Free to air Satelite TV

[davo453]

I live in a rural area and can't pick up free to air TV with an aerial, We have Foxtel but with the world cup coming up and having missed all of the Commonwealth games and the Olympics, I'd like to be able to see the free channels.

I'm told (by the Foxtel installer) that the Foxtel dish points at the right satellite to get free to air TV, there are quite a few decoders available on eBay for not much money ($80-150).

My question is what do I need to look for in a decoder and were do I get the decoder card from?

Cheers


Dave

[bitingmidge]

Try this mob for starters, but there are a few doing the rounds. I don't know them from a bar of soap, but they are the first that comes to mind.

http://www.videosat.com.au/

cheers,

P

[Iain]

Make sure that the decoder is compatable and has a working card slot, not all require a card.
You also require a K band decoder for the Optus Aurora service you are referring to and you also need to get an authorisation on the card when purchased from Optus or one of its agents.
If you already have foxtel can't you get them to activate free to air or isn't that an option now?
If you need to run two decoders you will need a satellite splitter, not a normal TV splitter, still cost bugger all but operate on a much higher frequency.
Is it an option to whip out the foxtel card from the present decoder and insert the Optus Aurora card, some decoders also have dual card slots.
For FAQ look at this site...
http://www.optus.com.au/portal/site/personal/menuitem.9b38bb3dfffbeae30f7416058c8ac7a0/?vgnextoid=623de935ba0e8010VgnVCM10000029867c0aRCRD
And finally (as an edit) I do not recall the polarity of Aurora and foxtel but if they conflict you cannot run both unless the dish is fitted with a dual polarity LNB which is dominant voltage activated, if they are both the same not a problem but if not you could need to run another coax run or another LNB to overcome the problem or install another dish should you wish to run both decoders at the same time.