I live in an area with very poor freeview reception.In fact I normally switch to analogue to get btter recpetion on the standard terrestrial channels.According to Freeview that may change in April when they switch the analogue signal off and from then I should get the freeview channels at least.
However another option may be Freesat.According to what I`ve read it means HD and approx 200 channnles.Worth paying the extra for over freeview or should I wait for digital switch over?
How much did the dish and installation cost?

i can sell you a freesat reciever with a dish and quad lnb for £55ish.
do the install yourself.

Freesat link

I’d guess 99% of freesat “customers” had sky and realised they could get the same channels for free. If you dont have sky currently you can install a sky dish for maybe £40 diy. Whatever you do get Freesat+ (record, pause, fast forward tv). Thouroughly recommended.

DIY a dish is easyish and a mega rewarding DIY project.

Freesat+ : Kids record whatever, missus watches whatever, all the good stuff is up to you. And freesat does iplayer etc (if you got a network connection nearby).

#Edit – the £40 is for the dish diy. You’ll need a freesat/freesat+ box on top of that: anything from £40 to £300 depending on what you want. Google Humax Direct for ex-demo boxes with superb backup and warranty – also a Which Mag recommended best buy. So top end – HD with record / pause etc – probably £300 ish.

Ta chaps!

Where I am, the freeview isn’t being switched ON until next september, and terrestial reception was terrible. I didn’t want Sky, so Freesat it is.
Just bought a second-hand Humax Foxsat 500Gb box box off someone on here. Local fella installed a dish for me. Its brilliant. Cost me £250 all in. Can record 2 channels and watch a third (inlcuding pause liveTV). connected it to my router, so I can stream BBC iplayer in high-quality.
Only thing you don’t get are the Sky channels. And the massive bill that goes with them 🙂

IME Freesat is more reliable, we use it becasue we have no aerial but have a dish.

Sadly though you can only buy a freeview OR sat recorder – why not both?

Can record 2 channels and watch a third

I don’t think you can. There’s only 2 tuners in my foxsat hdr for sure. You can record 2 and watch something you’ve already recorded though.

I don’t think you can.

thats what I thought when the bloke I bought it from told me. But I tried it the other night and it worked.

oooohhhh…. magic……

Do you need a 3 line LCB to do that?

I’d guess 99% of freesat “customers” had sky and realised they could get the same channels for free.

Only if you know a bloke who knows a bloke who knows about these things 🙂 most Sky channels are subscription only

Do yo need a 3 line LCB to do that?

LNB, yes but you can only get 2, 4, 8 etc. so you’d need a quad with at least 3 cables back to your box

I’ve got a quad LNB, 2 cables to the foxsat box, 1 to upstairs awaiting a receiver. And a spare.

I have had Freesat for about a year now. Don’t be fooled that you will get 200+ channels of exciting things to watch, a lot of them are a waste, shopping channels etc. However you do get the normal terrestial channels (and offshoots) and their HD output which are excellent, plus a few other channels. I presume more channels channels may be added in the future. Take the advice above about Humax PVRs, they always seem to get really good feedback. We have a Sagemcom Freeview box with hard drive, when it works it is good, however it doesn’t seem to want to work too often, wouldn’t buy another one.

Fitting a sat dish is not difficult at all, it is a basic DIY job, although you may have to stand on the top of a ladder with a drill for a bit. The above offer from Ton seems a really good deal.

If only Freesat would get Eurosport (happy to py extra for it), I’d ditch the expensive Sky subscription, although oH might be a little hacked off losing the movies!

I’ve got a quad LNB, 2 cables to the foxsat box, 1 to upstairs awaiting a receiver. And a spare.

It won’t cover all eventualities though, which is what you’d normally aim to do
*50% of the channels are horizontally polarised
*50% vertical
controled by swithching the LNB with a voltage change 13/18V

*50% of the H channels are high band
*50% low band
controlloed by switching the LNB with a 22kHz tone

so …

Ch1 could be V/Hi
Ch2 could be V/Lo
Ch3 could be H/Hi
Ch4 Could be H/Lo

You couldn’t record 2 of those and watch a 3rd
You could do it with other channels but at least 2 of them would need the same band/polarisation combination – presuming the box allows it

* approx

I had the same issue as the OP. Poor reception for even analogue channels, and recieved about 5/6 freeview channels if you were lucky (literally depending on the way the wind blew). Set up a freesat dish for about £200 new, and now can recieve thousands of foreign channels (if you like that), and all the standard freeview stuff decent quality. Also better than a freeview box or anything because you can plug in a HDD to record, and it’s a one off cost.

ton – i have emailed you

I take it you’re not aware that your current digital signal is at something like 5% of the strength of the analogue, so that it doesn’t interfere with the analogue signal. When the analogue is turned off the digital signal will be switched to full power. So I’d hang fire breaking out the plastic and see how your digital reception is after the switch over.

I take it you’re not aware that your current digital signal is at something like 5% of the strength of the analogue

It varies but the power is lower for sure
Even at full power though it’ll still only be something like 10% of the analogue signal
Outright power is irrelevant though, it’s the quality that counts and you can’t measure that DIY
TBH though it won’t really matter in most cases as the box has a low enough tuner threshold to cope