After moving house towards the end of last year we discovered we'd been left with a small satellite dish stuck to back wall.

 

I'm trying to find a use for it, rather than just dismantling the thing.

 

Anyone know if the free to air channels are catchable through the satellite jiggery pokery and whether tuners are available with the type of connection the dish offers? It looks like a combination of a BNC and coax.

 

I've not touched this sort of stuff for a few years (actually I bought my last bit of kit about 3 and half years ago and am a little out of the home entertainment loop :-$ )

http://www.freesat.co.uk/

Ah, just the job, I knew there'd be something out there.

 

<comes out of technology resistant bubble>

Ask any questions you want, it's my current area of interest.

 

What sort of dish is it? Oval sky dish?

 

Cable you can pickup cheap on eBay. Satellite coax. F-Connectors. Plenty of tuners available for computers, I prefer the ones made by TBS. Even more set top boxes around. Normal Freesat boxes or Freesat HD.

Cheers chap.

 

Yeah, I think it's a sky dish, small black oval shaped. I'm pretty sure the previous occupants had a sky subscription going by some of the post we got for them.

 

I've heard tales of Sky reclaiming their old dishes, but this seems to be few and far between, so I'm claiming it as my own. :-Y

 

Is that what the cable is then - a satellite coax? I'll read more about it tonight when I've got the cable to compare to something rather than my failing memory. I know it's got two connectors though!

 

Not wanting to put it through a PC, a set top box will do fine. I'll look at the HD ones for when we (eventually) save up enough for a new TV.

 

Ultimately I want an internet TV and NAS box alongside the home cinema kit I've already got, but got to spend money on decorating first. :C

No chance they'll reclaim it. Far too much hassle.

Does it already have a cable coming from the LNB? (the thing on the end of the dish arm). If so, does it enter your house anywhere?

If it does you might just be able to plug a box straight in assuming it's still aligned correctly (it probably is).

Just use ebay for the cable.

You can buy with F Connectors already moulded on or buy without so you can chop the cable to whatever length you need and attach the connectors yourself.

If you want to do some TV recording get a PVR box. This will have two tuners (for watching and recording at the same time) so you'll need two cables. You can buy shotgun/twin cable. You might need a new LNB if yours only has one output. These can be bought very cheaply. If the previous owners had Sky+ or SkyHD you'll already have twin cable and a suitable LNB.

Oh, and a pair of ladders :D

The cable will be digital A/V coax.

There are many grades of digital coax including the usual over priced premium bollocks. All you need is what they commonly call WF100. It can be had off the reel in B&Q.

Depending on the decoder / STB you get, you may be needed what they call shotgun coax which is two cables bonded together in one in a figure of 8 configuration, a bit like speaker cable.

Where Sky boxes are concerned this allows them to record two channels at once, but this is only available on the subscription service and not "FreeSat by Sky".

There are some FreeSat HD boxes, that aren't Sky boxes, that offer the ability to record multiple channels at the same time with only one feed to the box. Other non-Sky boxes may need the shotgun cable to accomplish this.

The connectors can be either F-connectors, as used on Sky boxes and some other STBs, or the common push in analogue aerial plugs. You'll need to check the STB to see what it takes.

Cheers guys, I'll look into this tonight.

 

Ant - already got the cabling into the house, and it terminates in a twin pair - so might just get away with getting a STB.

 

Hmm, are there any sort of signal integrity/cable testers for this sort of coax? It's probably worth checking it out before buying any PVRs/STBs.

Probably some testers out there but I bet it would be cheaper to buy a dirt cheap FTA satellite box. Or just buy a proper box because it sounds like you're going to use it anyway so if the cable it dodgy getting some more shotgun cable isn't going to set you back too much.

Aye, that's true.

 

TBH the testers would only be getting used the once, then probably bunged on ebay.

 

Time to start looking at boxes.

 

It's been a while since I bought any cables (last one was a toslink for the DVD player to amp) or non-pc hardware. I'm actually feeling a warm tingly glow. :)

I recently bought 5x20m CAT5e because they were 99p each :$