pennypincher
Registered User
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I've just seen that Lidl are due to sell a FTA satellite dish and receiver.Is there any difference between buying this and getting a Sky active card?Has anyone bought one of these before.
FTA Satellite from Lidl
- Thread starter pennypincher
- Start date
FTA will get you a specific list of channels including all the BBC channels, Sky News, ITV News etc. gets you lots of other crap religion channels and shopping channels and radio stations.
As these sat. decoders do not have a slot for a subscription card etc. thats pretty much it.
So no, its not like Sky alas.
As these sat. decoders do not have a slot for a subscription card etc. thats pretty much it.
So no, its not like Sky alas.
Yeah I bought one the last time. You get all the FTA (free to air) channels, which when pointed at Astra 2 gives you BBC1,2,3 and 4, BBC News, ITV News, ITV3, Ceebies, Extreme sports, Sky News, CNN and a lot of other (some useless) channels. You will not get RTE1, 2 TV3, TG4, ITV, C4, C%, Sky One etc.
Point it at Hotbird and you get a host of Italian and southern Mediterranean channels. I think that there are about 20 satellites that cover (have a footprint in) Ireland. This time around Lidl seems to be selling a package - the last time they sold each component separately. The dish size this time around seems to be smaller than the last time. Satellite opens to world of "other TV" to you. The best few bob I have spent.
HOWEVER! and there has to be a however, you can be lucky and find the satellite say Astra 2 easily (it's signal is pretty powerful) or you can end up tearing your hair out for hours. The satellite meter is handy for this. Just remember that a movement of just one degree of the dish on earth equates to a large distance in space. There is a satellite forum on boards.ie that is very helpful. And the second however is that you have to get the package. Lidl q's on satellite days are often horrendious.
Point it at Hotbird and you get a host of Italian and southern Mediterranean channels. I think that there are about 20 satellites that cover (have a footprint in) Ireland. This time around Lidl seems to be selling a package - the last time they sold each component separately. The dish size this time around seems to be smaller than the last time. Satellite opens to world of "other TV" to you. The best few bob I have spent.
HOWEVER! and there has to be a however, you can be lucky and find the satellite say Astra 2 easily (it's signal is pretty powerful) or you can end up tearing your hair out for hours. The satellite meter is handy for this. Just remember that a movement of just one degree of the dish on earth equates to a large distance in space. There is a satellite forum on boards.ie that is very helpful. And the second however is that you have to get the package. Lidl q's on satellite days are often horrendious.
Last edited:
MissRibena
Registered User
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I was thinking of getting one of these or something like them but know diddly squat about satellites etc. I have heard about the ones with the subscription card slots - do Aldi or Lidl ever do these kinds of ones or do you have to get them elsewhere?
Rebecca
Rebecca
MissRibena: As far as I know, Lidl never do the "boxes with da slots". I knew nothing about satellite before now (okay some would say that I know nothing now either 
). So if you have a spare 99 yoyos it could be well spent! And there is a good second-hand market for receivers if you want to upgrade. The "boxes with the slots" aka digiboxes allow one to pick up ITV and C4 if you have a UK activated Sky card. This is an area that somebody on here might have more info on (and then I can become the expert ).
). So if you have a spare 99 yoyos it could be well spent! And there is a good second-hand market for receivers if you want to upgrade. The "boxes with the slots" aka digiboxes allow one to pick up ITV and C4 if you have a UK activated Sky card. This is an area that somebody on here might have more info on (and then I can become the expert ).The Lidl dishes have, apparently, been crap in the past.
Have Sky FTA and its not bad when combined with a conventional arial to get the 4 Irish channels. Good for the BBC's, Sky News, ITV, CNN. Have bought a "Yellow House" card on E-Bay in the UK, this is supposed to give me UTV and Channel 4 on a free to air basis (plus other rubbish I already have or dont want). Its in the post so I'll let ye know how I get on. There was a thread here recently from successful purchasers of this card. Cost about €50 on conversion and is supposed to be guaranteed for 3 years.
Also bear in mind:
You can get an attachment for a dish, forget the name, but it give you 4 "feeds" off the dish. Therefore potentially 4 diff satellite channels in diff rooms. You would need 4 boxes though to use this fully though. We have a Sky box and a Lidl box, yet to put the Lidl box going but it should work - As Bruce Springsteen nearly said " 57 channels and 1 TV!"
Have Sky FTA and its not bad when combined with a conventional arial to get the 4 Irish channels. Good for the BBC's, Sky News, ITV, CNN. Have bought a "Yellow House" card on E-Bay in the UK, this is supposed to give me UTV and Channel 4 on a free to air basis (plus other rubbish I already have or dont want). Its in the post so I'll let ye know how I get on. There was a thread here recently from successful purchasers of this card. Cost about €50 on conversion and is supposed to be guaranteed for 3 years.
Also bear in mind:
You can get an attachment for a dish, forget the name, but it give you 4 "feeds" off the dish. Therefore potentially 4 diff satellite channels in diff rooms. You would need 4 boxes though to use this fully though. We have a Sky box and a Lidl box, yet to put the Lidl box going but it should work - As Bruce Springsteen nearly said " 57 channels and 1 TV!"
I don't know that you're right about getting 4 feeds from your dish. I think you're talking about a splitter that lets you feed your signal in to 4 different rooms but you can only watch the same channel as the one your dish is tuned in to. If you can get a device that gives you 4 different channels, please let me know.
Ribena, shes right. The item in question is the LNB. Basic Sky system comes with a single block LNB. This feeds 1 decoder.
A quad LNB will feed 4 decoders. You can even get an LNB that feeds 8 decoders.
if you get Sky multiroom for example, they install a quad LNB and feed 2 seperate decoders with 2 independant signals.
if you get Sky plus, you get a quad installed, because 2 signals are needed for the Sky plus box. So if you get Sky plus with multiroom 3 of your 4 signals from the quad are used up.
You can get them on Ebay no worries.
Of course, to get different channels in each room you need a decoder as well as the signal!
However, you are right. You can't just split the cable into 2. Something to do with splitting horizontal and vertical elements of the signal so you will get half the channels in one room, half in the other.
A quad LNB will feed 4 decoders. You can even get an LNB that feeds 8 decoders.
if you get Sky multiroom for example, they install a quad LNB and feed 2 seperate decoders with 2 independant signals.
if you get Sky plus, you get a quad installed, because 2 signals are needed for the Sky plus box. So if you get Sky plus with multiroom 3 of your 4 signals from the quad are used up.
You can get them on Ebay no worries.
Of course, to get different channels in each room you need a decoder as well as the signal!
However, you are right. You can't just split the cable into 2. Something to do with splitting horizontal and vertical elements of the signal so you will get half the channels in one room, half in the other.
Markjbloggs
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Can the satelite dish be mounted in an attic or must it be external?