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Satellite TV, Freesat, Free to Air and Sky

safariboy

Joined: May 01, 2005

Posts: 1133

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Satellite TV Freesat, Free to air and Sky (Author = Safariboy.)

If you like TV you may find that many sites have poor terrestrial reception. Many CC sites and a few private ones have a feed to your pitch but you never get this in CCC sites and it is unlikely in CL's or CS's
A small satellite dish is a possible alternative and it can also be used in much of Europe to pick up English language TV. If you are going south and want 100% reliable TV one of the larger dishes is required but for use in UK and much of France a small camping kit can be made to work. The "normal" price seems to be £70 to £100 but sometimes perfectly good kits can be obtained for much less. (Down to £30) The places to watch are Maplin, Aldi and Lidl. Basic set up is easy as the kit contains several clamps and bars to help. You do need to find something to clamp onto. I have used a mirror arm and the cycle rack. You also need a clear view towards the satellite. That is about 20-30 deg up from horizontal and at 28 degrees E of South.

English language TV is mostly found on Astra 2 at about 28 degrees East of South. To find this I find the best way is to start pointing the dish South and then swing it east until you pick up a strong signal. (Some people like to work the other way but if you miss your satellite you might lock onto one of the stronger ones) This should be "Hotbird" This is mostly non-english channels but there is Euronews and BBC24 in English. World service radio is also on this satellite. You should be able to pick up this anywhere in UK down to Southern Europe.
It simplifies the job of getting the satellite pointing in the correct direction if you have a Satellite finder (Maplin about £15) and can see the TV screen. They have an analogue meter and produce a sound which responds at once to movement of the dish. This is easier than using the receiver's meter and sound system which are slow to respond. You need the TV to make sure that the satellite you are pointing at is the one that you want.
When you have the best signal it is worth while to delete all the channels and do a rescan.
If you continue to swing East at about 19 degrees East of South you should find Astra 1 which is again largely non-english. These are rather more powerful than the next satellite swinging East which is Astra 2 which is mostly English channels. This has some transmitters that concentrate the signal over UK and some that give a much wider spread. Hence you might need quite a large dish to pick these channels up anywhere south of about Paris. (but there have been reports of members receiving BBC in South Spain with a small dish) Some transmitters (ITV regions in particular) are weaker than others and so may not be detected with a small aerial.
Astra 2 transmits BBC and ITV channels. If you receive these channels on any system they will be come from the same transmitter.
There are three systems of receiving the programs. "Sky", "Freesat" and "Free to air"
They differ in that there is an extra transmission for Sky and Freesat which carries the electronic program guide (EPG) and certain information for the so called interactive services. The interactive services are in practice no more that extra channels that can be used to transmit extra programs. (e.g. a different match in a Tennis tournament).

If you buy "Freesat" or a "Sky free to air card" you are buying the use of the EPG and the box has software that puts programs in a more convenient order. (for example either the Sky card or your postcode entered into a freesat box ensures that the local version of a program has the same channel number).
If you buy one of the camping kits from Maplin (or for much less from Lidl) you have a free to air receiver. This will not receive the EPG or any of the interactive information. The channels will be in the natural order from the satellite and you will see them all. (including all the regional variations for the BBC and ITV). You can construct your own favorites list to simplify channel changing. You can still get the variations to the standard picture on different channels.
Some channels are coded (so Sky can charge for them). These you can only get through the EPG on the Sky receivers.
You may need to enter the SID to get Radio 4. see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/info/sat_frequencies.shtml

When you have done it once you will find that it is not that difficult.

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