Saorview combi. Can I use my sky dish

chuck eastwood

Hi folks. This might have been covered here already but I couldn't find it in the search box. So I cancelled sky tv today and I'm thinking of buying the PowerPoint saorview connect box. I have a small Antenna mounted on the wall above my sky dish that should get the Irish channels. I can see kippure about 7km away while beside my dish+Antenna.
Basically I want to know if I can use the sky dish to pick up the UK channels or do I need to replace it.
There are two cables coming from the sky dish now. I was told I could use one of those for the UK channels and use the other cable (after changing the connectors) and run that from the antenna mounted above the dish for the saorview Irish channels. Does this sound anyway right?

Boxcar_Willie

You will pick up Freesat with that dish .
Your box will need a DVB-S tuner .

chuck eastwood

Boxcar_Willie wrote: »

You will pick up Freesat with that dish .
Your box will need a DVB-S tuner .

Thanks.

This is the one I'm looking at. I assume the tuner is built in
https://www.expert.ie/products/tv-dvd/televisions/new-saorview-connect/new-saorview-connect

decor58

chuck eastwood wrote:

This is the one I'm looking at. I assume the tuner is built in

Yes, that will work with your sky dish, two cables will allow you view and record the UK channels, though you will need a HDD. Your aerial could deliver you Saorview, the same HDD unit for recording.

chuck eastwood

decor58 wrote: »

Yes, that will work with your sky dish, two cables will allow you view and record the UK channels, though you will need a HDD. Your aerial could deliver you Saorview, the same HDD unit for recording.

Brilliant. The sky chap in his best and most irritating attemptsto renew my contract swore blind the sky dish wouldn't work for anything other than sky. Thanks for the info folks

Boxcar_Willie

Did you have SkyQ or Sky+ ?

You may need to change the LNB .

chuck eastwood

Boxcar_Willie wrote: »

Did you have SkyQ or Sky+ ?

You may need to change the LNB .

Just the bog standard sky +. Never use it enough to warrant upgrading to Q

I'm using a sky dish for Saorview (freesat) and then an internal antenna for the Irish channels with no issues. Based in Blessington.

Edit: using a saorview connect box.

StupidLikeAFox

Boxcar_Willie wrote: »

Did you have SkyQ or Sky+ ?

You may need to change the LNB .

I'm in the same boat as the op but I have a Sky Q dish.v I've seen that I need to buy an lnb if I wanted to us this for saorview. Are there any decent guides or instructions that I could follow to do this? Or how would I know what exactly to buy etc

Johnboy1951

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

I'm in the same boat as the op but I have a Sky Q dish.v I've seen that I need to buy an lnb if I wanted to us this for saorview. Are there any decent guides or instructions that I could follow to do this? Or how would I know what exactly to buy etc

You cannot get Saorview (Irish terrestrial broadcasts) via the Sky dish.
You will need a suitable aerial (depends on transmitter) to receive Saorview.

What you can get via the dish is the Free To Air Satellite channels.

chuck eastwood

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

You cannot get Saorview (Irish terrestrial broadcasts) via the Sky dish.
You will need a suitable aerial (depends on transmitter) to receive Saorview.

What you can get via the dish is the Free To Air Satellite channels.

The connect box has a connection for an antenna and dish as far as I know. There is an antenna mounted just above the dish so I'll be covered on that front

Tigerandahalf

1. Free to air satellite
2. Freesat
3. Saorview
4. Freeview
....
1. All you need is a satellite dish to pick up all the English channels (including regionals, e.g. BBC NI, BBC Wales, etc). Any box/tv that picks up these will not have a 7 day epg, just now or next.

2. Freesat - is a branded box/tv that will give you the above but with 7 day epg.

3. Saorview - is the Irish terrestrial (broadcasted through transmitters located in various high points around the country) free to air brand. You need a uhf aerial (or rabbits ears if close to a transmitter) on the roof or in the attic to receive them - Rte1, rte2, virgin tv, tg4, etc.

4. Freeview - is the UK equivalent to saorview. Only available in the UK and along border areas/areas close to the Irish sea as the signal is strong enough to be picked up. The English channels but regional in nature.

If you have a Sky dish it will also pick up freesat/free to air satellite. Sky Q systems possibly will need a device called an LNB changed though.

Others may summarise it better.

chuck eastwood

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

1. Free to air satellite
2. Freesat
3. Saorview
4. Freeview
....
1. All you need is a satellite dish to pick up all the English channels (including regionals, e.g. BBC NI, BBC Wales, etc). Any box/tv that picks up these will not have a 7 day epg, just now or next.

2. Freesat - is a branded box/tv that will give you the above but with 7 day epg.

3. Saorview - is the Irish terrestrial free to air brand. You need a uhf aerial (or rabbits ears if close to a transmitter) on the roof or in the attic to receive them - Rte1, rte2, virgin tv, tg4, etc.

4. Freeview - is the UK equivalent to saorview. Only available in the UK and along border areas/areas close to the Irish sea as the signal is strong enough to be picked up. The English channels but regional in nature.

If you have a Sky dish it will also pick up freesat/free to air satellite. Sky Q systems possibly will need a device called an LNB changed though.

Others may summarise it better.

No that's really useful info. Thanks for laying that out for me

breeno

Sorry to hijack but I am getting rid of Sky Q this week. I have hooked the sky cable to a generic satellite receiver and it picks up the FTA signal fine. Does this mean I won't need to change the lnb or will it become an issue when Sky services are cut off next week?

Johnboy1951

breeno wrote: »

Sorry to hijack but I am getting rid of Sky Q this week. I have hooked the sky cable to a generic satellite receiver and it picks up the FTA signal fine. Does this mean I won't need to change the lnb or will it become an issue when Sky services are cut off next week?

Are you getting ALL FTA channels from satellite?
It depends on the LNB Type and not on a Sky connection.

breeno

Thanks for the quick reply.
All of the channels I checked (just a quick check to be honest) are working from what I can see, are there any I should look out for that would suggest I have a problem?

Johnboy1951

Easiest check would be to see how many connections are on the LNB ....... If a Sky Q LNB with only two connections then it likely needs to be swapped for a standard LNB.
If it has more connections available then all should be good.

StupidLikeAFox

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

You cannot get Saorview (Irish terrestrial broadcasts) via the Sky dish.
You will need a suitable aerial (depends on transmitter) to receive Saorview.

What you can get via the dish is the Free To Air Satellite channels.

Hi, sorry, I meant Freeview. BBC/channel 4/itv etc.

Johnboy1951

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Hi, sorry, I meant Freeview. BBC/channel 4/itv etc.

From a previous post in this thread!

4. Freeview - is the UK equivalent to saorview. Only available in the UK and along border areas/areas close to the Irish sea as the signal is strong enough to be picked up. The English channels but regional in nature.

This, like Saorview is received via a suitable aerial - if at all possible.

quick feet

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

1. Free to air satellite
2. Freesat
3. Saorview
4. Freeview
....
1. All you need is a satellite dish to pick up all the English channels (including regionals, e.g. BBC NI, BBC Wales, etc). Any box/tv that picks up these will not have a 7 day epg, just now or next.

2. Freesat - is a branded box/tv that will give you the above but with 7 day epg.

3. Saorview - is the Irish terrestrial (broadcasted through transmitters located in various high points around the country) free to air brand. You need a uhf aerial (or rabbits ears if close to a transmitter) on the roof or in the attic to receive them - Rte1, rte2, virgin tv, tg4, etc.

4. Freeview - is the UK equivalent to saorview. Only available in the UK and along border areas/areas close to the Irish sea as the signal is strong enough to be picked up. The English channels but regional in nature.

If you have a Sky dish it will also pick up freesat/free to air satellite. Sky Q systems possibly will need a device called an LNB changed though.

Others may summarise it better.

Thanks for the summary..
I'm currently using a combi box connected to an aerial, only recieve rte/virgin media, if we were to connect to a satellite dish also would we recieve bbc/ITV ect?
Would any satellite dish suffice?

Boxcar_Willie

You would need a 60cm or larger dish , aligned to the 28.2E satellite.

quick feet

Got a 60cm dish and is aligned to sat.28.2e, however still unable to pick up any free to air..
Using a 4life 400sv box.. any suggestions?

decor58

quick feet wrote:

Got a 60cm dish and is aligned to sat.28.2e, however still unable to pick up any free to air.. Using a 4life 400sv box.. any suggestions?

Can you borrow a receiver that is already tuned in, just to confirm alignment. What does the signal indicator show, are you doing a blind scan on the 4life tuner, what, if any channels are you getting.

quick feet

decor58 wrote: »

Can you borrow a receiver that is already tuned in, just to confirm alignment. What does the signal indicator show, are you doing a blind scan on the 4life tuner, what, if any channels are you getting.

We used a satalite detector, got a good strength signal ,10, apparently..however on the box when we do a scan, quality is still non existent.. nothing! Maybe this is the issue? We recieve rte/virgin from an aerial connection..tried blind scan, dtv , pretty much every scan possible...

Boxcar_Willie

quick feet wrote: »

We used a satalite detector, got a good strength signal ,10, apparently..however on the box when we do a scan, quality is still non existent.. nothing! Maybe this is the issue? We recieve rte/virgin from an aerial connection..tried blind scan, dtv , pretty much every scan possible...

Dish is not properly aligned .

quick feet

Cheers.. it's the blind leading the blind !

winston_1

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

3. Saorview - is the Irish terrestrial (broadcasted through transmitters located in various high points around the country) free to air brand. You need a uhf aerial (or rabbits ears if close to a transmitter) on the roof or in the attic to receive them - Rte1, rte2, virgin tv, tg4, etc.

So called rabbits ears are VHF aerials for DAB and FM radio. They are not suitable for UHF TV. UHF set top aerials are cheaply available if you must use one.

STB.

quick feet wrote: »

Cheers.. it's the blind leading the blind !

Have a look at your neighbours dishes and the direction they are pointing. If you dont have neighbours, go to to https://www.dishpointer.com/ enter your location, change the satellite position on the right to 28.2E, drag the pointer to your house and zoom in. It will give you an idea of the diretion your dish should be pointing.


On the side of the dish there is is two nuts, allowing the dish to move up and down, loosen them slightly and set the dish elevation at around 22 - use the the markings. When you tune it in, you can then make slight adjustments left and right to maximise the signal, then lock all the nuts up, so that it doesnt move.

chuck eastwood

STB. wrote: »

Have a look at your neighbours dishes and the direction they are pointing. If you dont have neighbours, go to to https://www.dishpointer.com/ enter your location, change the satellite position on the right to 28.2E, drag the pointer to your house and zoom in. It will give you an idea of the diretion your dish should be pointing.


On the side of the dish there is is two nuts, allowing the dish to move up and down, loosen them slightly and set the dish elevation at around 22 - use the the markings. When you tune it in, you can then make slight adjustments left and right to maximise the signal, then lock all the nuts up, so that it doesnt move.

This may or may not be helpful but I had to take down my dish 6 months ago for build work and when I put it back up I used the compass on my phone held to the support bar of the dish. Slight adjustments until I had it to within half a degree. On sky and now my combi I have 100% showing for signal strenght