I am about to buy a satellite reciever to attach to the dish that was left by the previous owner of my house and have some questions that I hope someone can answer. I am not interested in Sky, just the free to air channels. I cannot decide between a specific Freesat box or a non specific receiver.
I have borowed a box (not freesat) to see if the dish is working etc and have found about 200 channels.
If I get a Freesat box would I be able to get channels in addition to the Freesat ones or is it restricted?
I was hoping that we would be able to get a load of French German and Spanish channels but this is not the case on the borrowed box: we get English, Indian, Russian, Arabic and Filth. Currently the box tells me it is looking at Astra 18E but there are some others satellites with lesser signal strengths available as well bit these do not have French etc. Is it possible to get such channels (I live in N. Yorkshire)?
Any advice gratefully received.
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I'd look for a neighbour/pal who has upgraded to SkY HD and take their old SKY + one.
For a one off modest charge you can get a Sky card that will let you see most channels that are "reasonable"
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I got a sky box off of ebay, and receive most if not all the 'free' channels without a card.
what extra would I get if I had a card?
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I have Freesat, I put the dish up myself, its the same as, and points to the same satelite group as Sky.
If you buy a specific freesat box you will probably only get freesat channels, because its designed to use the EPG to tune, has Freesat specific offsets, and you need to tune to Astra 2D.
If you want to troll around and get other satelites (other than 2E) you will need to motorise your dish. And get a much bigger dish.
All you need to know about Sat frequencies can be found here. www.lyngsat.com
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 1 Jan 11 at 19:10
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Not really interested in other satellites but it would be nice to be able to get the French and Spanish ones to keep up with the languages. I am a bit suprised that there are none of these on Astra. I am sure taht what we are seeing on the box we borrowed are all the Freesat ones with a load more
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The Astra footprint is aimed at The UK and the coast of Northern Europe, why would you transmit spanish to that Area?
To get out of area satellite you need to get a bigger dish.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 1 Jan 11 at 19:43
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The digital non-Freesat box will get everything a Freesat box will, except Freesat HD.
The non-freesat box will be a bit of a fag to use from time to time as the individual channels seem to be forever moving about - different ID, different transponder - only clue you will get for needing a rescan is when a channel you want disappears.
The freesat box will demand a rescan when the System Information indicates a change, and afterwards you still find channels with the same logical channel number (apart from when that's part of the change) and you'll always find your local BBC1 on 1, BBC2 on 2, your local ITV on 3.
However the non-freesat box will arrange the channel numbers consecutively in the order it finds them on the transponders, and you have to choose from something like 15 regional and 3 national variations of BBC1, scattered almost randomly through the channel numbers, and nearly as many different ITV 1's, plus a few young ladies bulging out of their underwear trying to get you to talk on the phone.
You can arrange the non-freesat box channels in "favourites" order, but that goes out of the window when you rescan.
However, if you motorise your dish, the world is your lobster (well, most of Europe could be).
German stuff at 19.2 east, french at 5 west, plus lots more. Some is encrypted, some is on frequencies or modulation schemes you can't receive with a typical domestic box, but there's a lot of free to air DVB S out there.
See
www.lyngsat.com/europe.html
and
www.lyngsat.com/atlantic.html
How far east and west your dish can see the Clark belt depends on local obstructions and your location. ISTR there's an iphone app to help, as does this place
www.dishpointer.com/
How much time do you have to play?
How much do you want to spend?
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Satellite Receivers - Falkirk Bairn
