Do I still need my UHF aerial if I am using Sky Dish?

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Do I still need my UHF aerial if I am using Sky Dish?

firemanmark

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Topic # 230483 26-Feb-2018 09:02

Hi first time on here.

Reroofing my house and need to remove UHF aerial and sky dish to do so. Question is when i unplug the UHF aerial I can no longer get freeview channels on my other TV's, is it possible to have my freeview connected thru the Sky dish? I do not want to put the UHF aerial back up if I don't have to and they are ugly!

Thanks in advance. Let me know if you need any further info

Behodar

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Reply # 1964228 26-Feb-2018 09:13

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It's possible to get Freeview through the dish but it'll be poorer quality and will require a "DVB-S" receiver box for each TV.

cyril7

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Reply # 1964230 26-Feb-2018 09:15

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Hi, you could just use the sky dish, but you will need a DVB-S2 STB for each of the other TV's unless they have one built in, to be honest, probably easier to put it back up, not too sure of you location but you could possibly have it attached to the rear of the Sky dish so its less obtrusive. If you are relatively close to the transmitter and have a timber roof space area that is pointing in the direction of the Tx you could install it in the roof space.

Cyril

Aredwood

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Reply # 1964272 26-Feb-2018 09:18

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You will most likely need a freeview satellite set-top box for each TV. unless your Tv's also have an inbuilt satellite tuner. Note that satellite freeview is Not HD. And in Auckland at least not all freeview channels are broadcast on satellite.

Unless you also have Sky, get rid of the sky dish. And use UHF only. If the current UHF aerial is an old SKY one, you could probably replace it with a more compact one. My current UHF aerial is a similar size to a sky dish.

nzlegs

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Reply # 1964276 26-Feb-2018 09:25

The LNB located at the focus of the dish, requires power to operate. Television sets (with some exceptions) do not normally provide this power so if you connect the TV directly to the dish, you are using the coxial feeder as an aerial. That does not work too well
So yes, you will have to re install your UHF aerial up if you wish to retain backup FreeView DVB-T service.

Groucho

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Reply # 1964329 26-Feb-2018 11:13

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I agree, put the UHF back up and if you don't have Sky get rid of the dish. Freeview terrestrial (UHF) works on any digital TV without having to have a set top box, much better quality and no rain fade!

Groucho

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Reply # 1964331 26-Feb-2018 11:20

Actually if you decide not to have UHF, when they reinstall the dish make sure you get them to lay a second coax cable and cable tie it to the base of the dish to future proof. This gives you provision in the future that if you want/need UHF then all the cabling is already done.

Our neighbour did this the other way round incase they ended up with Sky in the future while they could lay nice internal cable within walls. Sky installers tend to do a rough as guts job drilling holes through and tacking coax to the exterior wall.

Goosey

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Reply # 1964377 26-Feb-2018 12:24

Groucho:

Actually if you decide not to have UHF, when they reinstall the dish make sure you get them to lay a second coax cable and cable tie it to the base of the dish to future proof. This gives you provision in the future that if you want/need UHF then all the cabling is already done.

Our neighbour did this the other way round incase they ended up with Sky in the future while they could lay nice internal cable within walls. Sky installers tend to do a rough as guts job drilling holes through and tacking coax to the exterior wall.

this and keep it. You can get UHF antenna that are small.

Will help with any re-sale percieved value of the home.

UHF freeview trumps sat freeview picture quality anyday.

Whats to say sky goes out of business and wants their dish back. :-) :-)

Apsattv

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Reply # 1964378 26-Feb-2018 12:25

Best solution try a cheap UHF indoor antenna if you are in a good reception area and don't want to put the rooftop antenna back up.

Option number 2 , remount the antenna inside the roof it can work well as long as you are in a good reception area.

rayonline

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Reply # 1964383 26-Feb-2018 12:29

Yup to the above.

Satellite Freeview isn't High Definition.

If you use the satellite dish, your TVs afaik doesn't work with it, they only work with UHF so you need a Freeview sat setup box.

firemanmark

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Reply # 1964507 26-Feb-2018 14:32

wow! Thanks for all the replies, I think I will just reinstall both the UHF & sky dish once I have re-roofed. Thanks for all the comments and helpful advice!