We cannot recieve TV signals....

Someone please help us....we live in a house which is unable to recieve a tv signal (won't bore you, its a geographical thing). We have NTL cable now, including phone and broadband and its ok, but costs about £60 a month. We used to have Sky and still have the dish and box sitting upstairs. You cannot imagine the problems only having NTL causes us with regards to watching one channel while another needs to be recorded....a divorce is very much on the cards.
My questions are these....
1. Is there a way Ican still use the dish and box (which I own) to veiw/record ANY stations?
2. Can this be done for free and without connecting to a phone li
ne?
3. Is there a way to watch/record different tv channels through NTL, again for FREE?
4. Why the hell do I have to pay the poxy BBC for a signal I cannot flipping well get without paying shedloads MORE money to a third party?

 

1) Yes the digibox (It is a SKY digibox?) can receive FTA channels without any payment but for the FTV channels (ITV1, CH4 & Five)you would need a FTV card which are no longer officially for sale.
2) The phone connection is only needed for the first 12 months of a subsidised installation from SKY, there is no technically need for the connection.
3) Not two digital channels although some NTL STB's do have analogue pass through. You should be able to split the NTL cable to feed the digital STB and feed an analogue VCR or TV with just the cost of the adaptors and cable. For a further £15 a month you could have a second NTL STB with the same channel package as the first one.
4) The license fee is not for watching the BBC it's for owning hardware that can receive any broadcast television, that means a TV, a cable or satellite box, a VCR or a PC TV card.
If you can not pick up a terrestrial analogue or digital feed AT ALL, then remove the dish and cable feed to the house, you will then be able to show you can not access broadcast TV since there is no terrestrial service in your area and therefore having hardware that can receive the signals is irrelevant.

 

Ok, so where can I get a ftv card that will let me watch channels 1 thru 5?

 

Ironically the info you need is on ceefax bbc2 page698 digital info I'll look it up tonight and post it mon night if noone comes upwith a better suggestion

 

(a) It's possible your old Sky card (if you still have it) will let you watch FTV. Perhaps someone could tell us the details.
(b) Why not switch to Sky+. You'll get dual record, cheap or free installation, and it won't need to cost £60/month. You can still use your old box in another room on one of the remaining LNB's in your new quad LNB.

I sympathise with you on the reception, Sky is my only choice for watching anything. No terrestrial, no freeview, no DAB.

 

Watching ftv on the old card sounds like the ideal solution...anyone know how? Used to work but then a banner came up telling me to phone a number, which I did, and the nice lady asked me for £26 to keep watching the free channels. So whats "free" about them I enquired, "they're the BBC things covered by your licence".....ok, says I, so you want me to pay for them AGAIN? "Yeah,£26" says she.....'click' says I.

 

Ref info on ceefax sorry but that was for sky viewers who lost those channels but even that method of renewing the card ended the31/1/04