Setting up freesat from start

Joey the lips

Hi Tech people

I have been following this sat area for a while esp prosperous dave and the setting up of free sat. I now want to go down the same root this is my understanding. Based on the fact I alrady have sky and live in meath

1. Cancel sky sub

2. Connect free sat HD box to port here sky was on normal not HD tele using existing sky dish

3. Buy HD Aerial for normal tele now but will do HD when I even get new telly

Whar I need to know is

1, Do I buy HD Even though I have not a HD tele

2. Can somebody refere me to places where I can buy the stuff. This is not a recomendation so hope the mod lets you direct me cause I am lost


Please correct me if I am short anything

Tony

You can buy HD now if you intend getting a HD tv in the near future otherwise SD is fine. Check out the supplier sticky thread.

Joey the lips wrote: »

Whar I need to know is

1, Do I buy HD Even though I have not a HD tele

2. Can somebody refere me to places where I can buy the stuff. This is not a recomendation so hope the mod lets you direct me cause I am lost

Onikage

Cancelling sky is very important

If you are getting a new telly it will probably be HD but there are very few channels at the moment, so only buy a more expensive HD box if you really like having the latest and greatest. As Tony hints, SD or HD will work fine on either type of telly (although you obviously won't get the benefit of a HD box on an SD telly).

No such thing as a HD aerial. Get the same type of aerial your neighbours have, if you don't already have one. This will do you for analogue and digital terrestrial when digital becomes available.

homer911

Its been stated elsewhere on this forum that Analogue reception on a LCD TV is not as good as analogue on a CRT and I can confirm this by personal experience (I dont know about Plasma). If you are using an aerial, check what reception your neighbours are getting on their HD setup (analogue or digital). Also make sure the HDTV you get has a digital tuner that supports MPEG-4

m8

I've seen some boxes on ebay that do both Terrestrial and satellite HD in one from a supplier in Ireland that might interest you. Just do a search and you find them.

Kashkai

homer911 wrote: »

Its been stated elsewhere on this forum that Analogue reception on a LCD TV is not as good as analogue on a CRT and I can confirm this by personal experience (I dont know about Plasma). If you are using an aerial, check what reception your neighbours are getting on their HD setup (analogue or digital). Also make sure the HDTV you get has a digital tuner that supports MPEG-4

The analogue reception of RTE on my 46 inch Samsung LCD is perfect, i.e. as good as the freesat feed. I'm using a 4 way amplifier to boost the signal as I have routed the analogue signal to the 4 tv points around the house so perhaps this has made a difference to the analogue reception although I doubt it.

Joey, glad to hear you've decided to give freesat a go. I'm delighted with it and love being able to sit down at night to watch a movie on Film 4, ITV etc as there is always something good on AND knowing that I'm not paying for it every month like all the SKY customers is a huge bonus :D. If you already have a dish and cabling in place, then all you have to do is cancel SKY and remove your SKY card and you're good to go. There will be a load of channels that are no longer accessible to you on the SKY epg but as 95% of them are absolute sh1te, you won't be missing them anyways.

As for setting up an aerial, this was a complete piece of p1ss compared to aligning the satellite dish. I'm getting a brilliant picture from the Kippure transmitter.

Joey the lips

Thanks dave. I pulled out my sky card for a test but seem to be missing a lot of the free view channels. I'll check this again and let you know. What aerial did you go with. I am sh1t with heights who did you get to install it??

coffee to go

If you've been looking at a list of 'freeview' channels, then that isn't what you'll get on a non-subscription Sky box. Freeview is the UK digital terrestrial services, and contains several channels not free-to-air on satellite.

For a list of the channels you'll be able to receive (some on the EPG and some tuned in via 'other channels' on your Sky box, look here:

http://www.angelcomms.ie/freetoairsatellitechannellist.asp

List may be a tiny bit out of date, I'm not sure.

You may want to get the box to default to the UK EPG - Info on this is in the Satellite forum stickies.

Kashkai

Joey the lips wrote: »

Thanks dave. I pulled out my sky card for a test but seem to be missing a lot of the free view channels. I'll check this again and let you know. What aerial did you go with. I am sh1t with heights who did you get to install it??

I installed the aerial myself but as I live in a bungalow, the height issue wasn't as great as it would be in a 2 storey house . I bought my aerial in Freesat.ie's shop in Fairview in Dublin but you can get a good one in the likes of Maplins etc. Just make sure that it will work with the proposed new dtt service so it must be UHF or at least a UHF/VHF combo aerial (this will depend on your local transmitter, in my case it is Kippure so I needed a UHF/VHF combo) or else you'll be changing it again in 3 years time. Depending on how good your signal is and/or the number of tv points that you plan to route the signal to, you might want to consider an amplifier that will allow you to split the signal and will boost it as well. I also bought one of these in the Freesat shop.

There's a sticky on this forum somewhere at the top that provides a list of all the Freesat/Free to air channels that you can get. Even if some of them don't show up on your ex-SKY box, you can tune them in by going into the "Services" menu and "Other channels".

Martin_F

Joey the lips wrote: »

Thanks dave. I pulled out my sky card for a test but seem to be missing a lot of the free view channels. I'll check this again and let you know. What aerial did you go with. I am sh1t with heights who did you get to install it??

I also did my own install. I went with a Medium sized aerial from B&Q (for medium signal strengths) and stuck it in the attic - this avoids the whole problem with heights - and hides it at the same time - if you have space in the attic it is well worth considering it. As per Dave's suggestion - a amplified splitter of some kind may be useful if you need to feed multiple TV's. I installed just the basic wiring first (passive split) and then swapped it for an active one later to improve analogue picture quality - DTT picture is likely to perfect unless you really get a very poor signal.

Valentia

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

The analogue reception of RTE on my 46 inch Samsung LCD is perfect,

But it's not widescreen is it? A 46" with 4.3 seems like an awful waste. What I'm really saying is that it is a disgrace that we have to have sky to get our own stations widescreen and without the waves.

Kashkai

Valentia wrote: »

But it's not widescreen is it? A 46" with 4.3 seems like an awful waste. What I'm really saying is that it is a disgrace that we have to have sky to get our own stations widescreen and without the waves.

The analogue picture (which is absolutely perfect btw - I know cause I'm a perfectionist and even though I was almost nose to screen, I could not detect any fuzziness etc) fills my entire screen so I'm not stuck with a tiny 4:3 picture surrounded by a black border if thats what you mean.

I agree that it is a disgrace that the terrestrial channels were signed away to SKY - more short sighted thinking from our "betters". Although with the (eventual) rollout of dtt, this should go some way towards swaying people away from SKY and down the dtt/freesat route.

Joey the lips

Thanks all. I think I have the sussed!

I found a company Angel Communications tha supplys and installs digital ready aerials for €149 that sound ok to me. Mc Entaggerts wanted €250 so I am worried about the diff. IE Is the cheap one bogy or the dear one a rip off ( Ohh the pain) Oh I wish I was not afraid of heights. I would do this my self!

I have figure that I tune the stations into my other channels that will not display at the moment eg: Channel 4

But I seem to be still having a prob with my decoder its loseing stations I tune in

At the very least I can buy a new decoder for 99.

PS Any body any experience of attic aerials. Dont imagine they would work in Duleek!

Now for the adult channels?????:eek:

Tony

Joey the lips wrote: »

I found a company Angel Communications tha supplys and installs digital ready aerials for €149 that sound ok to me.

Sounds about right

Kashkai

I paid €49 for my aerial so it looks like they're charging you €100 for fitting it. Are you sure you wouldn't give it a go yourself and spend the hundred on other important things like a dedicated freesat receiver or beer?

BTW depending on how good the signal is in your area, you can get away with an aerial in the attic. Have you tried this before you pay someone a hundred squid to put one on the roof?

Sam Radford

If your attic, like mine, has a reflective aluminised foil under the tiles, you won't pick up a darn thing.

snaps

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I agree that it is a disgrace that the terrestrial channels were signed away to SKY - more short sighted thinking from our "betters". Although with the (eventual) rollout of dtt, this should go some way towards swaying people away from SKY and down the dtt/freesat route.

Ive found myself barely watching RTE now. Even now im watching the rugby on BBC (HD)!!

Joey the lips

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I paid €49 for my aerial so it looks like they're charging you €100 for fitting it. Are you sure you wouldn't give it a go yourself and spend the hundred on other important things like a dedicated freesat receiver or beer?

BTW depending on how good the signal is in your area, you can get away with an aerial in the attic. Have you tried this before you pay someone a hundred squid to put one on the roof?

Where do you get an attic aerial I will try it. If it works it will last a long time I know!

I think i read on this forum if you get into the attic with a normal rabbits ears type aerial and it works than a good aerial will be fab

I will try this first.

Where did you buy your aerial for 49 euro dave

Kashkai

I bought my aerial in the Freesat shop in Fairview on the northside of Dublin. Check out their website at Freesat.ie or else click on this link to see the types of aerials they do:

http://www.freesat.ie/index.php?cat=Terrestrial_Aerials&ActinicSID=8ef319fa9caa36833513bca190588037

BTW, they also sell mounting brackets that you can screw into a rafter/beam in your attic to which you attach the aerial. Theres very little weight in the aerials so don't worry about any special fixings for the brackets, a few good screws will do . Oh and there aren't any special types of aerials for attics. Its just that you might be lucky enough to get one that will give you a good reception in the attic and therefore will save you the bother and money of having one mounted outdoors. Buy a length of cable so you can try the aerial in the attic and run the cable door through the trapdoor to a tv set on your landing so you can see what the reception is like. If you are planning on splitting the signal to more than one point, I'd consider an amplifier to boost the signal.

Joey the lips

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I bought my aerial in the Freesat shop in Fairview on the northside of Dublin. Check out their website at Freesat.ie or else click on this link to see the types of aerials they do:

http://www.freesat.ie/index.php?cat=Terrestrial_Aerials&ActinicSID=8ef319fa9caa36833513bca190588037

BTW, they also sell mounting brackets that you can screw into a rafter/beam in your attic to which you attach the aerial. Theres very little weight in the aerials so don't worry about any special fixings for the brackets, a few good screws will do . Oh and there aren't any special types of aerials for attics. Its just that you might be lucky enough to get one that will give you a good reception in the attic and therefore will save you the bother and money of having one mounted outdoors. Buy a length of cable so you can try the aerial in the attic and run the cable door through the trapdoor to a tv set on your landing so you can see what the reception is like. If you are planning on splitting the signal to more than one point, I'd consider an amplifier to boost the signal.

Thanks I will try that!