I have an old satellite dish that I use to watch some free to air programs, primarily TV5, Bloomberg, and Al Jazeera. I would like to be able to record programs from time to time for future viewing. I would appreciate advice from anyone who can advise me on the simplest (and cheapest) way of accomplishing this. I do not subscribe to any cable provider like UBC and have no plans to do so, just need to record the occasional program via the satellite. Thanks in advance for any help.

You can get a reciever to go in your computer that would allow you to record, there are also boxes around that have hard drives in them for doing exactly what you want.

Thanks Gary. The box with the hard drive is what I would want. Anyone know any brand names or what to ask/look for?

Philips has them - I have their 1st generation model and have been very happy with it; At the moment (in Bangkok) they are hard to get as the staff says a new model (4th generation, I believe) is coming 'soon'. Model with Hard drive is quite a bit more expensive than the one without, of course (with the earlier model, about 6000b vs. 13,000b). However, I simply record to reuseable DVD-RW instead. Hard disk would be needed for any large volume of unattended recording only.

This one is a cheap chinese version but will give you an idea http://cgi.ebay.com.au/BRAND-NEW-DIGITAL-S...=item230366209a

This one from A.C.Ryan should be similar to the Philips mentioned by MickeyM.

You can get a Dreambox Sat receiver with hard drive, cost around 12,000 BHT I believe... I got offered one for my sat service but then got the cheaper version without HD.

Thanks to all of you who provided suggestions. I am checking those out right now. Very helpful!