As I am on cable I haven't taken much interest in satellite options.
However, I am thinking of getting an installation as a gift for my daughter as she lives in a non-cabled area and is on a relay station and has poor reception and not much hope of Freeview for a while.
As I see it there is Freesat and a free offering from Sky.
As I don't think they will want to go down the route of subscribing to additional services, what benefits does each offer?
Poor analogue reception doesn't bode well for Freeview. But bung her post code into the checker on
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to find out when DSO should be happening for her.
Freesat (either one) offers better quality than Freeview but does require the installation of a dish rather than simply (ha!) plugging in the existing aerial feed. There are fewer channels on Freeview than either Freesat service and with Freesat you can expand what channels you get beyound those in the EPG's via the "other channels" part of the receiver.
An existing terrestial aerial does need to be producing decent analogue reception, if not you may well have to upgrade or at least work on it to produce decent analogue reception.
Installing a dish is not difficult for a competent DIYer that can drill holes and run cable. The hardest part is probably finding somewhere suitable to site the dish so it can direcctly see the satellite and the alignment of the dish onto the satellite. The receivers have built in strength and quality meters but they are quite slugged and coarse so the fine adjustments required to get the best signal can take a while. Basic alignment meters are quite cheap thouugh (
Yes .. presume that somewhat .. this is prolly why Freesat hasn't taken off as much as Freeview in the UK despite Freesat offering almost UK wide coverage but I suppose tho its associated with those Two UK avoid like the plague things Satellite dishes and involvement with Sky TV!....
The free offering from sky is really intended to get them in the door, so to speak, hoping you'll eventually switch to paid services.
Freesat is a better genuinely free product.
However, bear in mind that a Sky box and year's subscription can often be had for a very good price, sometimes cheaper than the outlay cost of a freesat or "free from sky" setup. Can always cancel after the first year....
In that case the best bet is to buy one of the Freesat box and installation deals for about =A380. Argos has been mentioned but all the white goods type places sell 'em. Might be worth a shop around.
We were, I think, the second area to go fully digital (Winter Hill) and I was thinking that the digital reception was going to be poor even after I paid out £150-00 for a new aerial. Analogue was ghosting and quite un-watch-able at times and digital would pixilate very badly. I later found out it was looking through a tall and narrow tree to find a signal. When it rained, it was at its worst.
Now the analogue has been switched off, we have no problems, as I think they have upped the power of the digital transmissions.
Yes, the power does go up at the last stage of DSO from the main sites. Doesn't really help those that cannot see the main site though. Most relays don't carry any digits. The first sniff of a digital signal here will be when BBC2 analogue gets switched to a mux about 4 weeks before the switching off of the other 3 analogue channels.
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