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Freesat from the BBC & ITV

Freesat - too late?

Freesat's much delayed launch has now taken place after several year's wait. But with so much notice, Sky easily got one step ahead. Sky enticed many who don't want to pay rental by shrewdly introducing its own 'Freesat' system as long ago as October 2004. Although the BBC already owned the name 'Freesat', Sky dodged that problem by calling its offering Freesat-from-Sky.

But now Freesat has arrived, is it worth considering? Well, if you want Christian TV and Radio, the answer has to be not yet. Only when Freesat has as many Christian stations as Sky will that answer change. Your opinion might differ because Freesat offers High Definition TV, but the purpose of this site is to help you get the most Christian channels with ease of use which, for now, means Freesat-from-Sky.

Manual Tuning - worth it?

Now you can, technically, get all the Christian channels on Freesat right now - but not via its EPG, so you can't simply press a channel number on the remote for your favourite station. Instead, you have to manually tune any additional channel you want - which will be too tedious for many viewers.
To manually tune you'll need each channel's frequency details and thankfully, Christian TV provide those for Christian channels at www.christiantv.org.uk/html/channels.html. But, don't be surprised if after a few months one of the channels you've tuned in manually just disappears! Channel frequencies get changed from time to time, and when they do you'll have to retune. This is not something I'd want to be bothered with when any Sky box is automatically updated with frequency changes - you don't know it's happened because the channel number stays the same.
But, if you do have Freesat and want to manually tune in the Christian channels, see how below. These instructions were kindly provided by Richard Mallett.

Only four Christian Channels so far

I had really hoped that Freesat would encourage Christian channels onto its lineup, but to date, only Inspiration TV, Daystar, Revelation TV and Trans World Radio have made it. Other Christian broadcasters would like to be included, so what's holding them back? As usual, it's cost.
This is what one UK Christian radio station told me when I asked them about Freesat....

"Yes we would like to be on the Freesat epg. We are waiting for the costs at the moment. We would like to be on there but we may not be able to justify it until the number of users is proven to be at a certain level. It's annoying that our channel is already broadcast from the Eurobird satellite so all we are paying for is to be included on a data stream...and it costs so much. We are optimistic that this should be a winner but all these new platforms do increase our costs and we need to be careful that costs don't run away from us. God will provide for what needs to be done, we just need to listen. Please pray."

So it could be some time before many Christian broadcasters can justify joining Freesat's EPG.

Freesat Channel Lists

• Freesat lists the Christian Channels under Special Interest on its website.
• For a full numbered list of Freesat channels check out Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_channels_on_Freesat.

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How to manually tune a Freesat box

All the details in this section have been kindly provided by Richard Mallett.
My Freesat receiver is a Goodmans box sold by Argos (see www.goodmansdigital.co.uk ) and other High Street retailers and is also available under the Bush and Grundig brand names though the underlying electronics are identical.

To Manually tune in a new channel on Freesat you do the following....

1. Go into the Settings menu	2. Select Add non-Freesat Services
3. Then select Manual Tune	4. Then a list appears, showing the Frequency, Symbol Rate and LNB Polarisation (i.e. vertical or horizontal) and other technical details. You can change these values by typing them in with the remote control
5. A green bar then shows the signal strength	6. When the receiver has found a channel you will see a preview of it in the top right hand corner
7. Start the channel search using the remote control	8. When the search stops it will automatically store any channels it finds and tells you how many in the Services added table
9. The process is now complete so exit the menu to return to normal viewing

Tips

• Note that the receiver will store all the channels that it finds on a given frequency, including ones that you may not want
• The channel numbers start at '3000'
• The frequency details for various channels can be found in Satellite TV listings magazines available from certain newsagents shops
• Unfortunately, you cannot go directly to a particular channel, nor use the on-screen guide or add them to the Favourites menu, but in time the manufacturer will probably update the software to enable these features (all Satellite receivers automatically download software updates when available)
• The only selection method available at present is the channel up/down buttons on the remote control

As you can see, its not a task for the novice but until more broadcasters join the Freesat service this is a new way of getting Christian channels without having to pay any subscription.

Many thanks to Richard Mallet for all the above Freesat tuning details and Tips.

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