Sky installation - advice needed

[2SkodaFamily]

Hi,

 

We will soon be moving into a new build house, and I'll need Sky installing.

 

Virtually all of the rooms have an ordinary freeview feed into them going to wall sockets. I assume that these points all join up to the aerial or at some point in the loft.

 

Is there any way of utilising this installation for the Sky feed, or will I have to drill and route all the cables separately? I presume that for Sky to more than a bog standard single box installation will cost £££?

 

The builder mentioned using a magic eye but AFAIK these operate on the basis of sending the signal from one Sky box to (potentially) several TVs, not having independent signals and the ability to choose in each room?

 

In my existing house, the layout meant that the dish was about 9ft up, meaning I could reach it with a step ladder easily enough to change the LNB and add cabling as & when. The new house will probably require the dish to be on the chimney and I'm not going up there!

 

 

[Tall]

Sky needs two cables to work it's "watch one channel and record another" service, so the cable tends to be "shotgun", ie two cores on one cable. Your new house almost definitely won't have this, so you'll need to run two coax's (or a shotgun) cable from the Sky dish to anywhere you want to have a Sky box working with Sky Plus. You can get Sky dishes with multiple outputs, so one dish can feed multiple boxes. Our dish has 8 feeds, so it can feed 4 Sky boxes, but it was already fitted when we moved in, so I don't know if this is a standard fit or not.

You can run multiple tv's from one Sky box, but all tv's only show the same programme. You can also connect a magic eye to each secondary tv, giving you full control of the Sky box from that location. You might need a Sky compatible amplifier/splitter for this, depending on how many tv's, and the length of cable. The other thing to bear in mind is that the feed to all secondary tv's work by analogue, so you need to "tune the station in", which AFAIK is only possible if your tv is old enough to have an analogue tuner, not just a digital one.

We have similar to you, ie single coax cables built in from loft ariel to 4 rooms, and have used the cable like this... Firstly we have Sky Plus in our lounge, fed by a shotgun cable drilled through the wall, from the dish on the roof. We connected the analogue out of the Sky box to the existing built-in cable, disconnected the other end of the cable from the ariel in the loft, fitted a splitter, and used the existing cable to supply the other tv's (we have two working, and a third wired). The picture is perfectly good on the secondary tv's, but not absolutely brilliant. The down side is we don't have a terrestrial tv ariel connected now, but we use Sky all the time anyway.

Obviously if you want to watch different channels in different rooms, this won't work, you'll need extra cabling depending on whether you want Freeview or Sky.

[2SkodaFamily]

Sky have said that their standard install fee - quoted to me as (unbelievably) £25 - includes installation of the dish and boxes (note the plural). So hopefully they will install all four boxes as part of the install.

[Tall]

If you're getting them to install mutiple boxes, and therefore paying an extra monthly fee for them all, then haggle for free installation. And some M&S vouchers too.

[gadgetman]

If it's a new build house, most will have clauses preventing a dish until the development has been finished, so check your deeds first

[2SkodaFamily]

If it's a new build house, most will have clauses preventing a dish until the development has been finished, so check your deeds first

This is the last house to be finished. It's a bit unusual as it's an old coal yard that has had a house (ours) and three cottages added, rather than a standard development. I've spoken to the builder about Sky and he didn't mention any covenants.

[2SkodaFamily]

And - Sky have confirmed that the £25 installation is for the dish and all boxes to be installed.

[mannyo]

You may need to make Sky aware the dish is likely to require chimney mounting as there standard install teams will not work that high. They will need to send out their special heights team to complete the install.

 

I've seen several chimney mounts and all have been unsightly as they simply drop the cables down the roof tiles and tack to the outside wall. They then drill through the external wall at an appropriate point for where you want the TV. With four boxes you'll likely have 8 cores of cable coming from the dish and entering different points on the external walls.

 

The freeview cabling is not compatible with satellite signals.

[2SkodaFamily]

You may need to make Sky aware the dish is likely to require chimney mounting as there standard install teams will not work that high. They will need to send out their special heights team to complete the install.

 

I've seen several chimney mounts and all have been unsightly as they simply drop the cables down the roof tiles and tack to the outside wall. They then drill through the external wall at an appropriate point for where you want the TV. With four boxes you'll likely have 8 cores of cable coming from the dish and entering different points on the external walls.

Yes, it will almost certainly be a chimney install, as I think that's the only south-facing point.

[rickf]

I work for sky. Feel free to PM me if yoy need any help

[2SkodaFamily]

Terrific. Thank you Rickf