Sat4Free/Freesat in Ireland

The_Conductor

benifa wrote: »

I beg to differ, smccarrick..

Argos sell the installation for £80, and the Bush SD Freesat boxes for £50. So that's a total of £130, = €165 (according to xe.com).

So what they get in the UK for €165, we have to pay €299.

Well- if you nip down to Powercity, the Grundig SD box is EUR79.95 and the Grundig HD box is EUR229.95

These equate with Argos prices of Sterling £49.99 and £149.99 respectively (link here)

Installations do cost a lot more here in IE, than they do in the UK- its even pricier up North than in Britain, if you buy the Freesat box in Argos Belfast they advertise installation "from £80". If you contact them with an out of the way address- believe you me its far higher.

The equipment is not markedly pricier down here than in the UK, but the installation does cost an arm and a leg more than it costs over there........

Ps- Its the Grundig boxes which are sold seperately in Powercity, not the Bush boxes. The Bush boxes, even though they are identical to the Grundig ones for all intensive purposes, are £30/£40 less than the Grundig ones........ Seems a lot of money for a simple label.......

Pps- just checked- the Tesco and Woodies ad is for the Grundig box, not the Bush box.

Ppps- I bought the Bush HD box in Argos Belfast myself, and post the s/w upgrade which allows the manual addition of channels (which you could not do with the original firmware) I'd highly recommend it.......

muincav

smccarrick wrote: »

Well- if you nip down to Powercity, the Grundig SD box is EUR79.95 and the Grundig HD box is EUR229.95

These equate with Argos prices of Sterling £49.99 and £149.99 respectively (link here)

Installations do cost a lot more here in IE, than they do in the UK- its even pricier up North than in Britain, if you buy the Freesat box in Argos Belfast they advertise installation "from £80". If you contact them with an out of the way address- believe you me its far higher.

The equipment is not markedly pricier down here than in the UK, but the installation does cost an arm and a leg more than it costs over there........

Ps- Its the Grundig boxes which are sold seperately in Powercity, not the Bush boxes. The Bush boxes, even though they are identical to the Grundig ones for all intensive purposes, are £30/£40 less than the Grundig ones........ Seems a lot of money for a simple label.......

£49=64EURO AND £149=192EURO So they are still a fair bit more expensive, but then again this is Rip Off Ireland!

The_Conductor

muincav wrote: »

£49=64EURO AND £149=192EURO So they are still a fair bit more expensive, but then again this is Rip Off Ireland!

Its actually EUR 66, and EUR 198.50 at this mornings rates from BOI- which is EUR13 and EUR30 more than in the UK. If you factor in our higher VAT rates and markedly higher retail overheads- it really isn't much of a difference at all. I never thought I'd find myself defending the retail industry here....... As electronics go- its a very modest price differential- and not the rip-off that you think it is.

If you want to save money- buy the box and organise the installation yourself- its not rocket science, and any old Sky dish of above 60cm properly aligned will do a grand job......... Then again- if you fall off the ladder, don't blame me........

Zonda999

Ok lads, lets be homest, sat4free is going to have limited appeal as long the irish channels are'nt available. But what about if they managed to put mpeg4 tuners into their boxes.??

Then, as of next august(Or even right now on the east coast), we would be able to get all the freesat channels, as well as all the irish channels which would be a real match for sky would'nt it??Is this really too much to ask??

azzeretti

Zonda999 wrote: »

Then, as of next august(Or even right now on the east coast),

How far down the East coast is this receivable?

Zonda999

Dont have a clue. I'm from cork(:D:D)

You'll find out over in the terrestrial forum i'd say

deanh

How difficult would it be to self install? Can freesat be recieved all parts of Ireland eg west cork?

Kotek Besar

deanh wrote: »

How difficult would it be to self install? Can freesat be recieved all parts of Ireland eg west cork?

Yes.

daphilp

Lads,
how do the boxes advertised in the Sat4free outlets, compare with the one on the satelite.ie site,
http://www.satellite.ie/acatalog/Freesat_HD_Box.html
In Cork, the box can not be bought without installation, so the satelite.ie
offer is not much dearer than the Sat4free one. Assumimg the satelite.ie one can take any postcode, would I be better off with that one?
Has anybody any experience of satelite.ie ? Is it a good company?
Thanks
dave

Kotek Besar

daphilp wrote: »

Lads,
how do the boxes advertised in the Sat4free outlets, compare with the one on the satelite.ie site,
http://www.satellite.ie/acatalog/Freesat_HD_Box.html
In Cork, the box can not be bought without installation, so the satelite.ie
offer is not much dearer than the Sat4free one. Assumimg the satelite.ie one can take any postcode, would I be better off with that one?

Yup, any post code, that one. It's a UK Freesat box, not a Sat4free box (which is pre-set to NI post code and cannot be changed).

daphilp wrote: »

Has anybody any experience of satelite.ie ? Is it a good company?

I think Tony might know.

copacetic

they are good guys, helpful and deliver quickly. no worries ordering from them. The actual freesat box is a better buy also imo.

Martin_F

I self installed a quad Freesat system in June. Not very difficult - dish alignment was the trickiest - until I got the elevation right - as soon as you get the smallest signal you're home and dry as you just left/right up/down a bit at a time looking for strength improvement - the Bush SD signal meter was just fine (even if you're up and down the ladder a bit). The rest of it is just bolting the the dish to the house and cabling. For most rooms I was able to run with the existing cabling put in originally by the builders - used some signal combiners/splitters to run analogue aerial & sat down the single cable runs. Very satisfying when done - and I have 95-100% strength & quality - even in bad weather. I got the 60cm dish & quad LNB etc from satellite.ie and visited Argos Newry for 2 bush SD & got a Humax HD online from UK.

Martin_F

I'd concur about the prompt delivery from satellite.ie - think the stuff arrived the day after ordered - all good quality - and as well priced as anywhere else I could find. Wasn't stocking the boxes then - hence the drive north - on the way to Ikea

daphilp

Thanks lads,

can't understand all the excitement about sat4free so if the satelite.ie box is better, (can be postcoded), and people seem to have a high regard for satelite.ie
Thanks,
dave
Cork

Amigaman

just got hooked up today
Bush HD box from argos £119 with £10 gift voucher and €140 for the installation from Satworld Total €278 and the HD is Great...
Point to note Called Sat4free and they quoted me €150 for installation

murphaph

Martin_F wrote: »

I self installed a quad Freesat system in June. Not very difficult - dish alignment was the trickiest - until I got the elevation right - as soon as you get the smallest signal you're home and dry as you just left/right up/down a bit at a time looking for strength improvement - the Bush SD signal meter was just fine (even if you're up and down the ladder a bit). The rest of it is just bolting the the dish to the house and cabling. For most rooms I was able to run with the existing cabling put in originally by the builders - used some signal combiners/splitters to run analogue aerial & sat down the single cable runs. Very satisfying when done - and I have 95-100% strength & quality - even in bad weather. I got the 60cm dish & quad LNB etc from satellite.ie and visited Argos Newry for 2 bush SD & got a Humax HD online from UK.

Could someone point me to more info on signal combination/splitting as I have analogue cable with sky sports and suchlike that you don't get on the sat and I have a single cable run whih I would like to combine the signal on.

Martin_F

I got mine from B&Q Lucan - but I think the independant sat companies carry them too - satellite.ie etc price about 8-10 euro each - and you need 2 per cable run (1 at each end combine then split)

Zaphod

They appear to be still in the process of rewriting the sat4free homepage with the external links removed and the channel line-up by genre more closely matching their brochures.

Brochure centre


Brochure page 1


Brochure T&C


So they'll use an existing Quad LNBF port but I bet the overall installation cost will remain the same - nice little earner that. And €85 for a realignment? I think I'll go installing dishes!

Looking at the display in Tesco, the marketing effort is a little underwhelming - a few empty Goodman boxes and the leaflets above. Would it kill them to hook a 42" plasma up to a HD box and tune in BBCHD?

Have any of the independent retailers been approached to stock these boxes yet?

Mossy Monk

How can they advertise ITV HD if it is not available on a NI postcode?

muincav

Mossy Monk wrote: »

How can they advertise ITV HD if it is not available on a NI postcode?

but it can be tuned in manually and therefore as a selling point, should be advertised and connected up for all to see....should it not?

Mossy Monk

muincav wrote: »

but it can be tuned in manually and therefore as a selling point, should be advertised and connected up for all to see....should it not?

It can? I thought it was a red button only thing and was a bastard to tune in.

mjsmyth

I may be wrong here, but I think you have to tune in ITV 1 (one of the regions), and that channel will display the red dot, you then hit the red button..

Not 100% on that, just what I have read.

astra2d

The ITV HD Red button, like BBCi services can only be accessed in Freesat mode. The easiest way to get ITV HD is to use an English or Welsh postcode.
Here is a list of regional postcodes:
RegionPostcode

Anglia
NR1 3JG
Border
CA1 3NT
Central
B1 2JT
Channel
JE1 3ZD
Granada
M60 9EA
HTV Wales
CF5 6XJ
London
WC1X 8XZ
Meridian
ME14 5NZ
HTV West
BS4 3HG
Westcountry
PL7 5BQ
Tyne Tees
NE11 9SZ

copacetic

Mossy Monk wrote: »

It can? I thought it was a red button only thing and was a bastard to tune in.

As mentioned you can manually add ITV1 to the epg, even move it around the line up.

Once you have done that you will get ITV HD when available.

Now, maybe they are including this service during the install, as otherwise I'd assume most people would never find ITV HD.

mjsmyth

@astra2d

The sat4free boxes are locked to a Northern Ireland postcode and this can't be changed.

Tony

Thanks for the kind words guys. You can enter any UK postcode on these boxes. Biggest problem is short supply , only 12 in stock and the wholsaler does not have a date for re supply at present. There is a discount code for boards.ie users but I'll need to check with the mods here if its ok to post it.

Tony

benifa wrote: »

I think Tony might know.

I'm hardly objective on the subject though

lafors

Lads, is my dish an old sky dish? Would it do for freesat?
And is it pointing in the right direction? (See attached)
Previous owner had this dish up but had NTL so I think it was either that they had a lidl setup or the owner before them had sky.

Am going to get myself the Freesat HD PVR, hopefully after christmas, and get an octo LNB, then get standard or HD box for the other rooms.

copacetic

looks to be about right for both.
mad need to adjust it to actually get a signal if it has been up a while.

HPMan

Can you change the postcode from say Granada's to Channel's or Ulster's if you either move house or want the default itv channel to be a different one? Are you stuck with the change after a set / fixed number of changes - like dvd decoders?