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Thread ID: 69115	2006-05-22 12:21:00	Just the Sky Dish can act as an aerial?	jesseycy (1046)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
456865	2006-05-22 12:21:00	Hi! It'll be great if I can get some advice from you techs! I just moved into a rented home, and there is a Sky Dish as well as a old rusting aerial. Currently, Sky is still active, and so I'm happy for now. But I'm planning to cancel Sky, as I don't watch it that often and it's becoming a financial burden. So, my question is, if I pull down the old rusty aerial and leave just the sky dish, is it still possible to get free-to-air channels? I've called Sky before, and they told me to get free-to-air over satelite, I would have to pay a small fee per month. But I talked to a ex Sky door-to-door sales a few weeks ago, and he told me that I would still be able to get free-to-air channels, even if I only have my Sky Dish left and not paying Sky at all either.. Is that true? Perhaps, can my Sky Dish act as an aerial for UHF signals, or maybe the signal coming down from the satelite for free-to-air is not encrypted and I can just watch without a decoder box?	jesseycy (1046)
456866	2006-05-22 13:03:00	Perhaps, can my Sky Dish act as an aerial for UHF signals, or maybe the signal coming down from the satelite for free-to-air is not encrypted and I can just watch without a decoder box?No. It will be cheaper to get a new areial than a new STB or PCI card to convert the satalite.	Rob99 (151)
456867	2006-05-23 00:24:00	Sky can only be viewed by using a stb in order to get tv 1 2 3 4 you have to ring sky and tell them you want to cancel your sky movies or sport or whatever it is you have and sky will then only charge you around $18 a month for the very basic free to air channels and some radio channels which are standard with that service, I think its called sky digital downgrade which is the most basic free to air tv channels you can get however its still clearer than the old tv aerial which is what you pay for.	Hitech (9024)
456868	2006-05-23 00:31:00	even $18/month is a bit steep	Greven (91)
456869	2006-05-23 00:38:00	sky will then only charge you around $18 a month for the very basic free to air channels and some radio channels which are standard with that service sky's policys change faster than the wind. in some aeras that poily dosn't apply. you can buy a digital sat receiver and you can get tv 1,2 free to air.	tweak'e (69)
456870	2006-05-23 00:41:00	$18 a month is worth it if you want crystal clear pictures which does cost a lot of dough to bring too you ,satellite services dont come cheap and the signal has to travel a long way to get to you free from interuption and so forth which also cost money for sky to ensure thats all in place.For example the signal goes from sky tv in auckland up into optus b1 in space and from their back to the dish on your roof and theirs a 3 second delay now that may seem easy to do but believe me its harder and more sophisticated than it sounds hence why you pay a lot of $$$ to sky.	Hitech (9024)
456871	2006-05-23 00:48:00	Seems a waste of money to pay out $300 or $ 400 for a satellite receiver that can only get two free to air channels thats desperation to the extreme for two lousy channels,and a new dish which has to point in another direction, and more eye pollution with two dishes on your roof as well as skys, even though skys dish can get free to air its a lot of bother to get all that done for two channels.	Hitech (9024)
456872	2006-05-23 01:02:00	Seems a waste of money to pay out $300 or $ 400 for a satellite receiver that can only get two free to air channels thats desperation to the extreme for two lousy channels,and a new dish which has to point in another direction, and more eye pollution with two dishes on your roof as well as skys, even though skys dish can get free to air its a lot of bother to get all that done for two channels. I think you can use your sky dish to get TV 1 & 2 if you buy a reciever, but I agree that it is too expensive for only 2 channels. Perhaps if it was TV3 & Prime instead of TV 1 & 2.	Greven (91)
456873	2006-05-23 01:07:00	Seems a waste of money to pay out $300 or $ 400 for a satellite receiver that can only get two free to air channels exactly. goverment should have made all free to air tv free to air via satelite. mind you for peole flatting or moving houses a lot, sky sat becomes a much cheaper optoin. <cough> which kinda explains the price the contractors get paid <cough>.	tweak'e (69)
456874	2006-05-23 01:38:00	Pretty sure I got all the free-to-air channels (including 3 and Prime) for the 18 +/- bucks per month. We thought it was worthwhile cos an aerial wouldv'e cost us 300+ bucks to install.	Greg (193)
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