Freeview in Waterford/Kilkenny

rogue-entity

I was wondering, is it possable to receive Freeview in Waterford City, South Kilkenny or Dunmore. I heard that it is difficult to receive because of the low power of the UK transmitters and also because of obsticals blocking the signal.

In waterford via NThell digital it is possable to get BBC1/2/3/4, UTV, CH4, ITV3 but not ITV2 or five. I was hoping to use freeview to receive these stations.

Sometimes, especialy during a hot summer day, you can pick up UK radio stations in waterford. On one sunny day I was in dunmore where O2 IRL signal is dodgy at best, my fone started searching for networks and I was able to pickup the UK networks: O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange.

In Kilkenny my aunt and uncle do not have cable and get BBC1/2 HTV and S4C via analogue. They also subscribe to sky digital and contrary to popular belief the only UK channels you can get on sky are BBC1/2 and ITV3 on the EPG and BBC3/4/parliament/news24, CBBC and CBeebies can be manualy tuned.
(Apparantly the reason why CH4, ITV1/2 and five are not available on Sky is because NTHell and CHorus have a legal injunction against them).

The point is that I do not know where I can get a freeview box in waterford, what ariel/antenna I would need and if it is even possable to receive a signal strong enough to be useful. I was also hoping that someone would be running a deflector in the area. I do know that my friend living in Passage East can get CH4 and five on a standard indoor antenna that sits on his TV.

Mossy Monk

i have never attempted getting Freeview in Waterford but in Dungarvan i am able to receive signals (although not perfect) from the Westcountry for the majority of the year with an aerial and rabbit ears combined, which isnt bad considering the aerial is a piece of crap so it may well be possible

rogue-entity wrote:

contrary to popular belief the only UK channels you can get on sky are BBC1/2 and ITV3 on the EPG and BBC3/4/parliament/news24, CBBC and CBeebies can be manualy tuned.
(Apparantly the reason why CH4, ITV1/2 and five are not available on Sky is because NTHell and CHorus have a legal injunction against them).

what popular belief says all the UK channels are on the EPG?
the reason why ITV1 isnt on Sky is because of TV3
ITV2 isnt on Sky, NTL or Chorus so that throws out the cable conspiracy
Channel 4 i cannot explain
five has no interest in broadcasting in the ROI

ie. the cable companies have no say, if they did i am sure Sky would have them in the European courts in no time for anti competitive practices

i have only seen one cable company that broadcasts all of them and that is Casey Cablevision in Dungarvan

Ulsterman 1690

i am sure Sky would have them in the European courts in no time for anti competitive practices

Im sure youre right and Im also sure you realise how ironic that would be :rolleyes:

rogue-entity

Mossy Monk wrote:

what popular belief says all the UK channels are on the EPG?
the reason why ITV1 isnt on Sky is because of TV3
ITV2 isnt on Sky, NTL or Chorus so that throws out the cable conspiracy
Channel 4 i cannot explain
five has no interest in broadcasting in the ROI

The "popular belief" refers to the majority of misinformed websites that said that in the ROI C4 and ITV are on the Sky EPG.

ITV1/UTV is present on NTL and Chorus, but not Sky, it cannot be just because of TV3 which is clearly a different channel despite the similar programming (I know that TV3 and ITV are part owned by Granada which makes Cornation Street). I watch ITV and TV3 because certain programmes on ITV are never broadcast on TV3 so I am pleased to be able to get it on Cable.

ITV1/2, C4 and five are encrypted. A lot would be solved if they started broadcasting in the clear. Sky could not prevent it as they do not own the sattelite so we could manualy tune the whole lot in and watch away. In the meantime I must look for a cheap freeview box and sensitive antenna to test in waterford and see.

Antenna

waste of time getting a Freeview box for Waterford city.

Anyone interested in trying long distance UK DTT should firstly check if you have solid good quality analogue reception of UK channels on a consistent basis - (direct reception not via a deflector), to judge if it would be worthwhile trying it out - and you are NOT going to get that in Waterford city or South Kilkenny. Your friend getting UK TV on an indoor aerial is no doubt getting them from a deflector, and these do not carry Freeview.

During favourable weather conditions mostly during the summer it will probably work in many high areas of the city - but it certainly will not work anywhere there on an ongoing basis. Its hardly worthwhile getting a box if it will only work say 10% of the year, if at all.

rogue-entity

Pity, I was hoping someone would through me a proverbial bone. At the moment in waterford we only have three options for receiving UK stations.

NTHell which gives us most of the decent stations from sky: movies, sports. There basic pack includes BBC1/2, UTV and C4 the digital service gives you BBC3/4 and ITV3 extra as well as all the stations on the basic pack

Sky which only gives you the BBC stations, ITV3 and S4C1/2. But S4C is not C4.

Antenna, My cousins live up on a hill above our house and receive BBC1/2, ITV and C4. I assume it is from a deflector because there are a series of transmitters on nearby hills.

While it is technicaly possable to receive stations directly from the UK I have no way of checking if the signal received is deflected or direct. Even if you gave me the frequencies for the stations and I tuned in my TV accordingly it would not help as every transmitter in the UK uses a different frequency for its stations, at least five does anyway.

To my knowledge it is possable to rebroadcast DTT signals as they use UHF the same as conventional signals do. Any deflector relaying signals from the north could rebroadcast the digital signals and other in-range deflectors can relay them again, the same as they do now. That would be a help, if only someone would do it!

Pal

Best (no monthly bill) solution for you in Waterford

Use a rabbit ears for Irish channels

For the UK stuff
buy a Freesat card and get the lot

ITV1
ITV2
ITV3
ITV NEWS
CH4
FIVE
BBC 1
BBC 2
BBC 3
BBC 4
BBC NEWS 24
SKY NEWS
SKY SPORTS NEWS

plus more.....

Mossy Monk

Pal wrote:

Best (no monthly bill) solution for you in Waterford

Use a rabbit ears for Irish channels

For the UK stuff
buy a Freesat card and get the lot

ITV1
ITV2
ITV3
ITV NEWS
CH4
FIVE
BBC 1
BBC 2
BBC 3
BBC 4
BBC NEWS 24
SKY NEWS
SKY SPORTS NEWS

plus more.....

since when has Sky sports News been on Freesat?

DMC

Never...

Richard

DMC wrote:

Never...

I must say that I thought it was as well - though it is on FreeVIEW i.e. UK FTA DTT.

Pal

My mistake.

as I have both Freeview and Freesatfromsky, I get confused.



still best solution though.

rogue-entity

Actualy the best solution would be to find a way to use the existing equipment at my disposal without incurring extra expenses.

There is a Sky digibox upstairs still connected, but the sub was canceled so only FTA channels are available. If the card could be reactivated with software, or better yet if the cards region could be changed to make it a UK card. This is a lot cheaper then buying a FTV card and then finding that it will not work in the decoder leaving me with another useless piece of plastic and no money.

Mossy Monk

no talking of hacking Sky cards with software

Our man in Havana

I would be very surpised if you can pick up anything on rabbit ears in waterford.
Hence the ntl monoply. :mad:

Pal

rogue-entity wrote:

Actualy the best solution would be to find a way to use the existing equipment at my disposal without incurring extra expenses.

There is a Sky digibox upstairs still connected, but the sub was canceled so only FTA channels are available. If the card could be reactivated with software, or better yet if the cards region could be changed to make it a UK card. This is a lot cheaper then buying a FTV card and then finding that it will not work in the decoder leaving me with another useless piece of plastic and no money.

FTV cards trade at about £40 on ebay.
Worked ok for me.

Mossy Monk

Bond-007 wrote:

I would be very surpised if you can pick up anything on rabbit ears in waterford.
Hence the ntl monoply. :mad:

prepare to be surprised. i have seen all 4 channels picked up with rabbit ears

rogue-entity

Mossy Monk wrote:

no talking of hacking Sky cards with software

Okay then, I was just saying that if it could be done it would be cheaper then getting a freesat card and with less risk.

To anybody else reading this, I do not advocate hacking of pay-to-use/view systems such as sky.