DavidBrown

OK. So I've got the relatively easy plug-and-play Sky installation.

What about getting channels like Rai Uno and other European stations ?

Is that Eurocrypt / Videocrypt or D2MAC ?

Do I need a separate dish ?

BarryK

As I understand it, after looking into it and deciding it would be an expensive hobby, the standard 30cm dish is useless for other than sky digital. This is also true of the decoder supplied "free" with sky digital it has the minimum wavelengths to receive Astra1D or whatever its called nowadays.

Ideally you want a minimum 50cm, or bigger if you can call your house Jodrell Bank, dish
and it should be motorised so you can point it where you want.

Then you need a digital (that's where they're all going) decoder that has more stations. It's a bit like the difference between a cheap tranny and a more expensive tuner for radio.

Finally you need some decryption cards. Now here the law gets very odd. If the service you get "snide" decryption cards for is not available by subscription here, then there is little/nothing the broadcaster can do about it (unless things have changed) so cards are very easy to get hold of, cheaply.

Best bet is to get some What Satellite type mags, trawl the net, get clued up then go to a sattelite installer and tell'em what you want. Most advertise a bundle of cards with the installation and upgrades as appropriate for a fiver or whatever.

When I looked about 2/3 years ago, a motorised dish could be had installed for about £150 to £200 and the sort of super decoder you'd want was around £600 plus.

I decided it was all a bit much to teach myself Italian, German or Scandinavian.

RichB

...and there was me thinking you were getting into the broadcasting game

mega_stream

I've got a 1metre motorised dish with a universal lnb, Philips d2mac decoder and pace 508ip receiver for sale if your interested, It'll pick up analogue satellite channels no probs.

E-mail me if interested.