Please help I am moving to mayo!

kiteflyer2002

Hi everyone, hope you can help me !
My family and I will shortly be moving to Mayo from London.
Part of the deal will be that my wife can still watch Eastenders and I have rashly promised the kids satellite telly.
What options do I have to consider?
What in your opinions would be the best thing to do?
Is there anything I can bring with me to make the process easier or less expensive?
Also any advice on a good ISP for me to connect to the web with, once we are settled in would be welcomed!
Thanks
Bob

dmeehan

second subscribe to sky in Ireland, BBC is included on the Sky Family pack which costs €26.99 a month

spongebob

make SURE you get your SKY FTV card before you leave the UK, they will only accept orders from UK addresses.

Otherwise its NTL analogues MMDS (Microwave TV as they call it in Mayo God Help Us) for you if you want ITV / C4

You can pick UK Terrestrials up along the north mayo coast and around Ballina with a bigger than usual aerial.

M

irishgeo

what part of mayo. If its castlebar chorus dug up the streets about a year ago but never heard anything about it since.

Broadband is avilable in Ballina and there is a wireless broadband trila in westport.

Westport and castlebar have been promisied broandband by the goverment but anywhere else and your screwed on a 56k line.

Sorry for been off topic but he did ask and i am only tring to help.

DMC

I'm sure that Eircom have been selling i-stream broadband in Castlebar and Westport for some months now.

I'm not sure if kiteflyer2002 has Sky Digital in London, so am I right in saying that this might be the first time getting Sky? If so, see if you can get your hands on an FTV card from London, you will then get BBC and ITV London regions. Tips on how to do this are here on the Clarity FTV thread.

HTH,

DMC.

Krusty_Clown

In fact, if you could see your way to getting a couple of hundred FTV cards before you come over, we'll be waiting at your house when you arrive over, with open arms and fruit baskets...

Reassure your wife and kids that availability of Eastenders shouldn't be a problem, and broadband 'net access, while possibly not immediately available, will not be long coming...

Have a look at the [Broadband] and [IrelandOFFline] boards, for available services in your particular locality..

Mountjoy Mugger

If all she wants is Eastenders, RTE carry it. No need for sat dish, etc.

Icehouse

If you've already got Sky and you're already beyond your first year, you own the Digibox. That means you can bring it with you and continue to recieve all your current channels - there is no need to connect your box to a telephone line. In actual fact if you choose to do this it would be a silly thing to do connecting to an Irish phone line - you could lose access to Channel 5 / 4 and maybe have RTE on channel 101 inflicted on you. You are better off with a UK sub or FTV (Free non-subscription card supplied through/Sky/BBC Helpdesk) card. You might consider buying a Digibox from Ebay before you move if you don't have one already and just want free UK channels.

Tazz T

Quite a few UK tellys and videos won't work in Ireland on NTL or aerial, as I discovered when I moved. Different frequency. I had to buy a new video here and tune the TV through that. Although that shouldn't be a problem with Sky/Sat.

spongebob

Originally posted by DMC
I'm sure that Eircom have been selling i-stream broadband in Castlebar and Westport for some months now.

And I'm sure that there is no DSL in Westport and while there may be in Castlebar it is unlikely. That never stopped our monopolistic Eircom from selling 'that which is not there ' at an outrageous price though.

Ballina is the only place in Mayo with DSL for sure, from BT as it happens.

M

Mike 1972

Ring up the Beeb before you come over and get at least four FTV cards (If you dont use them youll find plenty of people who will only too gladly take them off you)

Most parts of Mayo can get analouge sgnals (or variable quality/reliability) for the four main channels from deflectors (you just need a second (high gain UHF) aerialand booster.Most parts of Mayo can get RTE1 ad 2 on UHF now. TG4 is available on UHF everywhere. ironically the most difficult to recieve Irish channel is TV3

Irish Sky cards will get most of the British channels EXCEPT ITV1 and 2, Channels 4 and 5, BBC 3 and 4 (Hence the advice to bring a few FTV cards as well and an old digibox if you have one handy actually If your digibox is more than a year old bring it with you. Even your old Sky card should still be good for the aforementioned FTV channels.

Broadband is (very) slowly making its way into larger towns in Ireland but is still hideously overpriced. If UK broadband is in the stone age Ireland is in the Ice age

muffinhead

I have sent you a private message!

muffinhead

utv internet (www.utvinternet.com) is the best residential isp according to PC Live! magazine (an Irish computer magazine). UTV also does special flat rate internet or discounted offpeak packages!

kiteflyer2002

Great work Guys, It looks like I will have to aquire a digi-box and FTV card(s)
We are hopefully moving to the Mayo/Galway border around Headford.
I will look into the ISP business a little more when we arrive back!

DMC

Originally posted by Muck
And I'm sure that there is no DSL in Westport and while there may be in Castlebar it is unlikely. That never stopped our monopolistic Eircom from selling 'that which is not there ' at an outrageous price though.

It is, Muck, ring their sales number to find out. I enquired for a mate who is also moving out there.

spongebob

Originally posted by kiteflyer2002
Great work Guys, It looks like I will have to aquire a digi-box and FTV card(s)
We are hopefully moving to the Mayo/Galway border around Headford.

You can sell the cards no probs.

NO DSL in Headford, no plans either. The nearest will be in Tuam.

That bloody adsl.ie site doesnt give a list of DSL enabled towns anymore, drat. I'll stand corrected.

M

jimbob

You will be amazed to hear that RTE are actually ahead of BBC with coverage of Eastenders, well actually a minute or two. RTE has adverts in the middle.
TV3 has cornationstreet and emmerdale both up to date and shown at the same time as itv. TV3 is half owned by granada, so has alot of programs the same as itv.
If you are interested in the champions league TV3 has live coverage on both tuesday and wednesday unlike itv.
If i were you i would get Sky digital with an ftv card for all BBC's channels, C4, ITV, channel5 before you come over. I wouldn't bother subscribing cause when u come over(Don't tell sky u are coming)u can stick up an antenna to get RTE1, NET2, TV3, TG4,
and then stick up ur dish to get all ur english channels for free, including lots of other free sat channels.
If u want to subscibe to sky over here then do so but don't tell them u have an ftv card cause they'll block it.

watty

Originally posted by Tazz T
Quite a few UK tellys and videos won't work in Ireland on NTL or aerial, as I discovered when I moved. Different frequency. I had to buy a new video here and tune the TV through that. Although that shouldn't be a problem with Sky/Sat.

Labgear and others do a VHF - UHF convertor to feed ALL TV/VHS in a house.

Most areas have now UHF relays.

No NTL in Mayo!

I have several UHF/ UK only VHS and TV and fine in Limerick.

The VHF is often poorer quality than UHF since the original VHF TX were for 405 lines.

TG4 / TV3 are UK/UHF only channels. Mainly it is some areas of Clare, Kerry and Cork that need VHF for RTE1 / NET2 only. UHF is being added so that one aerial works for all channels.