Does anyone have any experience of using / setting up? I'd like to bring my Sky box from home instead of the supplied box for the channel package I get at home. Can this be done?
Many thanks for all replies, all the best.
SB
------------- You're MOST Welcome To My World at www.themanupstairs.co.uk
I bought one not to long ago and think its very good. It is easy to set up after some practice (it must be if I can do it). Yes you can use it with your existing sky card.
Your Sky box will work fine, in fact the Maplin box will not give you Ch5 as that channel is currently not "Free To Air" so you still need a Sky box to watch "Free To View" channels, having said that, now that "Freesat" has launched, Ch5 will be "Free To Air" very soon, which is goood news for all none Sky satellite box users, have a look at the Dish size that came with your Maplin outfit, if it is smaller than a Sky mini-dish you will have problems with picture break up, I always advise to go for a min of 60cm to allow for signal loss from possible trees etc.
f you just want to watch Sky just buy an Sky dish, Ebay is a good source, and mount it on a tripod. From experience I can tell you a Sky dish is a lot easier to set up than the Maplins one, plus the Maplins one is borderline when you get north of the border in Scotland, and should it rain, when you just might need your TV, it does tend to get wiped out here around the north west.
The flip side of that tho is the Maplins receiver is much better than clunky Sky box's, but obviously you can,t get Sky, if you are happy enough with the stuff on Freview, I would buy the system and a sky dish as well. if your heart is set on receiving Sky, then you will just have to put up with its clunky tuning in system.
Some are going to disagree with me, but there wrong and I am right!!!!!!
I personally find it a piece of cake to set up. The compass that comes with the set is not much good though. If you select either Bonn or Berlin (I forget which) and then line the dish to Astra 2 it is more accurate than using London. However, I don't bother using a compass any more, just start facing the dish east (or further east than any other dishes around) then slowly turn it west until I get a picture.
just had 28 nights of fantastic tv with one of these.can be a bit of a pig to set up but once set up great.strange thing is all info says dish is to be at 20 degs backwards and it only works forward for me,or one inch forward at the top.also says find south and go east.i found it easier to find east and go south.(about 145deg compass).found it totally useless at york site because of high trees.now set up on the maplin box and change to sky box.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
Bought one of these today and tried it on a TV at home. Everything worked first time out of the box - including the ability to use my existing Sky box (plus card).
Alignment was pretty easy using supplied (albeit flimsy) compass. I set the dish to be vertical and pointed it to be due south, then just rotated the dish horizontally until a picture appeared (30 seconds later!). Took it all down and repeated the procedure and again (to prove it wasn't beginner's luck!) it all worked again no probs. Signal strength was always very good (as was the picture) so I left it at that with no further tweaking. I guess a clear sight to the satelite is the key to all this, so on a campsite things may not be so smooth.
Anyway, van is out again this coming weekend with (fingers crossed) no more unwatchable TV reception.
Thanks again to all who answered this thread and helped my decision - I owe you a pint!
SB
------------- You're MOST Welcome To My World at www.themanupstairs.co.uk
The dish size will not be a problem in the UK for the one you get with the kit. I used to plug a digibox in witha freesat card and it was fine. Ive now got a proper sky triax dish and tripod which i find more stable. The maplin dish hasnt got holes so is easy to dislodge in the wind. Ok for breezes but thats it.
Ive got the portable set to sell if anyone is interested.
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Topic: Anyone using a Maplins Portable Satellite
