sky minidish

[arizona6]

I recently moved house (to north london) and happen to have a minidish on the roof. I have cable TV and I am happy with the offerings. However, I have a TV with no cablebox in my study and the satellite cable runs right into my study so I am looking what I can get out of it (especially given that terrestrial reception currently is rather bad).

I am clueless and would appreciate your help:

a) what can I get without paying a monthly subscription fee
how can I get it, what do I have to buy and approx cost


Thx for your time

 

[rolfw]

You can buy yourself a second hand box for around £100 and apply for a Free To View card from the BBC.

You'll get

BBC One
BBC Two
ITV1
Channel 4
Channel 5
BBC Choice
BBC Four
BBC News 24
CBBC
CBeebies
Radio 5
Sports Radio
Radio 5 Live SportsX
BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two
Travel Channel
Channel Health
Life TV
Fashion TV
Game Network
You TV
Rapture
Avago
BEN
Reality TV
TCM
Racing Channel / TRNI American Racing
Horse Racing
Go Barking Mad
Motors TV
Extreme Sports
Chart Show TV
Sky News
BBC Parliament
CNN News
S4C2
ITV News
Euronews
Simply Nature
Simply Nostalgia
Boomerang
TV Job Shop
Community
Dating Channel
txt me
Shopping Channel
Foreign Language Channels - including :-
801
B4U Music (was on 668)
807
MTA (was on 675)
819
Al Jazeera (was on 674 then on 806)

This is not the definitive list

 

[arizona6]

thanks for your help.

do I buy just a regular digital box or does it have to be a sky box ?

 

[rolfw]

Needs to be a Sky digibox, no other will do. Have a look at www.qxl.co.uk or www.loot.co.uk or www.ebay.co.uk

 

[arizona6]

Thank you rolf.

Last question (before I start to get on your nerves), would a PC DVB card work with a mini dish ? If yes any suggestions?

 

[rolfw]

Sorry for the delay, just answered, but my PC decided to fall over again (see thread in PC problems)

This is what you don't get if you use a non-Sky box (The BBC FTV card will only work in a Sky Box)

BBC One
BBC Two
ITV1
Channel 4
Channel 5
BBC Choice
BBC Four
BBC News 24
CBBC
CBeebies
Radio 5
Sports Radio
Radio 5 Live SportsX
BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Parliament

The cheap DVB cards like the Skystar II will get everything else.

 

[arizona6]

As suggested I bgt a Pani box through E-Bay and to my joy I hooked it up today. All is fantastic and I am very happy. Thx to this newsgroup I found the hidden menu for manual tuning. Through one of the websites that list channels I noted that the there are 3 DUBAI channels that I can get through the sky box (11642 V). Now, DUBAI does ntg for me but are there any other similar "hidden" channels around as well ?

PS thx for the help in getting me this far

 

[rolfw]

Good to hear a success story Arizona and thanks for popping back in to keep us up to date.

 

[greenman]

Try this for all those other channels
http://www.lyngsat.com/dig/skyuk.shtml