advice please

[james415]

hi all,
new to this site and would like informed advice,
live in south essex, have a normal sky digi box and ariel.
do i need to have a sky digi box to recieve sky or can i buy any
reciever to get the same i have now

if i have a different reciever and fit a mono block lnb will i get more channels
or can i fit a new lnb but have to change dish.
do other recievers allow you to watch hd if availible and also
record programmes, or is this purely a sky feature.

many thanks

[Robbo]

Do you subscribe to Sky?


Any digital sat receiver except a Sky digibox will give you more channels with extra LNBs, though not normally on a Sky minidish.

The best option is a motorised dish, in terms of cost and the number of satellits receivable.

There are not very many FTA HD channels available. Though a HD receiver will pick up what there is.

[waqasahmed]

Originally Posted by james415

do i need to have a sky digi box to recieve sky or can i buy any
reciever to get the same i have now

No you do not have to get a Sky receiver, you can buy any satellite receiver and a dish(if you dont have one) and just point the receiver at the correct beam so that you can get the free channels eg: BBC1, BBC2 etc..(Bear in mind that if you subscribe to Sky, say bye bye to your subscription, especially with thes new white cards)

Originally Posted by james415

if i have a different reciever and fit a mono block lnb will i get more channels
or can i fit a new lnb but have to change dish.

Yes you can get more channels, but only if you motorise your dish. An 80-100cm dish is recommended to see most satellites over Europe

Originally Posted by james415

do other recievers allow you to watch hd if availible and also
record programmes, or is this purely a sky feature.

Like Robbo said, you can pick up HD but you dont get many for free

[james415]

thanks for replies,
yes i do subscribe to sky, does that mean i can still recieve sky, with a non
sky reciever box

[Analoguesat]

Not easily no. Keep the Sky box for the UK pay channels and set up another system for anything away from the "Sky satellites"

This is what many of us do. makes for family harmony if the missus wants to watch Eastenders and you want to watch Bulgarian TV!

[james415]

thanks analoguesat,
so to recap i should keep my sky reciever and dish, for womens stuff,
and set up a new dish and reciever for all other stuff? ,

or can i have one dish for all with mono block lnb
thanks

[Robbo]

If you want to go motorised, then you really need an additional dish.

But if you would be happy with a handful of fixed satellites then you can get say an 80cm to 1m dish and put a number of LNBs on it.
For example 13E,19E,23.5E and 28E, or a number of other combinations.


Note.

A monoblock is for just two satellites, normally at 6 degees apart like 13E and 19E, but you can also get 3 degree and 4.5 degree ones. Monoblocks are not used if you want multiple satellites from one dish.

[Rick]

If it's any help I started out with a multi lnb setup, but I soon moved to a motorised. It didn't take me long to get a fixed dish up. I just found it too much of a pain having to return the dish to 28e all the time. It really is the best way to go for all the reasons above, plus your sky box will loose the EPG and have to reload it if the dish is away from 28e for very long.