SKY Satellite dish

[loubyscooby]

Julynian

 

Yes I too was given the run around by Sky with them all saying it wasn't possible. Luckily I spoke to a guy in the technical department not sales who explained it all. The secondhand contract means they just supply the card and/or any subscription you want so you can continue to enjoy F1 still. You can get the card and then add extra packages at a later date but that just means you pay the extra £25 as the card comes free if you add an extra package or you can use the one you have.

 

Louise

[Ex- Member]

Julynian

 

Yes I too was given the run around by Sky with them all saying it wasn't possible. Luckily I spoke to a guy in the technical department not sales who explained it all. The secondhand contract means they just supply the card and/or any subscription you want so you can continue to enjoy F1 still. You can get the card and then add extra packages at a later date but that just means you pay the extra £25 as the card comes free if you add an extra package or you can use the one you have.

 

Louise

 

Cheers louise

 

Not that difficult really, why their sells staff don't know this is a mystery, they must be losing business as there's a lot of boaters out there as well as travelers etc.

 

I've now set up my Lappy to down load live sky TV which is free if you're a subscriber via SKY Go. Tested it out last night and it works really well and a very good picture.

 

When we unsubscribe Lynn's dad will let us use his subscription to get live Sky TV as he doesn't use any other devices his self like x box for example. You can have 2 devices enabled to do this on SKY Go with the Sky subscription, so both me and Lynn can have it enabled on out respective lap tops. Job done no further subscription charges, just buy Lynn's dad a couple of beers

 

Of course we'll be downloading programs so might need to up our 3g usage, we'll see.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Julynian

[RobinR]

Is F1 FTA on other satellites e.g. Astra 1 and Hotbird? If so, use a small dish and a FTA (not Freesat / Sky / Freesat from Sky) box and listen to the BBC radio commentry. (FTA = free to air i.e not encoded)

[saltysplash]

We'll be moving on the boat soon but remaining on dry land till Feb next year. I love my F1 so want to set up SKY on it that we currently subscribe to.

 

Thinking of buying one of these, however will it be ok for when we're actually on the water. Or would it be best to go small now with a suitcase set up from the off.

 

http://shop.satelliteonline.co.uk/fast-finder-portable-satellite-dish-kit-330-p.asp

 

We are wide beam and don't suffer much movement like a n/b and of course plenty of room on the roof.

 

Opinions welcome.

 

Julian

Hi

you don't need to stop your Sky subscription. Just cancel the services you don't want such as phone and broadband and just keep the telly package. You then take your box and dish from the house and set them up on the boat. No need to buy anything.

you then advice Sky of your new postal address and carry on with life as normal.

 

Contrary to what you might be told you do not need your Sky box connected to a phone line at all. This is only a requirement for the first 12 months of any new contract where you havetaken up one of Skys offers such as a free box.

 

with no phone line you won't be able to use interactive services or box office.

 

Don't tell sky your moving onto a boat just give them your new postal address. We live aboard and have kept our Sky subscription for a several years now.

[john6767]

Hi

you don't need to stop your Sky subscription. Just cancel the services you don't want such as phone and broadband and just keep the telly package. You then take your box and dish from the house and set them up on the boat. No need to buy anything.

you then advice Sky of your new postal address and carry on with life as normal.

 

Contrary to what you might be told you do not need your Sky box connected to a phone line at all. This is only a requirement for the first 12 months of any new contract where you havetaken up one of Skys offers such as a free box.

 

with no phone line you won't be able to use interactive services or box office.

 

Don't tell sky your moving onto a boat just give them your new postal address. We live aboard and have kept our Sky subscription for a several years now.

 

I think this is spot on, what often gets confused is the being connected to a phone line stuff, which is only relevant if you are having a free box etc from Sky. Provide you own equipment, and all you are doing is subscribing to services, so no phone line requirement. Then the only thing that matters to them is where you are located. Sky have the rights to broadcast certain stuff to the UK (and Ireland?), and if you say its on the boat that is going to be no good as its not a fixed location. For all they know it could be a yacht that you take to the med for instance. So give them a fixed UK address and you are sorted.

 

 

 

 

[Ex- Member]

We ended up buying a Ross suitcase satellite dish and receiver. Just set it all up and well impressed. Some SKY stuff in HD looks great, It's a new 12v Kogan TV too 24 inch, lovely widescreen set with full HD so the F1 racing at the weekend should be pretty good.

 

Initially setting up the dish was really annoying, there's a satellite finder that comes with the kit but operation instructions very poor. When I sussed it out though it was a piece of cake to tune the dish in. The kit is quite decent quality, the sucker works extremely well on the painted roof, and it was easy to put together.

 

I don't have a 100% signal though, there's a row of 30 dot lights that appear on screen you use for fine tuning I have 10 Blue 10 Pink and 5 Red lit. I'm assuming 10 Red would be the best signal, unfortunately nowhere does it tell you what it should display for a 100% picture.

 

The system is on e-bay here.

 

http://www.ebay.co.u...#ht_1275wt_1021

 

Buy it now is £69.00 Lynn put in an offer for £60 and the seller accepted.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Julynian

[Gazboatman]

Thank god for this thread I just got my dad to cancel his virgin package and told him to join sky as he would be able to use a box on his boat but he was told by sky that its not possible.

[OldGoat]

Thank god for this thread I just got my dad to cancel his virgin package and told him to join sky as he would be able to use a box on his boat but he was told by sky that its not possible.

 

 

FWIW - Sky say "not possible" because they think youy're buying a NEW installation - which implies sending out an agent to fix the dish etc. Obviously it's foreign territory for the sales team - so they say no.

I'm given to believe from Satellite forums that the staff turnover is high - so that their training is likely to be very basic.

[Filligree Fairy]

For the F1 - if you can find Astra 19.E, then you should be able to pick up the european coverage (German, I think) free of charge. Then just pop Five Live on the radio, problem solved, and less money in Mr Murdoch's pocket...

[Ex- Member]

We set up our new satellite dish last week, we're currently on dry land and have been getting a perfect picture all week. Today though it rained and we got interference on quite a few channels. Our Sky TV at home does this sometimes but it has to be extremely heavy rain to affect the picture. Do other users of portable dishes have a similar problem?

[ditchcrawler]

We'll be moving on the boat soon but remaining on dry land till Feb next year. I love my F1 so want to set up SKY on it that we currently subscribe to.

 

Thinking of buying one of these, however will it be ok for when we're actually on the water. Or would it be best to go small now with a suitcase set up from the off.

 

http://shop.satelliteonline.co.uk/fast-finder-portable-satellite-dish-kit-330-p.asp

 

We are wide beam and don't suffer much movement like a n/b and of course plenty of room on the roof.

 

Opinions welcome.

 

Julian

For F1 I read Formulae One motor Racing. I don't have Sky but I watched the Singapore Grand Prix this afternoon on BBC1 or am I missing something.

[Ex- Member]

For F1 I read Formulae One motor Racing. I don't have Sky but I watched the Singapore Grand Prix this afternoon on BBC1 or am I missing something.

 

F1 is only live on he BBC every other race or only half the seasons races live and coverage not as good as SKY either.

 

 

 

[matty40s]

F1 is only live on he BBC every other race or only half the seasons races live and coverage not as good as SKY either.

 

well the cars still go round in circles and there's no adverts.

Problem is with sky is that they go to the adverts and something interesting happens - like Michael Schumachers drive into the back of another car today.

 

My skybox is from 2002, the dish and original card still works for freeview even though they have said it won't time after time.

[Ex- Member]

well the cars still go round in circles and there's no adverts.

Problem is with sky is that they go to the adverts and something interesting happens - like Michael Schumachers drive into the back of another car today.

 

My skybox is from 2002, the dish and original card still works for freeview even though they have said it won't time after time.

 

 

There's no adverts on SKY F1

 

The BBC commontator isn't up to much. Eddie Jorden gets on my nerves, but mainly because Martin Brundle went to SKY his gridwalk and commontry are a must IMO

 

 

Edited September 23, 2012 by Julynian

[matty40s]

There's no adverts on SKY F1

 

I wouldn't know, I stopped paying for things like that many years ago.

[Ex- Member]

Just an update on our SKY TV

 

We've just removed our SKY HD box from the flat and got it running on the boat. We had to fit a dual LNB which was supposed to be a universal fit, however on our Ross suitcase dish the clamp around the LNB was slightly loose, no big deal a few winds of insulation tape was enough for it to fit tight.

 

We connected everything up and was expecting a lot of faffing around tuning it in and setting up. Amazingly after the initial SKY start up we had everything, all stations and an amazing picture. I did manage to fit the LNB withoutt moving the dish too much, so that helped. Anyway all is in it's recording and has saved all the stuff we pre recorded at the flat.

 

Also on the services main menu you can get to the tuning part which has a couple of signal strength bars, we were only getting just over 50% signal, so I popped out and had a jiggle with the dish, as I moved it the bars moved too so it's a great guide for tuning, I managed full signal on one bar and around 80% on the other, picture is superb on HD

 

Only slight niggle is the sound bar on the SKY remote won't work, you can tune this in by selecting your make of TV and it will then give you volume control wich saves having to use the TV remote as well. Problem is our Kugon 24" TV is not on the list, there's another option of entering some 4 digit codes if your TV's not listed, still doesn't work though. No big deal I suppose, It's just handy if everything works from one controller.

[BargeeSpud]

Just an update on our SKY TV

 

We've just removed our SKY HD box from the flat and got it running on the boat. We had to fit a dual LNB which was supposed to be a universal fit, however on our Ross suitcase dish the clamp around the LNB was slightly loose, no big deal a few winds of insulation tape was enough for it to fit tight.

 

We connected everything up and was expecting a lot of faffing around tuning it in and setting up. Amazingly after the initial SKY start up we had everything, all stations and an amazing picture. I did manage to fit the LNB withoutt moving the dish too much, so that helped. Anyway all is in it's recording and has saved all the stuff we pre recorded at the flat.

 

Also on the services main menu you can get to the tuning part which has a couple of signal strength bars, we were only getting just over 50% signal, so I popped out and had a jiggle with the dish, as I moved it the bars moved too so it's a great guide for tuning, I managed full signal on one bar and around 80% on the other, picture is superb on HD

 

Only slight niggle is the sound bar on the SKY remote won't work, you can tune this in by selecting your make of TV and it will then give you volume control wich saves having to use the TV remote as well. Problem is our Kugon 24" TV is not on the list, there's another option of entering some 4 digit codes if your TV's not listed, still doesn't work though. No big deal I suppose, It's just handy if everything works from one controller.

Just one question, probably a stupid one, but are you running the Sky+ box on 240 or 12V?

[Guest]

Just one question, probably a stupid one, but are you running the Sky+ box on 240 or 12V?

 

Sky+ HD boxes are 240V only - they are primarily designed for home installations so I don't think Sky thought about 12V. Suitable inverters would of course allow running off 12V. (I don't know about how fussy they are about wave form type and all that stuff).

 

 

 

 

..

Edited October 19, 2012 by The Dog House

[BargeeSpud]

Sky+ HD boxes are 240V only - they are primarily designed for home installations so I don't think Sky thought about 12V. Suitable inverters would of course allow running off 12V. (I don't know about how fussy they are about wave form type and all that stuff).

 

 

 

 

..

Cheers Martin, I sort of knew they were, but I also believe there is a 12V circuit in them somewhere as well, hence the "dumb" question.

[Guest]

Cheers Martin, I sort of knew they were, but I also believe there is a 12V circuit in them somewhere as well, hence the "dumb" question.

 

Possibly I don't know to be honest - maybe that is what the voltage is stepped down to inside the box??..

 

They definitely only have a 240V connector on the rear panel though.

[BargeeSpud]

Possibly I don't know to be honest - maybe that is what the voltage is stepped down to inside the box??..

 

They definitely only have a 240V connector on the rear panel though.

Maybe that's what happens inside the box. Like you, I'm not sure either. Would be nice to know you could use it on 12V though, but I seriously doubt it.

[nb Innisfree]

Word of warning though, stand by to be frustrated as you keep finding the Astra 19.2E satellite instead of the Astra 28.2E satellite where your Sky & UK channels are located. You'll feel a bit like this until you get the hang of it:

 

I used to be frustrated by this until I learned to approach Astra 28.2E from an easterly direction, i.e. start with the dish pointing obviously too far east then rotate clockwise (looking down on the dish) .This way Astra 28.2 appears first instead of the confusing 19.2E.

[Psycloud]

 

Only slight niggle is the sound bar on the SKY remote won't work, you can tune this in by selecting your make of TV and it will then give you volume control wich saves having to use the TV remote as well. Problem is our Kugon 24" TV is not on the list, there's another option of entering some 4 digit codes if your TV's not listed, still doesn't work though. No big deal I suppose, It's just handy if everything works from one controller.

 

Is it definitely Kugon? Google doesn't seem to know that brand but did proffer up this for Kogan: http://www.kogan.co.uk/media/uploads/manuals/kogan-sky-remote-guide.pdf

 

David

[Guest]

Is it definitely Kugon? Google doesn't seem to know that brand but did proffer up this for Kogan: http://www.kogan.co.uk/media/uploads/manuals/kogan-sky-remote-guide.pdf

 

David

 

If you look at the logo on that PDF - you can see where the confusion possibly originates -

[Ex- Member]

Just one question, probably a stupid one, but are you running the Sky+ box on 240 or 12V?

 

Hi spuds

 

As Martin says 240 volt only, we're currently on dry land, but will be running an inverter when on the water anyway.

 

I also meant to mention we only subscribe to the HD package but that still costs £35 per month total with SKY's minimum £25 subscription fee.