Sky dish + sat receiver = more channels???

stphnstevey

My wife is German, so I was hoping to pick up some channels for her

D.K.

Don't watch television...it makes you lose your manners

shown73

I have two dishes, same size. One is the standard sky jobbie, but the other I have hooked up to an old Amstrad analogue receiver, in fact that was my first satelite system and I've had it for quite a few years. Wife is German also, and mother in law, bless her(!), doesn't speak any english, so whenever she comes over, we revert to this system, and it still picks up about 40 channels, mostly German, a few English, and with super picture quality. It's obviously not aligned the same way as the Sky dish, and I forget which satelite it is actually picking up, think it's Astra 1D, but not sure. Anyway, point is, yes there are plenty of free to air German channels still there, and although I would class myself as a technical dunce with sat tv, I can't see why a re-aligned sky dish shouldn't be able to do the same. You would need an analogue receiver though, and they are becoming rare, I think. That said, I picked up a spare on Ebay recently for absolute peanuts.

Inactive

stphnstevey wrote: »

My wife is German, so I was hoping to pick up some channels for her

Right, had you have mentioned that in your original post, we could have explained differently.

German channels are mainly on Astra 1 at 19.2 Degrees, Sky is on Astra 2 at around 28. degrees, so yes the Lidl Receiver will get quite a few German Language channels, but obviously the dish needs moving slightly.

It needs moving to the left, looking at the dish face on.

The Lidl Receiver is actually pre-loaded with Astra 1 stuff I believe.

moonrakerz

If you really want to know what is available up there have a look at this site :

http://www.lyngsat.com/

stphnstevey

So the Sky dish is fine to use (even if it is smaller than the real old ones that came first)? (Lidl have a dish as well they are selling.)

So just need the receiver - I will look out for one in the bootsale. What sort of thing am I looking for, does anyone have a link to an ebay one for an example?

I have seen a few old Sky boxes - would one of those do?

moonrakerz

stphnstevey wrote: »

So the Sky dish is fine to use (even if it is smaller than the real old ones that came first)? (Lidl have a dish as well they are selling.)

So just need the receiver - I will look out for one in the bootsale. What sort of thing am I looking for, does anyone have a link to an ebay one for an example?

I have seen a few old Sky boxes - would one of those do?

I'll try and keep this as short possible.

To receive satellite TV you need a dish and a receiver. The dish size will depend on the strength of the signal in your area. The 'standard' sky dish is an adequate size for southern Britain. In the North of England and Scotland you are supplied with a larger dish because the signal is weaker. If you wish to receive Sky in parts of Spain you will need a dish in excess of 3 meters ! The encryption system used by Sky is called Videoguard, the electronics to unscramble this are in the receiver, when you buy a Sky card the 'codes' on the card allow the electronics to fully unscramble the picture.
You can use a Sky receiver to watch 'free to air' non Sky programmes, but the receiver is difficult to set up because it is designed to automatically tune into Sky only. If you wish to watch non-Sky you have to manually programme the receiver with all the details of the satellite transponder broadcasting the TV programme you are interested in.

The receiver from Lidl probably has no means of unscrambling ANY encrypted TV, with or without a card.

If you wish to watch much other than Sky, you need to go to other satellites. To do this you will need a new dish (the Sky dish is not really suitable as it is designed for the High power Astra satellites), a new (suitable) receiver and preferably a motor to drive the dish from one satellite to another.
Look at this site it will give you an idea of what is needed:
http://www.hisat.com/

You are probably talking of a minimum of £400 worth of equipment.
If you spend this sort of money you then get access to thousands of channels, many are free - but most are not in English. You can buy subscriptions to foreign versions of Sky, some are very expensive, others are incredibly good value.

I have just paid £240 for a year's subscription to an Albanian TV station with 27 channels, including 6 movie channels, in original language; 4 sports channels - choice of 3/4 Premiership games LIVE on Saturday afternoon.
Needless to say I don't subscribe to nice Mr Murdoch any more !

Inactive

stphnstevey wrote: »

So the Sky dish is fine to use (even if it is smaller than the real old ones that came first)? (Lidl have a dish as well they are selling.)

So just need the receiver - I will look out for one in the bootsale. What sort of thing am I looking for, does anyone have a link to an ebay one for an example?

I have seen a few old Sky boxes - would one of those do?

The Lidl Receiver is fine for getting Astra 1 ( German Channels ), as I have said before, a Sky Receiver is not really designed for getting anything much more than Sky. The size of suitable dish is dependant on many factors, mainly your location, the bigger the dish the better.

You will get a better idea of what is required at DigitalSpy Forum.

stphnstevey

I have seen a few older Sky Boxes in the bootsale - Can they be used without a card to recieve the German channels? From your comments it seems a Sky box is not that easy to retune though.

Whats 'free-to-air'? Is that the only satallite signal now?

How does this sound for a cheap receiver and will it be sufficient?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97897&&source=14&doy=5m9

Thanks

Inactive

That receiver at Maplins is one of the worst available, the Lidl one was much better, as I said before, you will get a far better insight in to what is required at DigitalSpy Forums.