Freesat/freeview...how can we get the channels we want!

Gemma87_2

Hi All,

We moved into our rented house and one of the first things we did was plug in our TV only to find we have terrible reception where we are literally every channel is a fuzzy mess and we couldnt even get the freeview channels using a freeview box. But a friedn of ours told us to buy a sky box as this would sort out the problem, and so we ordered one second hand from ebay.

When we plugged this in we did in deed get good quailty channels however apart from some channels like e4, bbc 3/4 and all the ITV we still recived none of the freeview channels and so we ordered a freesat card from sky however when it arrived and we activated it all we found this still only gave us all the five channels which we never watch.

So my question is is there anyway we can get the freeview channels without having to get sky..or is that the only thing left to do?

Thanks in advance!

macman

Do you now have an external aerial and a Sky dish then?-it's unclear how you are connecting. You probably won't get Freeview unless you use an external aerial that is properly aligned-and are you in a Freeview reception area?
If you now use a Sky dish, Skybox and a viewing card then you should be able to get all the Sky free to view and free to air stations.
These are not exactly the same as the Freesat stations, but not much difference.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

Exactly what channels are you after?

If there's some Freeview specific channels that you require, you're probably looking at a new aerial.

As macman has said, it seems a bit unclear what you're connecting to, as you mention Freeview and SKY in the same breath, even though they use different feeds.

Gemma87_2

At first we were using the freeview box using the usual cables for this, but when trynig to tune them in it was telling us there was no signal we messed about with the aerial which is in the loft but no matter how we moved it this didnt change.

Therefore we purchased a sky box as the previous tenants did have sky so there was a cable and dish there already we connected using this and we now have some channels we bought the freesat card believing we would get all freeview channels however the only extra ones it gave us was five, fiver etc.

Were looking really to get the channels you would do on freeview such as dave, mtv etc.

Is there anyway to get this?

samba

Which channels are you after?

Freeview and Freesat (or in your case FreesatFromSky) are 2 different services which carry different channels. It sounds like you would prefer to have Freeview, but have Freesat instead. Unfortunately, some of the channels which are free on Freeview are encrypted on Freesat and only available as part of a Sky subscription. These include Dave, Virgin One, and Sky Sports News.

If you need more info regarding Freeview and Freesat see these websites:

http://www.freeview.co.uk/

http://www.freesat.co.uk/

It may be that your terrestrial aerial is the wrong type to receive digital transmissions your local transmitter, or it may be misaligned. Additionally, the cable used could be poor quality and not adequate for digital signals. It would be worth checking out if you are actually in a Freeview area or not, and even if the checker says you aren't, then ask your neighbours as they may have freeview reception using a high gain aerial. Alternatively a local aerial installer (which you can find in your yellow pages) would be able to advise you.

When we moved into our house, there was no signal at all from the wall socket, but there was a satellite dish so we immediately got ourselves an old digibox. After some investigation it turned out that the previous occupier had cut the cable going to the aerial, so on fixing that we found we did have a couple of freevies muxes. At some point I intend to replace the crappy brown coaxial cable with some decent CT100 grade cable, and get a high gain antenna to see if I can get the weaker muxes.

macman

Were looking really to get the channels you would do on freeview such as dave, mtv etc.

As mentioned before, the Freesat and Freeview channels are similar but not identical. Dave and MTV are not available on Freesat from Sky. Dave is on Freeview but MTV is not (did you maybe mean TMF?).
If you want these channels, your best bet is to get them using an external aerial and Freeview, a loft aerial will not do the job. This is assuming you are in a Freeview reception area-have you done a postcode check on the Freeview site?
PS: Reading your post again, it's still not clear which channels you are receiving via Freesat from Sky-in post 1 you say you only get the main 5 channels? You should get around 240 channels on this service, inlcuding the majority of the Freeview channels (though not the ones which are Sky subscription only). If you are getting 5 channels only then it sounds like you are getting an analogue feed from your loft aerial still!