B&Q Satellite - Ross freesat box and dish

2nd could well be me But I'm afraid I've never chosen kit parts and self-installed from scratch. I've got an old Sky dish at home and an independently-installed dish at the in-laws holiday flat. We have a FreesatFromSky box and a Goodmans official Freesat box attached to a quad-LNB here, and a Freesat HD box at the holiday flat (suddenly can't remember what brand that one is). The most I've ever done to my own system is swap out the old mono-LNB for a new quad and run the extra cable to the spare room. Thankfully I've never had to mount and position a dish, but if I ever do, I will definitely be using a sat finder to do it.

[MTJR]

Originally Posted by mikedmc

Just joined forum and just read the 18 pages of this thread. Interesting read but still not answered my reason for finding this site .

I saw the Ross HD package in B & Q yesterday (£89.99), although since I have found that it is available in Homebase at £79.99.

It looks ok as a start into the world of satellite TV, especially paired with an HD TV. Reading through this thread the verdict still seems undecided. So as I am obviously interested in Sat TV, HD included, what would you recommend as a starter system?

What would be available with this starter system that is not available with the Ross system?

And what potential for expansion does your starter system give me over the Ross system?

As an aside I do have an old Sky Dish and receiver buried in my shed somewhere, assuming I have it right reading through these threads I could use this sky dish and the ross dish to have the receiver pick up from different sats at same time (save moving the dish around etc.) - is my assumption correct? Could the Sky receiver be used to receive some basic free to air channels in a different room?

Any and all advice appreciated. Thank you.

Whoa! It's all gone a bit red!

Anyhoo. My understanding is this. It's not that the Ross box versus any other will give you any more or less channel availability. The Ross box will pick up any FTA channels the same as a Freesat box but what you won't get is a nice shiny EPG, all you get is a Now & Next selection. You can also add a USB drive to the Ross box so you can record stuff. Again, the menu system for this is a bit clunky but it works.

I've had the Ross kit for about a month now and overall it does pretty much everything I want it to. The dish is located on top of a free standing basket ball hoop thing and with a few exceptions I get every channel on the list (there's a couple of hundred).

I didn't use any sat finding equipment. Just got the direction from the sat finder website, pointed the dish in that direction and bingo! Intrestingly, I did use a Sky HD box with the Ross dish and everything on that worked fine and in some cases a little better than the Ross receiver.

For £70 I think, at the very least, it's an ideal starting point. I may, at some point, get a different receiver only because I would get a 7-day EPG and a better user interface but that's only a cosmetic thing. I can't think why I'd get any more free channels with a different box.

If it makes you feel any better I was (and still am) a complete novice to satellites but I just couldn't resist the offer in B&Q.

John

[mikedmc]

Originally Posted by Chris

2nd could well be me But I'm afraid I've never chosen kit parts and self-installed from scratch. I've got an old Sky dish at home and an independently-installed dish at the in-laws holiday flat. We have a FreesatFromSky box and a Goodmans official Freesat box attached to a quad-LNB here, and a Freesat HD box at the holiday flat (suddenly can't remember what brand that one is). The most I've ever done to my own system is swap out the old mono-LNB for a new quad and run the extra cable to the spare room. Thankfully I've never had to mount and position a dish, but if I ever do, I will definitely be using a sat finder to do it.

So maybe save a bit of time and money getting a sat finder off ebay while I'm deciding on the starter system specs?

This lnb malarky, I noticed all the posts regarding quad lnb's etc. which I think I would definitely want to do, and pretty quickly as would want a larger selection of channels. Now each lnb is used per satellite? So a single lnb would not work on multiple sats at same time? So pointing at 42E would get everything from the sats at that point with one lnb? and the second could point at 28.2E and the 3rd from 19.2E (not sure what these sats just using the figures Ive seen mentioned before). Hope that makes sense to someone .

Originally Posted by mikedmc

So maybe save a bit of time and money getting a sat finder off ebay while I'm deciding on the starter system specs?

This lnb malarky, I noticed all the posts regarding quad lnb's etc. which I think I would definitely want to do, and pretty quickly as would want a larger selection of channels. Now each lnb is used per satellite? So a single lnb would not work on multiple sats at same time? So pointing at 42E would get everything from the sats at that point with one lnb? and the second could point at 28.2E and the 3rd from 19.2E (not sure what these sats just using the figures Ive seen mentioned before). Hope that makes sense to someone .

You've got the wrong end of the stick I'm afraid ... the LNB picks up whatever the dish collects, regardless of how many satellites are involved. But you need one LNB feed for each tuner in your system. So for a simple Ross box, with one tuner, you only need a mono-LNB, but for the more expensive box with a PVR, there are two tuners, so you need a dual-LNB. Or, if you had two basic boxes, one in the lounge and one in the bedroom, you would need a dual-LNB for that as well.

If you have four tuners (say, a PVR in the lounge and basic boxes in the kitchen and master bedroom), you would need a quad-LNB. You can go on and on, adding more tuners - you can get an octo-LNB if you need 8 feeds, for example.

Sat broadcasts intended for the UK come from a number of different satellites, but they are all very close together in the sky, so one properly-aligned dish, aimed at a compromise point between them, will adequately collect all the signals you need. As others in this thread have testified, you can do this without a sat finder, but if you can nab one cheap off eBay, it is undoubtedly more straightforward if you do have one.

[El En Bee]

Originally Posted by mikedmc

Just joined forum and just read the 18 pages of this thread. Interesting read but still not answered my reason for finding this site .

I saw the Ross HD package in B & Q yesterday (£89.99), although since I have found that it is available in Homebase at £79.99.

It looks ok as a start into the world of satellite TV, especially paired with an HD TV. Reading through this thread the verdict still seems undecided. So as I am obviously interested in Sat TV, HD included, what would you recommend as a starter system?

What would be available with this starter system that is not available with the Ross system?

And what potential for expansion does your starter system give me over the Ross system?

As an aside I do have an old Sky Dish and receiver buried in my shed somewhere, assuming I have it right reading through these threads I could use this sky dish and the ross dish to have the receiver pick up from different sats at same time (save moving the dish around etc.) - is my assumption correct? Could the Sky receiver be used to receive some basic free to air channels in a different room?

Any and all advice appreciated. Thank you.

It may be worth waiting to see if B&Q drop the price to £50 again - definitely worth it at that price. It's a good start into the world of satellite - the software's clunky but useable and the dish provided is a little fiddly to install (compared to a Sky dish) - probably best described as an 'enthusiasts system' (i.e. not as polished as the Freesat alternatives). Recording to an external USB hard disk works well enough.

Last time I went into B&Q, they had a Ross satellite kit that had a built in 320Gb hard disk for around £135 - not sure if it was Freesat (i.e with 7 day EPG) or FTA though.

I bought my satellite finder for under £7 from Amazon - comes with patch lead, basic instructions and works great!

[MTJR]

I did spot some kits in Homebase the other day. Marked at 79.99 but it was a 15% off (or 20 maybe) weekend. They were obviously old stock as the box had markings on it for "Watch the World Cup in HD".

Maybe the other thing worth pointing out is that the Ross box has no card slot so you can't pick up any subscription channels, if that sort of thing is important to you.

[mikedmc]

Cheers for the help guys, my mate works at Homebase (always forget!) and that would mean 20% off so about £64 at today's price.

Chris, thank you for the explanation. So S.E. London (Eltham) 80cm dish (IIRC that is what is in the Ross package) I could hit multiple sats at once meaning more channels without moving the dish at all? quad lnbs would just mean all getting same signal from dish and distributing it to more receivers. Got it I think!

As with any standard Sky or Freesat installation, you do not need to motorize the dish in order to pick up all the channels specifically aimed at the UK.

[mikedmc]

Originally Posted by Chris

As with any standard Sky or Freesat installation, you do not need to motorize the dish in order to pick up all the channels specifically aimed at the UK.

Really appreciate all advice given, thank you. Mr sat geek must be busy so i might go for this homebase package if only to learn the basics of sat tv. I was thinking of attaching at the rear of my property attached to the wall of my single storey extension using a pole. Where is best to get pole and wall attachments for this purpose?

Using the 80cm dish and being in se london what do you think the best position / selection of sats would be to aim for? Could also use old sky dish if needed for more. Would like the basic channels including the new HD ones but any sport would be welcome to. Any suggestions welcome.

[Kymmy]

An old Sky digital dish will work fine (an analogue dish (60 or 80cm) will be fine as well but you will need to probably swap the LNB for a new one..)

From London if you want English speakng channels then best to go for the Astra2 group at 28.2E (same position as Sky) where all the freesat channels are and either a FTA setup, Sky box with Freesat card or a Freesat box will do you.. In the end it depends on whether you want just basic channel viewing, or if you want the extras like 7 day EPG, reb button, HD, interactive services and even iPlayer

[Leon007]

HI every one, i have purchased the ross satelite and it is good in some ways, but why dont i have a full tv guide? i can only view now and next guide and to do so you have to switch to each individual channel to whats on?....

the other thing is, can you upgrade this dish or decoder in any way shape or form?

any advise will be well appreciated.
thanx.

The Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) is what you're after. I'm afraid you can't get one on that Ross box.

To get an EPG you have to buy a box that is branded by either Sky or Freesat (as both of those organisations operate an EPG service), or else buy any other Free-to-air satellite receiver that is capable of being programmed to collect data from one of those EPG services.

Unfortunately the Ross kit doesn't give you any of those options. Which is probably one of the reasons why it's so cheap.

[Leon007]

hi thanx for ur reply, so will the dish still work with a different box or do i have to get the whole lot?

i have a freeview box, will that work?

thanx again.

[Kymmy]

The dish will work with other boxes..

Freeview (DVB-T) though is a totally different system on different frequencies so a freeview box can not be attached to a sat dish (DVB-S)

The Freeview box won't work with any satellite dish. It needs a normal terrestrial aerial.

Any satellite receiver will work with the dish you have bought. If you want the simplest EPG solution, buy any box that carries the Freesat logo: