Freesat using old Sky analog dish?

floridafil

I know everyone says that you can use your Sky dish with a Freesat receiver to get Freesat, but does that include the old analog dish or does it need to be the Sky digital dish?
Please excuse my ignorance.

floridafil

I already have the analog dish fitted and its hidden at the side of the house.
If I could get away with using that I would be happy.

Marty_J

You old dish will also be pointed in the wrong direction. Sky's analogue service used a different satellite.

dragon47

The bigger the dish the better!

You will get a better signal strength from a larger dish so it's much more likely to get a stable picture in heavy rain.

There is no such thing as an 'analog LNB', it's the receiver that needs to be analog or digital. I swapped an analog receiver for a digital one and you don't have to change the LNB.

Marty is right though unless it's been adjusted the old dish will be pointing at astra1 (19.2E) and sky digital uses astra2 (28.2E). It just needs to be turned 10 degrees to the east.

Moneymaker

You'll have to swap the old LNB for a "Universal" type. I recommend a "quad-output" type, which will let you use a Freesat PVR and a Sky Digibox* if you wish.

*Available second-hand for a few pounds. No card needed for FTA channels.

Note that the original dishes used a standard 40mm neck LNB. A Sky minidish LNB is unsuitable.

floridafil

Thanks for the replies.
Much appreciated.