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As we will be in Portugal for around two months from early February, considering purchase of Omnisat 66cm Portable Sateliite Kit plus Free to Air Receiver. Can anyone advise if its worth purchasing for use along the Portugese coast and then into Southern Spain. any recommendations for the Receiver would be appreciated.
Gaspode knows about these things and will be around later. (Snelly might pick it up as well.)
I have also heard good reports about the Maplin one which David suggests. It is reckoned to be as good as any for the price, and better than some!
I know the Maxview one is very good (I helped install one for a friend and am impressed) but it is twice the price. Its preview menu system is particularly handy when browsing to see what's on. Could be very useful when you don't have the "Radio Times" for Portugal . . . or can't understand it maybe?
I have a Dreambox, but it's a lot more money (and is it worth the extra??) but it will accept a Sky card. It only allows you to view the services you are paying Sky for of course, but could be worth the money if you are an avid viewer.
Can't offer any more suggestions
Dave
P.S. Yes I can. Have a look on the Maxview website, where I think there is a map of Europe showing the "footprints" of the various satellites and the channels they broadcast.
All depends what you want to receive with it. If you want to pick up Freesat i.e UK programs from Astra 2D then the dish will be too small. To see what size dish you need have a look >here<. You can also get some reception reports from the areas you require >here<.
Hope that helps
peedee
______________________________________________________________ The best journeys are not always in straight lines
For an account of our journeys click >here< (Last updated 1st March 2012)
The further south you go the bigger the dish you need to reliably pick up the signals from Astra 2D - which broadcasts most of the channels for the UK. Despite the maxview performing more like an 80cm dish than a 60cm dish it probably won't work reliably with 2D on the Algarve.
However, using other satellites you will still be able to get English language TV, BBC World and CNN are available one way or another throughout all of europe and you'll be surprised how much fun you can have watching some of the foriegn language stuff, even with the sound off.
Gaspode knows about these things and will be around later.
I don't know that I can add much to what has been said already.
The Maplin receiver (also sold by Lidl, Aldi, Maxview etc.) is about the easiest to tune on a manual system in my opinion. As has been said, if you want BBC1/2/3/4, ITV, C4, C5 etc. reliably in southern Spain you'll need a fairly hefty dish (1.0m+).
______________________________________________________________ If you lend someone £20 and never see that person again, it was probably well worth it.
Having recently come back from southern Portugal I can confirm what others are saying - you need a bigger dish. We have a 82 cm dish and could only get Sky News and BBC News 24 along with CNN and France 24 ( which has news in English).
However, if you are planning to stay in one place for at least a couple of weeks then consider hiring while you are there rather than taking a 1 metre or 1.2 metre dish down with you. At Armaceo you could rent a dish for 15 euro a month and the guy would install for a one off fee of 35 euro. This may sound a bit steep re the installation but have spent many an enjoyable hour watching Brits trying to tune in their big dishes - and I mean many many hours - its not a bad investment even with the awful exchange rate at present. I think that if you share a dish with a neighbour the rate goes down to 10 euro a month. This is what we shall be doing next year.
Don't think that buying expensive kit will help - nothing will work if the dish is not big enough.
We are at Quarteira near Faro just now. With a Maxview Semitronic dish (66cm?) I was picking up only Sky News and CNN plus a few other channels on my Technomate receiver, and nothing on the Sky Digibox. The guy in the caravan next door showed me how to make a couple of adjustments to the digibox settings and now I'm getting C5, Sky Sports 1,2,3 (with card) Eurosport, Racing UK, some music channels, some discovery channels, plus lots more. No BBC1,2,itv or C4 though. Have limited internet access at the moment but will post how to make the adjustments later.
You might like to watch the Caravan Channel (Sky 166, 7pm tomorrow) because there is a Roadpro feature which looks at 4 different satellite systems for caravans and MHs.
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Have a look on the Maxview website, where I think there is a map of Europe showing the "footprints" of the various satellites and the channels they broadcast.
