Re: trouble with UTV
No, ninsaga, Sky (other than Sky News), Nat. Geographic, Discovery, etc. still require a Sky/NTL subscription.
See
here for details of the £20 card — which will get you ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, Ch4 and five until end 2006 (I think). But someone in the UK will have to order it for you and post it on.
There are lots of other channels available free, with no card, but tbh a lot of them tend to be news, shopping or God-type stuff... :rolleyes You could get more by pointing your dish at other satellites (see [broken link removed]), but you'd need either to realign your dish (or get a motorised thingy, or install a second dish...) The Satellite forum on
www.boards.ie has some useful info.
If you can't get decent reception on RTE1, RTE2, TV3 & TnG, you could try a signal booster or an amplified aerial. My own reception of TV3 & TnG is pretty 'snowy' (in Limerick) — but I can't say I miss them too much!