Is the dish the aerial?

[bsnalex]

On the weekend we popped over to the house we're buying to take some measurements. I asked the current owner where the aerial is (my preference is cable, but this area isn't cabled).

She said it was "in the loft" which didn't make any sense to me. Yes, I saw the aerial cable running through the loft but figured it was just running room to room. Owner also mentioned there's a dish on the side of the house from their previous owner, but the current owners were on freeview.

Is it possible that the existing dish simply picks up Freeview unscrambled, and then if I hook a Sky box up it will descramble the Sky content? Or is it simply the standard now to have a TV aerial inside the loft, rather than attached to the chimney?

 

[Diyisfun]

The dish will pick up freesat, & if you connect a Sky box you will get Sky, you will need a viewing card.

Getting an aerial installed is no big deal anyway

 

[Lucid]

An aerial in the loft is possible. The reasons for it can vary, but in the main it comes down to one of three most likely reasons:
(1) There's some kind of covenant condition on an estate of houses that specifies TV aerials have to be mounted in the loft
(2) It's the home owner's aesthetic choice to have it hidden because it looks neater (even if it doesn't work as well)
(3) The home owner is too tight to pay for a professional install so goes for the 'easy' option of a DIY loft install

There are plenty of reasons why professionals prefer outdoor mounting of aerials such as usually there's more signal and there are fewer issues with signal reduction in bad weather.

As for the dish, Diyisfun has it correct. If it's a dish from a Sky installation then as long as it works you'll be able to connect either a Sky box or a Freesat receiver and get TV that way. On a practical note, Freeview from an aerial is much easier to use around the home since all modern TVs have a Freeview tuner. The same can't be said of Freesat.

 

[winston1]

It is very common for aerials to be in the loft. In a good signal area it is a good place for it away from the birds, weather, and lightning. Nothing to do with the owner being tight, more like sensible in the right circumstances.

 

[plugwash]

On a practical note, Freeview from an aerial is much easier to use around the home since all modern TVs have a Freeview tuner. The same can't be said of Freesat.

Thats one reason but it's not the only reason.

Terrestrial aerials have no modeswitching, so their output can be distributed to multiple tuners with simple splitters and amplifiers.

The LNBs on sattelite dishes can be switched between four modes. This means you have to either use a seperate output on the LNB for each tuner or use a "multiswitch" with four feeds from the dish to the multiswitch and then a seperate feed from the multiswitch to each tuner.

 

[ericmark]

It is very common for aerials to be in the loft. In a good signal area it is a good place for it away from the birds, weather, and lightning. Nothing to do with the owner being tight, more like sensible in the right circumstances.

I would agree, in my case a low aerial on the garage rather than high up is a better option to screen English TV and get Welsh only. Nothing wrong with English but if the TV sees both it is forever asking one to retune it.

There are three satellite modes, sky where you pay, freesat where you have a 7 day guide and free channels, and free to air where often now and next is only electronic program guide.

Freeview is not the same on all TV's again it is the program guide which changes, don't know why but some TV's seem to have gaps in the programming. They all get TV it's the program guide which seems to change TV to TV.

Personally I have given up with Freeview it is forever asking for a retune and is a real PITA. With satellite yes there is form time to time a program change, I lost BBC 3 and now I can only find it on the internet. But the changes are far less frequent and in the main satellite TV is a lot less hassle and more channels although the paper program guides don't list many of the programs.

As to watch able programs taking away the sex and shopping channels satellite has not quite double what is on freeview. There are one or two free channels on freeview which are encrypted on satellite, but these are getting less and less.