Sky dish

[DP]

I have a SLX freesat add-on kit for Sky installation (sourced from Screwfix). The LNB has 4 terminals P1 to P4. P2 and P3 have a plastic (removeable) cap on the terminals.

I have access to the dish at present (scaffolding in place). If I was to fit the LNB, what terminals would be used for which Sky box and Freesat box

Am I wasting my time or should I fit the new LNB while I can. I know nothing about sat dishes or LNB other than it picks up signal from point of 'focus' on the dish.

Should I cable to 4 terminals while I can and then source equipment at later stage?

Any help or advise would be very appreciated.

 

[cymrudotcom]

you can use any of them they all the same

 

[mattylad]

If you can cable to the un used outputs, to perhaps other rooms you can then use std sky boxes (available on Freecycle etc) for watching the freesat TV.

 

[Lectrician]

A zone two dish is highly recommended for freesat. Not essential, but reccomended.

You need to use foam dialectric coax outside, not air spaced.

the smaller coax (RG6 4.8mm) should not be used over around 20m, or if you really want to run a long run, use a larger dish. Use the WF100 or equiv where possible.

 

[nozspark]

What benefit is there with having Freesat over SKY with no subscription????

 

[ericmark]

The Sky box will only allow you to use Astra
The Sky box will show all sky channels even those you can't watch
The Sky box in the main has a better electronic program guide
The Sky box will allow you to view some free to view encrypted programs

The free to sat boxes can be tuned to many more satellites and often have connections for the rotators so you can turn a single dish to many satellites.
They also will allow you to scan for free to air programs so you don't need to wade through the 100's of programs you can't watch.
You can reset to order of the programs so ITV 2 is next to ITV2 +1 etc
You can delete those you don't want i.e. loads of shopping and sex channels
The receiving of audio channels is completely separate to video channels so you don't need to wade through radio channels to find a TV channel.

However in the family we have three free to air sky boxes and each one is different. All will work on a weaker signal than the sky's own box. The EPG on one of them is really rotten although we did buy it in Turkey although we know they all have output for rotator we have never fitted one so can't say how well they work.

Setting a dish for anything other than Astra is not easy with the cheap little meters one can buy and we have ended up with TV outside so we can set up the dish when trying to tune in to Turkish TV.

 

[cymrudotcom]

just get this freesat box http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/

every thing exactley same as sky signal epg etc. just not so many channels but still over 240 if you want to pick up other satellites its best to get a motorized system as you dont want to be up and down a ladder every 2 minutes.and for this i would recomende a technomate 5200d

 

[ericmark]

just get this freesat box http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/

every thing exactley same as sky signal epg etc. just not so many channels but still over 240 if you want to pick up other satellites its best to get a motorized system as you dont want to be up and down a ladder every 2 minutes.and for this i would recomende a technomate 5200d

On all the Sky boxes I have seen there is no connection for rotator and no way to scan for channels not provided by sky. Unless you intend to pay for their packages there is no point.

As to over 240 channels this includes BBC1 around 24 times for each of the regions and the same with ITV etc. By time you ignore the unwanted channels like sex and shopping as well its down to around 200 channels. Of which I found around 90 were worth watching on regular basis.

As I said back a couple of years ago Channel 4, More 4, Film 4, E4 etc were all encrypted and there was an advantage using Sky. However last time I looked this has reduced to 2 or 3 UK History was still encrypted but would not be surprised to find the very few remaining also drop encryption soon. One could by cards to UK address from BBC but as most stopped encryption I think this has stopped.

I will admit the Sky box has better EPG than others I have but every box is different and there may be boxes with good EPG. Features like the 9 screen split when hunting for channels to watch also vary box to box but since you can't remove programs from Sky box and you have to wade through all the encrypted channels it would be pointless on a Sky box.

One down side is with free to air boxes since you decide the order of channels when one sees advert that it is on channel 101 it does not work. Mind you with channel 101 does not work anyway as it is regional BBC and will change according to engineers setting as to area where you live.

 

[cymrudotcom]

there is a feature on sky box where you can manually add different channels but never tried this on anything other than 28.2 not that there is much to add as most astra channels are already on sky box.has any one tried lining their dish up to another satellite and adding channels with a sky box?

 

[DP]

I would like to thank all that posted with their remarks and hints. Changed the LNB and all is well.

I did not know until prompted that LNB was just another type of areial that brings in the signal for the 'tuner' to process

 

[kkynaston]

has any one tried lining their dish up to another satellite and adding channels with a sky box?

Yes, had mine on 13E (Hotbird) but its very clunky with no auto scan and no way to add channels as presets. i.e you have to go into other channels under services.

For other sats a sky box is no good.

 

[plugwash]

I did not know until prompted that LNB was just another type of areial that brings in the signal for the 'tuner' to process

It's a bit more than that actually, it's an low noise amplifier and frequency shifter. It also has to have a way to switch between two polarisations and two frequency bands. This is why you can't just split sat feeds like you can terrestrial feeds and instead have to use either a multi-output LNB or a quatro LNB with four feeds to a multiswitch.