my aerial is plugged into a satellite dish, how do i get signal without a sky subscription?

[burntcopper]

The aerial in the new place I'm renting is wired into a sky satellite dish but as I don't have a sky tv subscription (just broadband) is there a way to get a signal?  My tv isn't picking up any channels and neither is the freeview box.

[oldfella]

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@burntcopper wrote:

The aerial in the new place I'm renting is wired into a sky satellite dish but as I don't have a sky tv subscription (just broadband) is there a way to get a signal?  My tv isn't picking up any channels and neither is the freeview box.

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Hi @burntcopper 

Your TV needs a terrestrial aerial to get any channels and will pick up nothing ftom a Satellite dish.

Likewise your Freeview box also needs terrestrial aerial signals (unless of course it is a Freesat box and not freeview)

[TimmyBGood]

@burntcopper 

Where there's a Q LNB on a dish, only a Sky Q box (with a Sky subscription) or a Freesat 4K box will receive a signal through it.  A typical television set satellite tuner, old Sky+ HD box or non-4K Freesat box cannot do so.

As @oldfella indicates, a digital terrestrial ('Freeview')television tuner needs a bent metal aerial (antenna) rather than a dish: as the name implies it receives signals broadcast from a land-based mast rather than an orbital platform.

Some television sets will have both a satellite and terrestrial receiver on-board: typically satellite has a screw thread while terrestrial is push to fit.

[Chodley]

Yeah the satellite dish cable (which this will be) and the terrestrial aerial cable both look similar but are completely incompatible

worth looking into getting a freesat box which can use the dish (bearing in mind the Q vs traditional LNB point above means the box and LNB have to be compatible) and has much the same content.