Use of Satellite Dish/Aerial

I have a redundant SKY dish attached to my house (I use NTL)
My question is: Can I receive anything from this dish? Realsie I need decoder for SKY but just curious regarding whther it could double up as freeview digital TV receiver.
Please note that I am fairly new to this so if the question is just plain ridiculous humour me!

[Nugget]

The simple answer is that I don't know, but I'd guess that you wouldn't receive anything as it's a) set up to receive the Sky signal, and b) you'd need a viewing card from Sky to view anything anyway.

Having said that, I'm sure someone'll be along in a minute to make a mockery of me

[Neil]

www.freesatfromsky.co.uk ?

[Chris W]

Some useful information here

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/freeview.htm

and channel listing here

http://www.wickonline.com/fta.htm

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Vernon

I have a redundant SKY dish attached to my house (I use NTL)
My question is: Can I receive anything from this dish? Realsie I need decoder for SKY but just curious regarding whther it could double up as freeview digital TV receiver.
Please note that I am fairly new to this so if the question is just plain ridiculous humour me!

BBC Freesat should be out in time for Christmas, although you will need to buy a decoder box from them to make it work.

[fireman328]

I have a Sky dish and full cable run left by contractors who were too lazy to remove it when I changed to ntl, I bought a sat recever from a boot sale for a tenner and can now watch some (all german) progs, not very useful as late at night lots of ladies seem to lose all there clothing.

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by fireman328

I have a Sky dish and full cable run left by contractors who were too lazy to remove it when I changed to ntl, I bought a sat recever from a boot sale for a tenner and can now watch some (all german) progs, not very useful as late at night lots of ladies seem to lose all there clothing.

You got a typo there, that should be "very useful"

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by Druchii

You got a typo there, that should be "very useful"

Why oh why isn't there a 'smack upside the head' smiley

[fireman328]

I did'nt want to inflame another member in another thread who appears to be struggling to maintain his equilibrium

[spike7451]

Originally Posted by fireman328

I have a Sky dish and full cable run left by contractors who were too lazy to remove it when I changed to ntl, I bought a sat recever from a boot sale for a tenner and can now watch some (all german) progs, not very useful as late at night lots of ladies seem to lose all there clothing.

Sorry but it's NOT the engineers job to remove ANY equipment from a property,be it Sky dish,Cabling or Aerial! Reason why is simple,too many insurance claims (" The NTL man cut my aerial when he installed me") and we dont have the time to take down the stuff!
Also,If ,as I read it,you're reffering to the NTL tech not removing the Sky dish,well,my answer would be thus "Sorry,you're house,you're dish.YOU'RE problem.I'm not paid by Sky"

[fireman328]

Originally Posted by spike7451

Sorry but it's NOT the engineers job to remove ANY equipment from a property,be it Sky dish,Cabling or Aerial! Reason why is simple,too many insurance claims (" The NTL man cut my aerial when he installed me") and we dont have the time to take down the stuff!
Also,If ,as I read it,you're reffering to the NTL tech not removing the Sky dish,well,my answer would be thus "Sorry,you're house,you're dish.YOU'RE problem.I'm not paid by Sky"

Perhaps I phrased it wrongly, it was the Sky engineer who left the complete kit except the box and had it on his toes at mach six

[spike7451]

Originally Posted by fireman328

Perhaps I phrased it wrongly, it was the Sky engineer who left the complete kit except the box and had it on his toes at mach six

Ah....Sorry for the mis-understanding.

[Graham M]

Did you ever use Sky or was it the previous owners of your house/flat?

The german channels will be from the old astra sat rather than digital.Is it a digital dish or a round analogue dish?

[iSteve]

Yes, it is possible to receive signals from such dishes with the correct equipment. However, without a valid box and subscription from Sky, you will ONLY be able to receive the so-called 'free-to-air' channels.

This includes all the BBC and ITV channels but EXCLUDES Channel 4 and Channel 5, at least on the Digital platform (not sure about analogue). This is because both Channel 4 and Channel 5 foolishly signed up to a multi-year contract where Sky provides encryption for these channels, on the guise of preventing them from being receivable outside of the UK (presumably a broadcasting/licensing issue). However, this means the ONLY way to receive these channels is with a Sky UK viewing card. You do NOT need an active subscrption from Sky - but you WILL need a card from Sky, either from an old Sky subscription, or by purchasing a vanilla one directly from them - i.e. Freesat from Sky.

This encryption deal is meant to expire in 2007 I believe - from which point it's believed Ch 4 and Ch 5 will go FTA and can be received with all FTA receivers.

You can pick up cheap FTA receivers from Maplins amongst others, but bear in mind these will only work with the FTA channels and not channels 4/5. You can of course receive all the other FTA channels too (mostly religious, shopping but also radio and a few other good channels too).

As a previous poster said, which equipment you need, depends whether you have a Sky Minidish, in which case you need a Digital FTA receiver, or a big 60cm white old-style dish, in which case you need an Analogue FTA receiver.