Freeview, channel changes ... are you going to have to re-tune?

[#1]

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@shutter wrote:

@TeeGee  If you still have your satellite dish... you may find you have better reception on FREESAT... google it, and see what you need... or you may be able to find a "satellite tuner" box, that you can tune yourself into various other European satellites

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I am no stranger to satellite. Before the building work I had a 1m dish with motor drive.  Maybe I can fit a small dish somewhere but have to make do with Sky GO and BT Sport on an iPad.  Could be worse!

[#2]

Fitted own dish to receive Free sat,   Fitted dish with quad LNB,  TV uses one channel from tuner and a Humax box uses two so can record two programmes at once while watching another.  Took me a while to get my head around how a satellite dish works, you need a cable for each device and unlike an aerial where it receives all channels at once, with satellite the receiving device tells the LNB which channel to tune into, so each input on the humax box ( 2 ) needs its own cable from the LNB and the TV needs another cable,  wondered why you can get LNB with eight receivers and now I know.

Freesat quality much better than terrestrial freeview we get from aerial, and a lot more channels.  Paid about £50 for 60cm dish, about £35 for decent quality quad LNB and about £50 in good quality cable and fittings, £180 for Humax 500Gb twin input recorder so just over £400 total in parts and my spare time to fit dish.

[#3]

I will be getting a dish put up next week so partly back to normal. There is a retune due for Winter Hill on 7th March so that will be interesting to see where BBC1 NW appears in the programme guide. The good thing about satallite is that all the UK regions are available wherever you live. Next step is a second dish for my "office" to cover the European satellites at 13E and 19E.  as you cannot easily get all three on the same dish without a motor.

[#4]

With so much on-line streaming these days I must say I'm a little surprised at folks not only still using a dish, but installing them as well. Granted there are still areas where a dish is the only option, but there cannot be many surely so what am I missing? 

[#5]

@Minivanman  "what am I missing?"   well from my point of view.... if your internet goes down, , you lose your phone, and your telly as well, as the internet.... .... so having the independence of Free to Air t.v.. such as Freeview, or the still functioning Satellite systems... you will be missing your favourite progs... Plus... If you can hack it, you can get a lot of interesting stuff on the satellite dishes, that is NOT available on the internet streaming tv stations, or Freeview..

[#6]

Ah right, there is that, but we also have an aerial in situ so...

As for those dishes, well you can only pick up those satellies it can 'see' as far as I know, so any 'over the horizon' are not going the give you a signal. 

PS. Our phone is via the internet as well, but in case of a power cut we keep a spare phone that can be plugged into the old land line socket which of course still works. 

Gotta keep connected 

[#7]

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@Minivanman wrote:

PS. Our phone is via the internet as well, but in case of a power cut we keep a spare phone that can be plugged into the old land line socket which of course still works. 

Gotta keep connected 

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@Minivanman

ISTR, BICBW, that you ditched your copper line (money-saving) soon after you got FTTP and started using VoIP?

[#8]

If you use VOIP, you'll need a UPS - assuming that the internet isn't totally broken.

[#9]

I did @RobPN and it's one heck of a lot cheaper to phone overseas plus, only a £5 hosting fee. You may recall I was a bit miffed when PN increased my internet charge when I ditched that line (which still works for outgoing calls) - but there you go, I'm still quids in.

Are land lines becoming old hat in the age of VoIP and mobiles? Seems so. 

[#10]

@VileReynard

Indeed, which is why I keep a spare phone! 

[#11]

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@Minivanman wrote:

... we keep a spare phone that can be plugged into the old land line socket which of course still works. 

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@RobPN wrote:

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...  you ditched your copper line ...

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@Minivanman wrote:

I did 

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 @Minivanman

Which leaves me wondering how your old landline socket still works?

(Wouldn't want you to rely on it and then find that it's dead in your hour of need)

[#12]

Well it is @RobPN and I have just checked it again as you mentioned it - but then why should it not work? But then even so, we do have our mobiles - or rather the Mrs does, I just keep a old one in the car for emergencies.

[#13]

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@Minivanman wrote:

Well it is @RobPN and I have just checked it again as you mentioned it - but then why should it not work?.

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@Minivanman

That seems strange to me.  Presumably if PN ceased it when you requested them to, they stopped billing you which is what you wanted.

Can you actually make a call via the landline or is it just dial tone?

If you can make a call, try dialling 17070 which is the BT test facility.  I've not used that for ages, but that will read out the telephone number of the line and offer you various test services.

[#14]

Well the line does not belong to PN, it belongs to BT?

No response from that number, just getting the dial tone so I guess I'd better not rely on it.

Thanks for the heads up.