Sky/Freesat Question (1 Viewer)

[Stewart J]

We have an old sky box connected to a new TV in our loft, the sky card is for the free services which are quite restricted. I'm thinking of hooking up our MH HD Freesat box to the Sky dish but would like to be able to also use the sky box as it has a feed to our kitchen TV via a magic eye.

Can I couple both boxes together obviously only using one at a time and what sort of splitter would I require?

 

[Geo]

I am struggling to figure out what you want to watch and where, and why a motor home would be conected to a house sky dish you will need a very long cable
But if I assume your bringing the sat box into the house and putting it somewhere next to the sky box then its simply a matter of giving the sat box a signal ie satelite cable splitter is all thats reqd
Where you send the signal too and how is another matter entirely

 

[Stewart J]

MH is in storage when I'm at sea for 4 weeks at a time, all valuables have to be removed hence freesat receiver is sat here in the house doing nothing.

Have just purchased a new 32 inch Samsung flat-screen, sky fee stuff is as said restrictive and being an old box is via scart cable. Our MH freesat box is HD via HDMI, OH has suggested we rig it alongside sky box to get the full HD benefit,obviously as sky magic eye will not work the freesat box we'd need to retain use of both. (We only use the loft during spring and summer 5 months or so and have a pay to view sky package for rooms in front of house) Moving sky+ receiver from living room to loft is a no-no as OH likes to retire early and watch sky though this via magic eye.

Perhaps I did not make my query clear but can I connect both sky and freesat through same dish connection and if so what sort of splitter/connection is required. oh:

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[400ixl]

You can't use a splitter as far as I am aware as the LNB needs to be able to switch between vertical and horizontal and cannot do both at the same time across two devices. Your sky+ box should already have two LNB's and cable due to this.

You need a spare LNB output (check it is not already available as ours has 4 outputs) on the dish to run a new cable to the Freesat box. Maybe two if it has twin tuners for recording as well if you want to use that feature.

 

[Satandpcguy]

Some of the Humax Freesat HD range have a "loop thru" / LNB out cable...so would assume you can connect that to the sky box. No splitter required.

But with a "splitter", splitting one cable to two receivers can damage the receivers and LNB - especially if both receivers are turned on at the same time, and you will not be able to use both at the same time watching channesl on different polarisations. That said, any satellite cable splitter will do the trick.

Why not get another cable feeds from the LNB to the kitchen, and set up the sky box there?
The Sky box with a "free to view card" only gets a handful more channels...and if rumours are correct the "fives" will be on Freesat by the end of the year also, as opposed to being on "freesatfromsky" only. Or forget about the Freesat HD altogether - looking at the listings still less than half of programmes on 5 of the 7 free HD channels are actually made in HD!