[John]

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?

[Dave Liquorice[_2_]]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:03:12 +0100, John wrote:

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.

Poor analogue reception doesn't bode well for Freeview. But bung her
post code into the checker on http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/ to find out
when DSO should be happening for her.

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?

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 (£20).

There isn't much (if any) difference between Freesat and Freesat from
Sky in terms of the channels you get but with Freesat from Sky you
have to pay £20 to Sky to get a card that will enable the Sky digibox
to get the regionalisation correct and allow viewing of channel 4 and
five via the EPG. If you move you'll also have to tell Sky your new
address to get the correct regional channels. A Sky digi box that has
not seen a card since power up will default to London services on the
BBC and not have 104 or 105 available.

With Freesat you give the set/box your postcode and it then fills in
the regionalisation correctly and you can get channel 4 and five with
jumping through hoops (or paying any more money).

We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[tony sayer]

We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer

[John]

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer



I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for without
needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.

[Bruce[_8_]]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:14:07 +0100, "John"
wrote:


"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer



I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for without
needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.


Then perhaps uk.d-i-y is not the best newsgroup to choose for your
questions. Try instead:

uk.media.tv.misc
uk.media.tv.sky
uk.media.broadcast.commercial

[tony sayer]

In article aaoRn.19275$Ha1.19209@hurricane, John
scribeth thus

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer



I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for without
needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.



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!....
--
Tony Sayer

[tony sayer]

In article , Bruce
scribeth thus
On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:14:07 +0100, "John"
wrote:


"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer



I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for without
needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.


Then perhaps uk.d-i-y is not the best newsgroup to choose for your
questions. Try instead:

uk.media.tv.misc
uk.media.tv.sky
uk.media.broadcast.commercial




Or better still.

uk.tech.digital-tv
--
Tony Sayer

[chunkyoldcortina]

John wrote:
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?


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....

[Bruce[_8_]]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:03:54 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:
In article , Bruce wrote:

Then perhaps uk.d-i-y is not the best newsgroup to choose for your
questions. Try instead:
uk.media.tv.misc
uk.media.tv.sky
uk.media.broadcast.commercial

Or better still.

uk.tech.digital-tv


Thanks.

[Vortex7]

On 14/06/2010 12:14, John wrote:
"tony wrote in message
...
We've had Freesat from Sky for years, it's done the job but the
recent card change means that Sky wanted another £20 for no real
benefit to us. So we have moved to Freesat, much simpler, it just
works.

Or get an ordinary Digital sat receiver and you can set that how you
want with no dealings with Sky TV at all)...

--
Tony Sayer



I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for without
needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.




You can buy a FREESAT receiver and installation from Argos. Unless they
want HD you can buy a receiver from £50 and installation IIRC is ~£75.

Job done.

[Dave Liquorice[_2_]]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:14:07 +0100, John wrote:

I want a simple turn key package that I can just order and pay for
without needing to intervene. Daughter and husband are not technical.

In that case the best bet is to buy one of the Freesat box and
installation deals for about £80. Argos has been mentioned but all
the white goods type places sell 'em. Might be worth a shop around.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[dave]

On 14/06/2010 10:44, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:03:12 +0100, John wrote:

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.

Poor analogue reception doesn't bode well for Freeview. But bung her
post code into the checker on http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/ to find out
when DSO should be happening for her.

Rest of excellent advice snipped.

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.


Dave

[Dave Liquorice[_2_]]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:00:15 +0100, dave wrote:

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.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[Alan[_10_]]

In message , Vortex7
wrote

You can buy a FREESAT receiver and installation from Argos. Unless they
want HD you can buy a receiver from £50 and installation IIRC is ~£75.

Is there a SD Freesat box that actually works properly?

The second/third? generation of the SD boxes appear to have reception
problems. Bush, Goodmans and Grundig SD boxes are the same electronics.
--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

[Vortex7]

On 15/06/2010 20:28, Alan wrote:
In message , Vortex7
wrote

You can buy a FREESAT receiver and installation from Argos. Unless
they want HD you can buy a receiver from £50 and installation IIRC is
~£75.

Is there a SD Freesat box that actually works properly?

The second/third? generation of the SD boxes appear to have reception
problems. Bush, Goodmans and Grundig SD boxes are the same electronics.
Dunno,

I have the Humax HD (and HDR) and they work fine.

IMO the HDR is far more usable because it has a "Universal" and more
logically laid out remote.....plus of course the HDR functionality.