Freesat dish help, please.

A work colleague just moved into a new house and he wanted Freesat HD but
fancied dodging the installation fee as the house already had a dish of
unknown age on it. He checked and it still had cable attached, and low and
behold it worked a charm. Now I fancy doing the same thing....I've seen a
good price on a box but the installation fee is prohibitively expensive for
me at the moment, but my house also has a dish on it. My neighbour informs
me that the previous owner got the dish in the mid 90's for SKY. It's
definitely not ancient....like one of those huge white 80's jobs, and nor is
it as small as a modern tiny one....but it's a smallish-medium sized black
jobby....and there is good condition cabling off it coming into the house.
Should this work with Freesat...does it all work on the same principles as
1990's SKY TV?

Sorry if this is a dumb question.....but I know naff all about Satellite TV.

Thanks for any help.

Ecky Thump wrote:
A work colleague just moved into a new house and he wanted Freesat HD but
fancied dodging the installation fee as the house already had a dish of
unknown age on it. He checked and it still had cable attached, and low and
behold it worked a charm. Now I fancy doing the same thing....I've seen a
good price on a box but the installation fee is prohibitively expensive for
me at the moment, but my house also has a dish on it. My neighbour informs
me that the previous owner got the dish in the mid 90's for SKY. It's
definitely not ancient....like one of those huge white 80's jobs, and nor is
it as small as a modern tiny one....but it's a smallish-medium sized black
jobby....and there is good condition cabling off it coming into the house.
Should this work with Freesat...does it all work on the same principles as
1990's SKY TV?

If it was erected pre 1998, then it'll be aligned on the wrong satellite, and
will almost certainly have the wrong LNB (that's the pick up device on the end
of the arm that the downlead is connected to). The LNB will need changing, the
dish realigning, and for good measure the cable replacing too. The dish itself
should be OK, providing all the fixings haven't rusted solid (which they
probably have).

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

On Nov 14, 2:08*am, "Ecky Thump" wrote:
A work colleague just moved into a new house and he wanted Freesat HD but
fancied dodging the installation fee as the house already had a dish of
unknown age on it. He checked and it still had cable attached, and low and
behold it worked a charm. Now I fancy doing the same thing....I've seen a
good price on a box but the installation fee is prohibitively expensive for
me at the moment, but my house also has a dish on it. My neighbour informs
me that the previous owner got the dish in the mid 90's for SKY. It's
definitely not ancient....like one of those huge white 80's jobs, and nor is
it as small as a modern tiny one....but it's a smallish-medium sized black
jobby....and there is good condition cabling off it coming into the house..
Should this work with Freesat...does it all work on the same principles as
1990's SKY TV?

Sorry if this is a dumb question.....but I know naff all about Satellite TV.

Thanks for any help.

Just FYI, empiredirect.co.uk do installation (including new dish etc)
for £79.99.
http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/conten...freesatbox.htm
Seems an OK deal to me.

Matt

"larkim" wrote in message
...
Just FYI, empiredirect.co.uk do installation (including new dish etc)
for £79.99.
http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/conten...freesatbox.htm
Seems an OK deal to me.

I can't imagine what sort of people will go round installing dishes at that
price. When you take out the VAT and materials there's bugger all left. I
wonder how this works . . .

Am I reading this right?

£79.99 is £68 plus tax
Dish with LNB is £10
Cable, plugs, clips, fixings, etc £3

£55 gross profit.

I suppose it's do-able, but it would need to be something like 9 installs
per 8 hour day, and even then it wouldn't pay well.

I well remember my days contract aerial rigging. We wouldn't give the
customer an extra yard of cable, we refused cups of tea because of the time
they took to drink, and we learnt to give elderly customers the bill at the
start of the job because of the time they took to write a cheque.
Installations were nasty, brutish, and short. It was, in the immortal words
of Paul Whitehouse, 'A young man's game'. I saw one of my 1970s installs
yesterday. The house could see Emley, so I'd used one foot of mast! That was
the normal thing to do. After all, masts cost 30p.

These days I take as long connecting everything up in the house and showing
the customer which buttons to press as I do outside. It makes the job more
expensive but fortunately my customers are all well-heeled (dustbin men etc)
so they can afford it.

Bill

Go to Tesco, other stores have the offer, you get Sky normal box with
instalation of dish for £75.
After install buy a Freesat HD and replace the Sky box with it. Or stick
with the Sky box for normal free stations.

Think the same/similar offer on Sky web site £150 'ish.


--
Regards,
David

Please reply to News Group

PS
Here it is,
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-2953.aspx

all you got to remember is towards the end of first 4 months cancel the DD
and the £20 per month will not start.

--
Regards,
David

Please reply to News Group

Borrow you mate's freesat box, and see if your disk works?

In article ,
says...
A work colleague just moved into a new house and he wanted Freesat HD but
fancied dodging the installation fee as the house already had a dish of
unknown age on it. He checked and it still had cable attached, and low and
behold it worked a charm. Now I fancy doing the same thing....I've seen a
good price on a box but the installation fee is prohibitively expensive for
me at the moment, but my house also has a dish on it. My neighbour informs
me that the previous owner got the dish in the mid 90's for SKY. It's
definitely not ancient....like one of those huge white 80's jobs, and nor is
it as small as a modern tiny one....but it's a smallish-medium sized black
jobby....and there is good condition cabling off it coming into the house.
Should this work with Freesat...does it all work on the same principles as
1990's SKY TV?

Sorry if this is a dumb question.....but I know naff all about Satellite TV.

Thanks for any help.

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"larkim" wrote in message
...
Just FYI, empiredirect.co.uk do installation (including new dish etc)
for £79.99.
http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/conten...freesatbox.htm
Seems an OK deal to me.

I can't imagine what sort of people will go round installing dishes at
that price. When you take out the VAT and materials there's bugger all
left. I wonder how this works . . .

Am I reading this right?

£79.99 is £68 plus tax
Dish with LNB is £10
Cable, plugs, clips, fixings, etc £3

£55 gross profit.


That's not enough profit for you I take it? In answer to the question you
posed, people with a more reasonable view on what their skills and time is
worth....perhaps? :/

I'm a nurse and graft my arse off for, I presume, less than
you.....obviously I'm in the wrong game.

"Slitheen" wrote in message
...
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
£55 gross profit.


That's not enough profit for you I take it? In answer to the question you
posed, people with a more reasonable view on what their skills and time is
worth....perhaps? :/

I'm a nurse and graft my arse off for, I presume, less than
you.....obviously I'm in the wrong game.

The £55 is gross profit. My overheads run at 55% of gross. Basically, like
every other business I charge what the market will stand. So do you.

As a nurse you have the enormous gratitude of the public, but unfortunately
gratitude does not pay the bills. If all you want is a good rate of pay then
yes, you are in the wrong game. Rates of pay are not set by fairness or
moral worth; they are set by market forces. For some reason the employers
are able to find enough people willing to be nurses at the present pay
rates. So the present pay rates apply. It's no good getting wound up about
it. Either accept it or get out.

When I look at hospital car parks with their reserved free spaces for
consultants and the payment spaces round the corner for the nurses it makes
me very angry.

On a personal level I am always amazed at the hard work and compassion shown
by nurses. Don't they ever get compassion fatigue for God's sake? I have
over the years found various ways of circumventing the NHS ban on
gratuities. That doesn't make it right, but it's all an individual can do.
The main difficulty is the risk of appearing to be patronising.

Bill

As a nurse you have the enormous gratitude of the public, but unfortunately
gratitude does not pay the bills. If all you want is a good rate of pay then
yes, you are in the wrong game.

Actually, the game is the right one, but the country is the wrong
one! Nurses in the US get paid much better, from what I understand.

John