Sky boxes

[Dave Liquorice]

Yep all good accurate stuff. With one small additional option a Sky digibox without a viewing card. Without a card you can't see the Free To= View Channels (FTV), of the main stream ones this currently means Channe= l

4(*) and five. All BBC and ITV channels are Free To Air (FTA) and don't =

need a viewing card in a Sky digibox.

You can get a Sky digi box, dish, LNB and cable form many sources (freecycle?) and DIY install. The card only can be obtained from Sky for= =A320 one off. You don't have to spend =A3150 one off and let a Sky installation cowboy knock great spalls off your brick work.

The other slight problem with not having a viewing card in Sky digibox i= s that the regional varaiations default to London but if you place a card =

from your area in the box it'll set the region correctly and remember it= until completely power cycled.

(*) Many (all?) of the other Channel 4 offerings are already FTA and I expect Channel 4 itself to become FTA soonish.

[NOSPAMnet]

I have a Freesat From Sky card and when I remove it Ch5 is the one I can't get .Ch4 IS available .

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:05:25 +0100 (BST) someone who may be "Dave Liquorice" wrote this:-

The "Channel 4 stable" of channels was made free to air on the day of the launch of Freesat. From memory it happened some time in mid-morning. The exception is Channel 4 HD, which remains encrypted.

Channel 4 itself is not particularly obvious on a FTA receiver. Unless they have changed things recently, instead of Channel 4 it is identified as some four digit number. I have no intention of looking that number up, anyone who needs to do so can do it. The other channels of the "stable" do have a correct identification, E4+1 and so on.

[S Viemeister]

I looked into doing that - but I'm no good on tall ladders, and hiring someone to do the installation would have been pricey, as the house is in a fairly remote area. It was easier and cheaper to pay Sky the GBP

150, for the equipment, installation, and card.

[dennis]

Remember FTA is free to air, i.e. not encrypted. There are FTV free to view channels too, ATM ch5 is FTV. You need the decoder to get the FTV channels, only available from sky.

You can buy used sky boxes, make sure they have a card if you want the FTV channels.

[Rod]

It doesn't actually have to be mounted high up. There is quite a lot about this elsewhere, seems Sky installers try to fit quite low specifically to avoid the H&S issues of doing so higher up.

Of course, you might not be happy with that, but the dish would be quite content.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

IIRC, CH5 group have a contract with Sky for non terrestrial broadcast, but this won't last forever.

[NOSPAMnet]

Yeah I think it's only a matter of time but what I replied to was someone saying that neither Ch5 nor 4 are availabe FTV when in fact it's just Ch 5 that is the one remaining channel .

[Andy Burns]

Out of the terrestrial channels yes, but e.g. Dave, Sky3, FiveLife/US, and others are not FTA.

[NOSPAMnet]

Yeah so what's that got to do with what I replied to .

[Andy Burns]

You claimed Five was "the one remaining channel" that is FTV, if we're talking about the analogue terrestrial channels, your comment is correct, but if e.g. we're talking about the channels available on Freeview, it isn't; though AFAICT nobody has specified what set of channels we *are* talking about.

I wasn't saying you were wrong, merely pointing out for others' benefit that they might not (yet) receive all the channels they might expect on freesat.

[NOSPAMnet]

LOL...Ah now I see.Sorry for the confusion ..

[Dave]

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

Oooo, wanders over to Sky box, tunes to Ch4 (104) and pulls card. Continues to decode, Wh-hooo!.

*BUT* you still need the card if you have enabled parental access and the programme being broadcast needs the PIN to view, like Lord of the Rings that is on ATM. I guess if you disable parental access it won't need to ask for the PIN and thus not need a card...

[Dave]

A dish, feed and wall mounted socket was supplied to us by mistake. All it looks like I need is a satellite decoder box, am I right

Points 4 onwards snipped but printed.

Dave

[Dave]

Noted.

When I get my sight back I'll take a look. many thanks

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

It appears that Channel 4 (104 on Sky boxes) has gone FTA or at least the Sky EPG now points to a FTA stream. Yes, there was a FTA stream available via the "Other Channels" system on Sky boxes when 104 was FTV and that was identfied by a 4 digit number only. See other post about a snag with using a Sky box without a card.

[Dave]

Noted and printed

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

Dish doesn't have to high provided it can see the right bit of the sky it can be at ground level but might need to keep vegetation in check in front of it...

Ours is just out my arms reach so about 9' up, accessable only a few rungs up a short ladder. It's deliberatly low, partly to shelter it from the wind and partly so I can hit it with a stick to knock the ice off when enough accumulates to stop the signal. Had to do that twice so far.

[Cerberus .]

I have a dish fixed to the chimney stack & had nothing but problems with it if it was windy/rained/snowed, even crows perching on it! In the end I fixed another dish to the fence in the rear garden. 1m off the ground, 20m from the house in a nice secluded spot where it's not affected by the elements or birdlife.

Don.