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Hi All

I'm considering buying one of these:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48737&criteria=satelite&doy=24m8

Does anyone have any experience of using / setting up? I'd like to bring my Sky box from home instead of the supplied box for the channel package I get at home. Can this be done?

Many thanks for all replies, all the best.

SB

Hi superbitch

                  Your Sky box will work fine, in fact the Maplin box will not give you Ch5 as that channel is currently not  "Free To Air"  so you still need a Sky box to watch "Free To View" channels, having said that, now that "Freesat" has launched, Ch5 will be "Free To Air" very soon, which is goood news for all none Sky satellite box users, have a look at the Dish size that came with your Maplin outfit, if it is smaller than a Sky mini-dish you will have problems with picture break up, I always advise to go for a min of 60cm to allow for signal loss from possible trees etc.

          hope that helps. 

Many thanks to you both for the info, just what I needed to know.

SB

f you just want to watch Sky just buy an Sky dish, Ebay is a good source, and mount it on a tripod. From experience I can tell you a Sky dish is a lot easier to set up than the Maplins one, plus the Maplins one is  borderline when you get north of the border in Scotland, and should it rain, when you just might need your TV, it does tend to get wiped out here around the north west.

The flip side of that tho is the Maplins receiver is much better than clunky Sky box's, but obviously you can,t get Sky, if you are happy enough with the stuff on Freview, I would buy the system and a sky dish as well. if your heart is set on receiving Sky, then you will just have to put up with its clunky tuning in system.

Some are going to disagree with me, but there wrong and I am right!!!!!!

Great advice (as always).

Many thanks to all, off to purchase one of these.

SB

Just as a postscript to this thread...

Bought one of these today and tried it on a TV at home. Everything worked first time out of the box - including the ability to use my existing Sky box (plus card).

Alignment was pretty easy using supplied (albeit flimsy) compass. I set the dish to be vertical and pointed it to be due south, then just rotated the dish horizontally until a picture appeared (30 seconds later!). Took it all down and repeated the procedure and again (to prove it wasn't beginner's luck!) it all worked again no probs. Signal strength was always very good (as was the picture) so I left it at that with no further tweaking. I guess a clear sight to the satelite is the key to all this, so on a campsite things may not be so smooth.

Anyway, van is out again this coming weekend with (fingers crossed) no more unwatchable TV reception.

Thanks again to all who answered this thread and helped my decision - I owe you a pint!

SB