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Best way to get Freeview / Freesat in Devon
John P - 8/1/14 at 06:05 PM

At present have a LCD TV with Freeview connected to a normal roof aerial via a signal booster with 4 separate outputs.

We also have a hard disk recorder with Freeview built in and a separate Freeview TV in the bedroom connected to the main aerial via the signal booster / splitter.

We’re hopefully moving down to Devon in a few weeks time and at the new house there isn’t a conventional aerial but there is a Sky dish on the wall.

I don’t want to pay out for Sky and want to keep the existing hard disk recorder and bedroom TV as these are fairly new although we will probably change the main TV in the lounge for a smart TV.

I was intending to simply put up a conventional aerial and run co-ax down to the booster / splitter as we have at the moment but I’ve just found that whilst in Kent we get something like 50 Freeview channels down in Devon there are only 20 which excludes some we use fairly regularly.

At the moment I am thinking perhaps I could use the Sky dish to get Freesat on the main (possibly new) TV thus maintaining more channels but presumably I would then also need a separate conventional aerial for the hard disc recorder and bedroom TV which would still be limited to the reduced number of channels.

Any suggestions how best to proceed?

John.


DW100 - 8/1/14 at 06:23 PM

I'm in Exeter and get 50 odd TV channels and all the radio channels through the normal TV aerial. I'm sure you won't be able to use your hard drive recorder with freesat.

Where in Devon are you aiming for? If you are down in a valley then you may not get any signal at all

[Edited on 8/1/14 by DW100]


John P - 8/1/14 at 06:55 PM

Actually we're moving to Paignton.

The house is reasonably high up so perhaps it will be better than I thought.

I did check in the Freeview website against the actual postcode which is where I got the figure of 20 programmes from.


rpm - 8/1/14 at 06:59 PM

I'm in Paignton and also get 50 ish tv channels, about 100 channels with all the radio stuff, you just have to be careful which transmitter you pick up from as autotune on a tv will, in this area, try to tune to the wrong one.


watsonpj - 8/1/14 at 08:44 PM

The sky dish will most likely have 4 outputs on it so you can run upto 4 tvs or recorders off of it.


britishtrident - 8/1/14 at 10:32 PM

Check what Broadband speed you will get as increasingly TV recorders are getting made obsolete by internet TV .
If you can get decent broadband you have several options for on demand including Roku set top boxes.
A cut down Roku box is sold by Now TV (Sky) for £10 even if you don't pay a subscription you can get BBC iPlayer and other free to internet view again services on it.
If you have an older TV you will also need £5 adapter lead.

Google Chromecast is another low cost device about to launch in the UK that will allow you to access internet TV if you have an HDMI socket on your TV.

Humax do the best Freeway hard disc recorders.


whitestu - 9/1/14 at 08:00 AM

I've got a Humax freesat box and it is great.

The dish was on our house when we moved in. I changed the lnb which cost about a fiver for a 4 output one. Now have two TVs and a PC with a freesat card all on the same dish.

Stu