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I'm looking at getting a satellite system, nothing fancy maxview.
I've read you can't get channel 4, five on freesat digiboxes, and that you need a sky box and £20 sky card.
My questions are:
1 Do you get anymore channels with the £20 card than a free-to-air box?
2 Can you get more4, film4 on free-to-air box and sky boxes?
3 What would be better a 12v box or 240v box run through an inverter?
I can't get my head round the voltage/amp/draw malarkey.
We like to wildcamp a fair bit, and will have 2 x 80Amp gel batteries.
Just FYI we have tried every combination. We have an Oyster 85cm Dish with accompanying tuner. We also have a Dreambox, a SKybox and newly aquired Freesat Humax box. We are due to go away in a weeks time for two months, and my choice would be the Dreambox. Why?
1) It runs on 12Volts as well as 240AC
2) It picks up all FTA (Free to Air) channels
3) It can work with a S*y card without it being paired with a specific card.
In October channel 5 will I believe be released from encryption and hense the new Freesat boxes will work with "5" channels - at the moment they cannot. The Humax FreeSAT box in brilliant and the HD reception is great. However, when you go past the French?spanish border you will start to lose the FreeSAT transponder and you will want to watch other news channels FTA, eg S*y.
The PACE S&y box is just an annoyance and has been consigned to the cupboard under the stairs.
If you decide on a Dreambox I would go with one of the providers here to set it up, eg Snelly.
Channel 4 has been available on freesat since launch day. At present 5 is legally tied to Sky, but that should change in October or November when it will then become available on freesat.
Gerry
Dreambox seems good, but £200 is a lot to watch FTA tv.
Do I get the impression that you are saying that that the quality of the receiver has an effect on what you can/can't receive when abroad??
Surely I would of thought that the dish/LNB is the factor that concerns signal strength.
I'm tempted just to get the 12v digi that maplin do, as it's only £50.
When I'm in France/Spain how can I get channel 4?
IS this when the dreambox comes in?
Sorry to ask so many questions
PS can anyone tell me what will use less battery an digi box on 12v or via an inverter.??
For a starter receiver and low cost I dont think you can beat the Maplins box.
Also sold by Aldi, Lidl and many other places. Commag is the main brand.
Keep a look out for graded stock as well at Maplins when they are even cheaper.
The new Freesat receivers have a better menu system for a novice as it will list channels in a more suitable order..
As stated Cn 4 is now free and cn 5 is due shortly..
Forget a sky box unless you really want to use a card an pay for anything...
Dreambox, ideal all rounded if you already pay for sky and have the card.
With a FTA box when you are out of range with astra 1 you can go to astra 2 and get news channels and some english programs if you search around.
If you go to Spain you will have to get a larger dish once past Barcelona and if you have never set up a manual dish then get some practice in before you go. Once you get the hang of it it is easy.
I bit late I guess but to answer your question on 12v verses Inverter I'd probably go for 12 volt, particularly if I didn't already have an inverter - it would keep it simple. If you already have one and need it on then it doesn't matter
In strict terms you are burning 12 volt power just to run the inverter (typically 0.5 to 1.0 amps) so if you are not running anything else then that's waste energy.
You need to find out the watts each receiver is taking then convert it back to amps at 12 volts.
Eg. 240v receiver takes 125w (125/12) = 10.42 amps (+ the inverter - say 0.75) = 11.17amps
12v receiver takes 60w (60/12) = 5 amps
In this example the 12 volt reciever needs less battery power. It could be the other way round though so you need to look at the wattage on both recievers
Dreambox now programmed with the freesat channels including channel 4... so no need for card. They did tell me Five was becoming free in October, although no one seems to know exactly when?? When it does, db will be programmed with that too.
I don't really watch a lot of TV in the truck [that said just bought a 19" avtex] so would now like the dish & receiver as digi always seems hit and miss when we are out and about.
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