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[LUG] DVB-S via old Sky Disk [Linux + tvheadend]

 

So I've been fiddling a lot recently with adding full live TV
functionality to my standard all-singing-and-dancing RPi+Arch+Kodi box
of tricks image with great success: getting the latest tvheadend and
media_build git branches compiled and playing nicely with various dvb
adaptors was a bit of fight but I'm now pretty happy with the results
except for one last annoying issue.

Several people I know running these things (including me actually) have
an old Sky satellite dish still stuck on the wall which as far as I know
is functional - the LNB is still attached at least and I have the coax
cable terminated inside behind the TV. It would be nice to use those
dishes if at all possible.

Getting DVB-T/T2 adaptors functional on Linux wasn't too bad but the
DVB-S feed - if there even is one - from the satellite dish is proving
way more stubborn* and I am by no means an expert on satellite TV.
Obviously I've googled a fair bit and pored through some Sky forums but
getting a definitive answer is proving difficult.

Does anyone know for sure if an old Sky dish (as in, Sky ceased
provisioning the paid service X years ago but left all the kit in place)
can provide a working output that can be fed into a Linux machine?
Instructing the software to scan for free to air (is that FreeSat?)
transmissions on bird Astra 28.2ÂE seems to nearly get there, reporting
83 muxes and what seems to be the correct frequencies but can't resolve
any of the services into something usable.

I'm reasonably sure that all the software side of things is working fine
now but perhaps I need to do "something" to the dish? Can and do Sky
"disable" the dish somehow when you leave their service - I've read some
accounts that you can pay a leaving charge of Â20 and continue to
receive FreeSat channels but that's presumably using their old set top
box which I've long binned anyway, plus we left way before that was even
an option. But that wouldn't effect the actual dish still receiving
unencrypted signals would it? Perhaps I just need to pay a satellite
dude to come to my house and use some gadget to adjust it and make it
sure it's pointing in the correct direction?

Either way, I'd really like to know if these old Sky dishes can still be
of some use via a DVB-S adaptor into a Linux system. Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers


* in my case, it didn't work on the previous Win7 HTPC build either to
be fair
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