Advice Needed How much should I be paying for a motorised or multi satellite set up?

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My ex Sky dish from 1998 is hardly receiving any channels, so is this likely to have degraded over time?

If I have to replace it, I'm thinking of getting either a motorised dish or multi LNB setup. Which is best?

How much should I expect to pay for a receiver (i'm assuming that my Freesat box won't be up to the job) and installation?


Thanks.
 

Lazarus

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The nature of a Forum like this is to urge you to attempt your own Installation, which brings with it a zero labour charge.

As for Motorised vs Multi-LNB, it depends on your interests: A motorised dish will get you a wider range of Satellites, but switching between them can be slow; Multi-LNB is "instant" switching, but choice is inherently limited.

And Receivers come in many flavours - You need to consider eg How many Tuners you'll need; Whether you want idiot-proof operation or are prepared to get under the bonnet; What Recording capability you think you want ..... etc. etc.
 
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The nature of a Forum like this is to urge you to attempt your own Installation, which brings with it a zero labour charge.

As for Motorised vs Multi-LNB, it depends on your interests: A motorised dish will get you a wider range of Satellites, but switching between them can be slow; Multi-LNB is "instant" switching, but choice is inherently limited.

And Receivers come in many flavours - You need to consider eg How many Tuners you'll need; Whether you want idiot-proof operation or are prepared to get under the bonnet; What Recording capability you think you want ..... etc. etc.

Thanks. I'd need it to be installed as I have a disability. Think I'd go for motorised from what you've said, it would have to be idiot proof and need as little as one or two tuners for recording as it wouldn't be my main way of receiving TV. I'd mainly want to feed hunt and watch channels not normally available in the UK.

How difficult is the under the bonnet stuff? Are they all digital these days, or do they still make analogue/digital receivers in case any analogue signals are found?
 
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Channel Hopper

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Size of dish, location on property, distance to receiver.

All have an impact on the final bill.
 
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I guess i'd need a large dish to get all the satellites available in Yorkshire?? It will be at the back of the house and the method that the Sky installer used was to put the cable through the cellar, under the kitchen and into the living room.
 

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I have an 80cm for general purpose use, also in Yorkshire. That'll get you a hell of a lot.

Some weaker Satellites and many feeds, will require something rather larger.
 

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What feeds are you hoping to receive and from which satellites? this will determine what size dish you will need
 
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As many as I am able to receive, the size of the dish won't really matter as it's out of the way round the back where no one will see it ;)

I know no one will be able to give me an exact price of what to expect to pay, I'm just looking for a ballpark figure.

I've emailed a few installers, but I am either too far away or they haven't responded. Can anyone recommend one that serves West Yorkshire?
 

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A 1m or 1.2m dish will give you a nice trade off between size and whats available. Even giving you a ball park figure is difficult simply because every site is different.

Plus it will depend on what dish you use, what motor you use what mount you use etc
 
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Ahhh right. I suppose I will have to try to find an installer who covers my area to come and give me a quote.

A quick look here says that dishes are about £30 and boxes about £200. After adding in cable, the mount, labour costs and a motor i'm thinking it shouldn't come to more than about £500.

You can get a complete motorised system (Technomate) for £300, so if I add in a bit extra cable if needed and labour costs it might come to about £500??

Are the motors reliable and do they need someone to keep going up to oil them etc?

Over time, do they go off target with use and need resetting?

Is it worth getting a system at all, ie can most channels now be gotten on the internet?

Sorry for all these questions, i'm trying to find out about any oncoming costs because i'd have to get someone to do it for me.
 

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Ahhh right. I suppose I will have to try to find an installer who covers my are to come and give me a quote.

A quick look here says that dishes are about £30 and boxes about £200. After adding in cable, the mount, labour costs and a motor i'm thinking it shouldn't come to more than about £500.

You can get a complete system for £300, so if I add in a bit extra cable if needed and labour costs it might come to £500??

Are the motors reliable snd do they need someone to keep oiling them etc?

Is it worth getting a system at all, ie can most channels now be gotten on the internet?
You will not find any feeds on the net. Try taking a look on eBay you can find some good second hand systems on there for a decent price then may be fit it your self at ground level if you have a clear view of the sky.
 

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Sorry if I write in Euro, but you can certainly do the maths:

1x 1m Low-Cost dish = 40 Euro
1x Ku-Band LNB = 10 Euro
1x DiSEqC-1.2 motor = 80 Euro
1x Linux Receiver = 250 Euro
1x 100m Coax Cable = 20 Euro
Total cost = 400 Euro

If you want it to be slightly better:
1) Use a 1.2m ALUMINIUM dish (bigger but lighter than steel dish)
2) Better Linux Receiver like VU+ Duo or 4K

Add to this the installation. No idea how much it costs, but setup and fine tuning can easily take half a day by an experienced installer.

Do it yourself with a friend and it takes 1-2 days without proper tools like satellite meter, but is fun and rewarding.

If you want to hunt for feeds, consider buying a CrazyScan-compatible SAT-Card for the PC. This can cost from 40 Euro to 400 Euro, depending if PCI or PCI-e, where you buy it, new or second hand, etc. Google CrazyScan and EBSPro.

DiSEqC-1.2 motors are self contained and work with any modern receiver. They are maintenance-free and will last 5-10 years. Then you will start having issues with oxidation and possibly internal failure. The only maintenance required eventually is realignment after a storm.

Regarding the SAT vs Internet question: you can actually stream most bouquets through ILLEGAL subscriptions. I never used them, so I don't know (nor am I interested) how good they work. Regarding LEGAL streams, they are quite rare due to copyright issues: most TV channels will only stream within the region they broadcast, as this is the region they bought the transmission rights for.

Is it worth spending 400-500 Euro in a satellite reception system? It depends what you want to achive:

1) You want to watch many channels in your native language in a legal way --> get an official subscription (in your case I guess that would be Sky)
2) You want to watch exotic channels to have a glimpse of what is going on in the world, even if you don't understand what they are saying --> get a satellite dish as described above
3) You don't care about legal stuff and are fine with copyright infringement: in that case you would use Bittorrent to download movies and series and get an IPTV subscription. This is illegal and you risk getting caught, with all consequences.

Regards,
Vitor
 
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moonbase

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Here buy this from eBay, currently £10.

Motorised Satellite System | eBay

It is a Channel Master dish with polar mount, actuator, vbox positioner and a receiver. It also includes a wall mount. All you need to add is some decent coax cable and to get it installed. All the equipment is there in one job lot and its cheap, you will be way under your price of £500.
 
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They look to be real bargains don't they. Thank you for taking the time to post these, but unfortunately I don't have any available transport :(
 
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Sorry if I write in Euro, but you can certainly do the maths:

1x 1m Low-Cost dish = 40 Euro
1x Ku-Band LNB = 10 Euro
1x DiSEqC-1.2 motor = 80 Euro
1x Linux Receiver = 250 Euro
1x 100m Coax Cable = 20 Euro
Total cost = 400 Euro

If you want it to be slightly better:
1) Use a 1.2m ALUMINIUM dish (bigger but lighter than steel dish)
2) Better Linux Receiver like VU+ Duo or 4K

Add to this the installation. No idea how much it costs, but setup and fine tuning can easily take half a day by an experienced installer.

Do it yourself with a friend and it takes 1-2 days without proper tools like satellite meter, but is fun and rewarding.

If you want to hunt for feeds, consider buying a CrazyScan-compatible SAT-Card for the PC. This can cost from 40 Euro to 400 Euro, depending if PCI or PCI-e, where you buy it, new or second hand, etc. Google CrazyScan and EBSPro.

DiSEqC-1.2 motors are self contained and work with any modern receiver. They are maintenance-free and will last 5-10 years. Then you will start having issues with oxidation and possibly internal failure. The only maintenance required eventually is realignment after a storm.

Regarding the SAT vs Internet question: you can actually stream most bouquets through ILLEGAL subscriptions. I never used them, so I don't know (nor am I interested) how good they work. Regarding LEGAL streams, they are quite rare due to copyright issues: most TV channels will only stream within the region they broadcast, as this is the region they bought the transmission rights for.

Is it worth spending 400-500 Euro in a satellite reception system? It depends what you want to achive:

1) You want to watch many channels in your native language in a legal way --> get an official subscription (in your case I guess that would be Sky)
2) You want to watch exotic channels to have a glimpse of what is going on in the world, even if you don't understand what they are saying --> get a satellite dish as described above
3) You don't care about legal stuff and are fine with copyright infringement: in that case you would use Bittorrent to download movies and series and get an IPTV subscription. This is illegal and you risk getting caught, with all consequences.

Regards,
Vitor

Thank you for taking the time to type out all of this information Vitor :)

It is currently 88p to the euro, so that would come to about £354.

I wouldn't be able to install it myself due to a disability, so would need an installer. If it takes half a day as opposed the couple of hours that I assumed it would do, I might have underestimated the cost of installation.

I don't have a PC, just tablets and a laptop. Is it possible to hunt for feeds without one of those cards, or do people post their finds on the internet??

It's for reason 2 that I want to get a motorised system. I get Sky etc with a cable system that i'm looking to keep because I'm on a good deal and like the TiVo system that they use.

Should I be taking analogue into account at all, or has that finished on all the satellites that I'm likely to pick up in Yorkshire?
 

moonbase

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They look to be real bargains don't they. Thank you for taking the time to post these, but unfortunately I don't have any available transport :(


Richard,

You could use the "AnyVan" website to get a quote for the transport. All you would need to do would be create an account online and create a listing asking for quotes for the transportation job. There is no charge for account creation. You will get quotes from shippers who travel on the route and they compete with each other to secure the job.

At a guess, you would hope to get the shipping done for around £60, possibly less if a shipper is trying to fill up their van and they are travelling along a route that takes them near to you. Several members on this site have used "AnyVan", myself included.
 

moonbase

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...I don't have a PC, just tablets and a laptop. Is it possible to hunt for feeds without one of those cards, or do people post their finds on the internet??
...


Richard,

Yes, there is a TBS unit that connects to a laptop via USB that you can use with EBS Pro. I have the TBS5925 model but there is a later model, the TBS5927. All you need to do is the following:

1. Install EBS Pro on your laptop (free download)
2. Install the drivers for the TBS5925 or TBS5927 unit on your laptop.
3. Connect one end of the TBS unit to the cable from your satellite dish LNB
4. Plug the other end of the TBS unit into your laptop USB port using a USB cable.
5. Open up EBS Pro on your laptop, configure a few settings in the menus and off you go, start scanning

The difference between the TBS5925 and the TBS5927 models is the inclusion of a small internal fan inside the TBS5927 model. The TBS5925 can get hot in operation, the TBS5927 model tries to get round this by cooling it with a fan. Personally, I just make sure my TBS5925 is not in a confined space when using it, it runs on the hot side but I have never had any problems with it.
 
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vma

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RX: 3 motorized DiSEqC-1.2 dishes (100cm, 110cm, 120cm) + 7 regular dishes.
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TX: Modulators for DVB-S/C/T + Dektec Modulators
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"Should I be taking analogue into account at all, or has that finished on all the satellites that I'm likely to pick up in Yorkshire?"

There are no analogue satellite transmissions for quite some years (apart from some exotic C band transponders, that may eventually exist - but I doubt that, too).
 

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Analogue transmissions ceased back in 2012 :( so you can discount those totally.

You dont need a pci card for feed chasing - you can find some on a normal satellite receiver. However if you are hoping to find big sporting events then you are probably going to be out of luck - many locations have fibre connections to the host broadcaster. There are a few around but nowhere near as many as there used to be. Also uk news feeds are increasingly using Ka band rather than the more usual Ku band.
 
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