Freesat

[sleepyhead]

A few of you remember me buying my mother a nice 32" LCD TV (Samsung A4 series). Anyhow, she was pretty happy with freeview and then they have done something to the region which means she has lost basically all the channels she watches (who'd watch BBC Parliment all day? ). The resolution is to install an upgraded arial, which most likely be rather difficult as she lives in a ground floor flat.

Anyhow, i was contemplating getting her a Freesat box and satellite dish and trying to do it myself. For sheer convenience sake, I had a look at Comet and for £80 they'll (I'll presume also supply) fit and install a satellite dish and set up the freesat box to the TV. I have no idea if this is good value or what, so some feedback would be great. The freesat box I am looking at is the "HUMAX FOXSAT-HD".

Thought/feedback would be most welcome.

[Paulm@scan]

I got given a HUMAX from my father as the ariel in my new house seems to be Compromised but there was a Sat connection and dish already installed from previous occupants. The HD channels on my 40" Samsung looks sweet atmost temping me to invest in Sky HD similar to FreeView really on the other channels, its something I wouldnt buy its was just a solution to my signal problem and it was free.

[AntiTalent]

My dad just installed freesat himself a couple months ago.

He bought the kit with the dish and box for ~£60, but then needed to buy a sat-finder as well, and took him a fair while to find the satellite etc.

I'd be tempted to go for the install-option, as it's easier to have a pro set it up for you in a couple of hours than have to constantly go back and forth from looking for the answers online/buying extra bits.

I'd try to checkout the box somewhere first though, my mum has enough trouble getting to grips with the sky remote and menus, if you're worried about that aspect it's worth having a look first. Shame Comet's order only these days.

[Bunjiweb]

I wouldn't let a Comet engineer near my house, I would do it myself, get yourself a compass to make sure you are pointing the dish in the right direction but otherwise it is actually quite easy to set up.

As far as the boxes go the Humax is supposed to be the best but the user interface still takes quite a bit of getting used to. The Humax boxes also receive over 300 Free-To-Air channels, not much use to most people but it gives access to foreign channels, sports channels and others if you sift through all the adult and religious channels.

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Ben