Satellite help

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I have both Freesat and Freeview, I went to Freesat because of the HD and Freeview often looses signal but the HD content on Freesat is either BBC with lots of repeats or on ITV and I keep missing them. I have also got an old SKY box free to air that I use for radio on my hi-fi. I understand that there is another satellite for Europe adjacent to the Freesat one and all that is needed is another set top box and 2 or 4 way down lead from the dish; does anybody know if this is true? It would be great if there was music and other HD channels. Thanks.

 

[daveh75]

Digitalpete: I understand that there is another satellite for Europe adjacent to the Freesat one and all that is needed is another set top box and 2 or 4 way down lead from the dish; does anybody know if this is true? It would be great if there was music and other HD channels. Thanks.There's lots of european/foreign satellites receivable from the uk.However,if you're using a standard Sky mini-dish it's not just a case of running extra feeds from your existing dish and adding another receiver.

FYI, FTA HD channels are very few and far between,and the ones that are available aren't really worth the hassle/expense.

If you want to go down this route, your best bet would be to leave your current dish/stb as they are so you can still receive Sky/freesat and add a second dish/FTA receiver for european/foreign viewing. There are several options to consider though,

a fixed dish single lnb system which will only give you access to one satellite at a time unless you re-align the dish to another satellite.Or add an mono-bloc lnb which is basically two LNBs and a switch within one unit that will give access to two satellites(usually 3 or 6 degrees apart)

A fixed dish multi-feed/lnb set up which will give you access to upto four different satellite without having to re-align the dish.You can also get torroidal dishes that will take upto sixteen LNB's,but are expensive and the wiring/switching of 16 lnbs is a nightmare and not really for a novice tbh.

Or lastly, a motorised setup that will give access to lots of satellites, 20+ is easily achievable.

LIDL's are/were doing fixed dish/stb set-ups not so long ago, which were cheap and ideal for a bit of experimentation to see what's receivable in the uk.

A couple of useful sites to look at are...

http://www.dishpointer.com/ if you enter your address into that site,then zoom in on your house on the google earth map and move the green marker to your house,then click on the 'view all available satellites from your location' link, it will as suggest's,give you a list of available sat's+dish sizes required to receive them.

http://en.kingofsat.net/ will give you upto date lists of channels available on the satellites you can receive, when looking at the lists pay attention to the 'encryption' field, for FTA channels it must say 'clear' if it says anything else such as 'conax' or 'videoguard' for example it's a pay tv/subscription channel.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Yes thanks for that info, I already have two Sat dishes so I am half way there. Will look at your Links.

Regards

DP