Sky digiboxes... (how to pick up 1000's of channels)

Someone at work asked me if I knew how to get billions of channels on telly, For instance watching stuff like footy on the box or american channels etc, does anyone know the code or frequency to tune digiboxes into?

That wont work with a sky digi box. Yes, I know exactly how to do it, but I need to take a shower and get some work done. Ill give you a much more thorough explanation later. Oh, and you wont get ANY american TV broadcast to america, however you can get AFN (american forces network).

I currently get over 5000 channels, including all 3pm kick offs.

Right, excuse the waffling, and im sure you'll have a dozen more questions:

Your first concern is how to pick up the satellites. For this you have two options, a fixed dish or a dish on a motor.

With a fixed dish you can pick up 2 satellites at once by using a dual monoblock lnb, which essesntially is staggered by 6 degrees allowing it to pick up to satellites from one dish, the most common set up is to pick up Hotbird 13E and Astra1 19.5E. This will provide you with around 1000 channels.

The second option is to fit a motor, this will allow you to move the dish to pick up anything within your view, typically 45E to 45W, around 14 satellites with decent content.

If you go with a fixed dish, you will need a 90cm dish, if you want a motor, 80cm will do. Largest you can currently fit without planning permission is 110cm.

Next, how to view these signals. You will need a receiver, sky digi boxes are no good for this task, since they are pretty firmly fixed to just working on sky channels (for the techies, you can't do transponder scans). So you need to pick something up, like a Dreambox. you can get a dreambox 500 off ebay for about £100, but beware chinese copies, they overheat and die.

So, you have dish, you have satellites received, you have a box, but how on earth do you decrypt the channels, for that I'm not willing to discuss on an open forum, however if anyone gets this far and wishes to discuss, feel free to PM me.

Cost wise, you're look at about £100 for dish, lnb, wall bracket. About £100 for fitting (get it done PROPERLY or you are liable if the dish falls off and hurts someone), about £100 for the dreambox.

Is it worth the hassle? I would say yes, english-wise we now have about 80 movie channels, 2 or 3 which are PPV (watched dark knight etc last week), they all carry english audio. Get around 200 sports channels, including all saturday 3pm kick offs, no more need for setanta! most carry english commentry. And of course, pr0n wise there's about 250 channels, around 100 hardcore.

The main benefit for us the missus now gets her Flemish TV, which frankly was the only way I could justify the expense and hassle!

So if you have at least £300 spare, dont mind a VERY steep learning curve and have a lot of patience, I would highly recommend it. If you're the sort of person that expects it all to "just work", then leave it well alone.

For 300 quid you got free football, 250 porn channels and a happy wife? Im going to look into this!

if I can ween myself off Sky+ and accept the loss of Sky HD, we might cancel our sky subscription altogether.

Once you get all the stuff, its all free right?

Yes, just not completely legal.

would a sky dish work with their lnb (im trying to cost cut here!!!) and a new dreamcast?

dreambox, not dreamcast.

And no, the dish isn't big enough to pick up the additional satellites, also, the lnb will not work on all transponders.

Yes, just not completely legal.

Bloocks. Why does Ronald rule book always spoil my fun? (Not that he's ever stopped me before lol.) Might check this out.

Would only recommend getting involved with this if you have sound knowledge of

a) satellite technology

b) internet and firewalls

c) unix operating systems

you will very quickly become stuck if you try to go this alone thinking its easy, however, there are LOADS of decent forums around to turn to when you do get stuck, but its a VERY steep learning curve

Just to reiterate something on this thread, none of what I've talked about is illegal, the illegal part is the decryption of the channels, which absolutely will not be discussed on this forum (in fact, contrary to my earlier post don't even PM me).

So how much would you charge to give a personal visit ?

So how much would you charge to give a personal visit ?

Return air fare, £3k spends, free board, beer and food.

Thanks for the invite mate!

By the way, I know very little about satellite technology but I could change the plug for you?

Sorry ESB but changing a plug here in NZ is as ilegal as what Baj was talking about All and any electrical work must be carried out by a NZ certified electrician so unless

you pass your NZ exam.....

Oh well, at least I offered!

Almost sod all you can pick up in NZ, even most the Oz tv is narrowbeamed so it doesnt reach NZ

You can get

Intelsat 701 at 180.0°E

Sky Pacific

Optus D1 at 160.0°E

Sky Newzealand

so unless you pass your NZ exam.....

Are those the ones where you pass if spell your name correctly ?