[mowog]

Hi,

I've just bought a nice new Panasonic TV with Freesat built in. Also, my wife and I have just moved into our first home. The previous owners were TV addicts - you wouldn't believe how much coaxial cable I've found in the house - and there are two satellite dishes mounted on the wall outside.

My questions are:

(1) How do I know which dish is suitable for Freesat reception of HD channels, or is it the case that any satellite dish, no matter how old, will work?
(2) I see from the FAQ that if they were watching Sky, the dishes will already be pointing in the right direction for Freesat. Obviously it's unlikely that the previous owners would have had anything other than Sky, but is there any way to tell?

Of the two dishes, the smaller non-round one seems to look slightly newer, and has a large black box where the receiver is. Also, this smaller dish has cables that come out in pairs into the house. The larger dish has just single coaxial cable output. In both cases there seems to be more than one feed coming out from each dish.

I'm afraid I know nothing about Satellite TV at all, so any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks!

Martin

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

The easiest way is to look at Satellite Finder / Dish Pointing Calculator with Google Maps | DishPointer.com and select satellite 28.2E Astra which is what SKY and freesat use, this will then give you a good idea if your dishes are pointing in the right direction, or just get a compass and see if it is pointing 28.2 degrees, basically south east ish.
Can you borrow and old sky digital box of someone and connect it up and see if there is a signal?

The chances are one of them is the right one, usually the small oval one like what everyone else has on their house.

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

Originally Posted by mowog

(1) How do I know which dish is suitable for Freesat reception of HD channels, or is it the case that any satellite dish, no matter how old, will work?

Of the two dishes, the smaller non-round one seems to look slightly newer, and has a large black box where the receiver is. Also, this smaller dish has cables that come out in pairs into the house.

The smaller one sounds like sky and already has a quad LNB on it (the box on the dish, will prob have 4 outputs).
Follow the cables and see where they go, hopefully 2 to where you want the freesat box, if not it is very easy to wire up a couple of new cables.

You can probably bin the big dish or sell it.

[mowog]

Brilliant stuff - thank you. Yes: they both point roughly South-East.

So, assuming that the smaller dish is the one to use, do I need some sort of adapter to attach it to the TV? Just that a pair of cables come into the house, and the TV just has the one cable socket on the back? Are they both supposed to attach up to the one socket?

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by mowog

Brilliant stuff - thank you. Yes: they both point roughly South-East.

So, assuming that the smaller dish is the one to use, do I need some sort of adapter to attach it to the TV? Just that a pair of cables come into the house, and the TV just has the one cable socket on the back? Are they both supposed to attach up to the one socket?

Only one is needed, the two are for use with a twin tuner recording box like the foxsat-hdr.

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

Originally Posted by mowog

Brilliant stuff - thank you. Yes: they both point roughly South-East.

So, assuming that the smaller dish is the one to use, do I need some sort of adapter to attach it to the TV? Just that a pair of cables come into the house, and the TV just has the one cable socket on the back? Are they both supposed to attach up to the one socket?

Sorry I was thinking about the HDR with 2 inputs. You should have 1 input and it will screw on, a bit like an aerial socket, plug it in a see what signal strength you get, you need good strength and quality.