@PhilCo wrote:
I am amazed at some of the advice people received from 'professionals' with regard to using old sky dishes with freesat 4k boxes.
A wideband version is a myth.
A wideband LNB on the sat dish is what this refers to. The wideband LNB is only required if you want to record multiple programmes simultaneously. The reason for this is that some channels are horizontal signals & some vertical. A standard LNB can do one or the other but not at the same time, you can record only one programme at a time.
A wideband LNB has more than one cable coming from it so it can record H & V at the same time.
Hope this info helps.
It is slightly more nuanced than this.
The older universal LNBs use a combination of supply voltage & a 22KHz tone to select Polarity & a band of frequencies (high/low) so at any one time a single cable may have approx 1/4 of the channels
This switching mechanism allows a single cable to be used but the channels available at the same time via that cable are thus restricted to the current selected polarity & band.
Many receivers, however, using the older Universal LNBs often do have 2 inputs thus allowing 2 of these different polarities/bands to be selected & thus recording from a different selection.
The wideband LNBS do not have any switching as such to provide the Polarity & thus always need 2 outputs - one for each polarity .
As per the name they also supply both the high & low bands at the same time - hence called wideband .
Thus each cable provides approx 1/2 of the channels.
It then depends on the tuners in the box as to how many channels can be recorded /watched at the same time
Some boxes - such as the FReesat 4K boxes - can work with either type of LNB
