[Wiione]

Can anyone please recommend the best FreeSat box for under £50? Nothing flashy required, just needs to be very easy to use and setup. It's to be used by my ageing mother so must have an easy to use remote.

No recording facilities required.

As an aside, will an HD box work fine with an SD TV? I'm thinking of a bit of 'future proofing' you see as the current TV is SD.

Thanks.

[TonyA]

For that sort of price, get a second hand Sky box off of ebay!

[Wiione]

Not so keen on second hand in this case, would rather buy new.

[grahamlthompson]

The only SD boxes are made by the Harvard group (Bush, Grundig, Goodmans) and certain models have a design flaw. The Harvard HD boxes which can be had for a very small extra premuim seem to be OK and will work fine using a scart connector as all HD boxes will downscale HD to SD for the TV scart output.

[robster69]

I bought one of these really cheap boxes last week to put in my son's room and am not convinced that it is quite the £29.95 bargain I thought it was

You see, the signal level is good and it finds 140 odd channels on setup but shows "no signal" on many channels, including BBC1 ... funny thing is, if I change to ch 950 (BBC London) then this one comes through fine?

Another oddity is that the new cable run is from an existing SKY+ installation where 2 of the outputs are sent to the main TV but with the SKY+ box switched off, the signal appears to be noticably better on the Freesat box - is this normal?

Just out of interest, I plugged in an old SKY Digibox to the new cable and it receives BBC1 and all the others that were showing "No Signal" so I'm fairly sure the cable is ok.

Is this likely to be a faulty box or is it just a case of getting what you pay for here?

TIA,

Rob.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by robster69

I bought one of these really cheap boxes last week to put in my son's room and am not convinced that it is quite the £29.95 bargain I thought it was

You see, the signal level is good and it finds 140 odd channels on setup but shows "no signal" on many channels, including BBC1 ... funny thing is, if I change to ch 950 (BBC London) then this one comes through fine?

Another oddity is that the new cable run is from an existing SKY+ installation where 2 of the outputs are sent to the main TV but with the SKY+ box switched off, the signal appears to be noticably better on the Freesat box - is this normal?

Just out of interest, I plugged in an old SKY Digibox to the new cable and it receives BBC1 and all the others that were showing "No Signal" so I'm fairly sure the cable is ok.

Is this likely to be a faulty box or is it just a case of getting what you pay for here?

TIA,

Rob.

What you describe is the symptoms experienced by one batch of duff SD boxes made by Harvard. They can be recognised by the different remote control (from reading other posts the faulty one has a curved bottom). I would take it back and cough up for the HD box which ain't that much more expensive. A freesat box on setup does not actually find any channels, it just loads the list of channels from the Eurobird 1 home transponder and sets up the epg according to your postcode. It's only when you actually try and watch the channels does the box find out it does not have access.

[robster69]

Yep, curved bottom to the remote ... that's the one

Initial setup says 85% signal so I guess it must be one of the wrong uns' then

Thanks for the advice and very quick response.

Much appreciated.

[Wiione]

This Goodmans seems to have some good reviews:

Buy Goodmans GFSAT100SD Silver Freesat SD Digital Box. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Wiione

This Goodmans seems to have some good reviews:

Buy Goodmans GFSAT100SD Silver Freesat SD Digital Box. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

That's the old model now replaced by the cut down version GFSAT101SD (The one with all the problems). If you can still get one these are supposed to be fine.

[Wiione]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

That's the old model now replaced by the cut down version GFSAT101SD (The one with all the problems). If you can still get one these are supposed to be fine.

Phew, thanks - glad you said that as I've just ordered the 100SD from Argos.

[everett_psycho]

Originally Posted by Wiione

This Goodmans seems to have some good reviews:

Buy Goodmans GFSAT100SD Silver Freesat SD Digital Box. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

these are fine, i had one and it received everything freesat had except BBC HD

[Wiione]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

That's the old model now replaced by the cut down version GFSAT101SD (The one with all the problems). If you can still get one these are supposed to be fine.

Just out of interest, what are the problems with the GFSAT101SD ? I ask as, despite ordering a 100SD from Argos, their stock has been replaced with the 101SD which my mother has now received. I'm not sure whether to return it for a refund or not.

Thanks.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Wiione

Just out of interest, what are the problems with the GFSAT101SD ? I ask as, despite ordering a 100SD from Argos, their stock has been replaced with the 101SD which my mother has now received. I'm not sure whether to return it for a refund or not.

Thanks.

It can't get all the channels. From memory it won't work properly with vertically polarised transponders. It's not all 101's it's the ones with a remote that has a curved bottom.

[Wiione]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

It can't get all the channels. From memory it won't work properly with vertically polarised transponders. It's not all 101's it's the ones with a remote that has a curved bottom.

I see, thanks for the information. Think it's a case of suck it and see, especially as my mother only wants to receive BBC1, 2, 3, 4, ITV and Channel 4 (she has zero interest in anything else) - plus she isn't worried about menus, etc, she just wants to switch it on and use it.