months,as mentioned above.