MikeCol

Hi, I have to say I don't know anything about satellite dishes but have read all the posts and come to one conclusion that this thread needs a bit of colour to make it more interesting. Regards Bryony

P.S. as a women I have been told all my life by men that size doesn't matter

Domino

and you believed them ??
actually size doesn't matter - its what you do with it, but you knew that as you know so much about dishes and aerials.

Jon-Bxl

I always liked the 'dishy' ones! ... and I'd be quite happy with a small one - as you can see from my comments

Thanks for the help the 2 Freds and Domino. And Bryony for your input of a more philosophical nature!! Great that in a day you can get answers to this kind of things... and have a laugh!

Our dish in CE points to Astra 1 and 2. I thought that was it... just get the right decoder - but no! Theres all the angles as well eg Astra 19deg Astra 23deg etc.

It is a shame however that all will change... we will need to retune our community dish. I suppose. I HOPE we wont need to change it - or pay a lot to redirect it etc.

Thanks again

Jon

Fred James

You should be pointing at the Astra 2/ Eurobird satellites at 28.2E. That is where all the UK channels, Freesat and Sky etc live.

When the new satellites go live you will not need to retune or move the dish. All the new satellites will be in the same group as the old ones. If the coverage is as bad as it could, in theory be, you will just get no signal on those channels. The only solution to that is a bigger dish.

Fredbargate

Can you define really big?

The Guy

Just seen this thread.
To confirm and clarify a few things:

FReeview is the name of the UK's digital terrestrial TV service. It is received via a TV Aerial. It is a UK ONLY service. You cannot receive Freeview in Spain, as the UK terrestrial signals dont reach Spain.

There are channels on Freeview that are PAY channels on satellite.

Spain has its own equivilent of Freeview...simply called Television Digital Terrestrial. YOu can get around 40 digital SPANISH channels via a TV aerial and TDT receiver (either built into your TV or sepertae TDT set top box). There are NO UK channels on TDT. But in most cases, you can change the Audio on certian programmes from the dubbed spanish tot he programmes original English.

Freeview - UK terrestrial TV service with free to air channels
Freesat - UK satellite TV service with free to air channels
Free To air (FTA)- channels that require no monthly payment or viewing card
Free to View (FTV) - channels that require no monthly payment but DO require a viewing card
Freesat-from-sky - a service from sky that allows the reception of FTA and FTV channels.

A sky box with no viewing card is effectivly a free to air receiver.
A sky box with no viewing card will receive the same channels as a Freesat receiver.

UK satellite TV comes from 4 satellites - Astra 2a, 2b,2d and Eurobird 1. These satellites have 7 beams, and each beam is different strengths. Each beam carries a number of channels. HEnce why you can get some UK satellite channels using a Sky minidish in Spain, yet you need bigger dishes for other channels. For example Eurosport1 you can get on a small 60cm dish, but sometimes Eurosport2 is unavilable all dayt even on 2.4m dishes. Also some of the Sky Disney cannels are on similar frequencies to BBC1 and 2. AS are some of the Sky box office and Sky SPorts Interactive services. Also, many FTA channels are on Eurobird 1, which has a nice Pan european beam, much stronger than some pay channel frequencies.

Astra 1 at 19 east (and Astra at 23 east) carries more European channels.
Some communities have this dish pumping into their systems, which provides a few English language new channels.

Yes a new satellite is due up at the end of the month - its launch was postponed last week. Astra 1N is designed for 19 east. It will be used for UK TV for a few years before moving to its permanent place at 19 east. A signal footprint has been released but, for Spain, nothing about if reception will be good or bad can really be said until it is up and working (personally it think its reception will be as per Astra 2D that carries BBC1 and BBC2). They say it will be used for extra and support capacity. Personally, unlike someone said earlier, I cannot see the UK TV channels on Astra 2d (BBC or ITVs) moving over to 1N, but I can see those encrypted ITV1 and Fives moving onto 1N. And maybe the HD versiosn of channel $s group of channels will move on 1N and become FTA. It is also there to provide extra capacity..especially with the Olympics next year. The Olympic broadcast serice is said to have 28 HD streams available..and the BBC would love to carry all of these..and so potentially using 1N as that has enough space.

Define big dish. Well I say a 1.8m or 2.4m dish is big.
Where I am even on a 2.4m dishes not all channels are available 24/7 (BBC3 / 4 for example).
In Cyprus they use 4m dishes and still dont get all channels 24/7!

Here endeth todays lesson...F1 is on!

Domino

generally dishes range from 0.43 to 1.2m

the bigger the dish the better the signal entering the lnb (subject to being mounted properly) and is a more option technically and cost wise than fitting amplifiers and other gizmos that only increas the "volume" not the quality of signal. as with a car, the better the tuning the better the running.

with the smaller dishes you can only fit a single lnb but that can have up to 8 outputs to feed separate receivers. with the "larger" dishes 0.8m and above you can fit more than one lnb enabling you to switch between satellites without having to motorise the dish.

as I said in earlier posting, the principle is based on a torch shining on a football, the signal is weaker the further away from the "spot" pointed at. on some satellites they make the output "spot beam" which concentrates the beam on to a particular area\region without any viable signal outside that area.

The projected beam footprint for the Astra 1n is shown at Astra 1N footprint however I understand the Spanish authorities will not allow any tv service via satellite that dont cover the Peninsula and the islands, so hopeful the "bulge" will not be there when she starts to work.

Fred James

It has absolutely nothing to do with the Spanish authorities as it is not a Spanish system.

Those rules only apply to Spanish broadcasters.

When 1N moves to its designed position in the future the footprint will change and it may well cover the whole of Spain and the Islands but it won't be transmitting UK TV unfortunately.

In fact there is some opinion that the reason it has that lobe over Portugal is that it is there to give Spanish coverage when it moves but that doesn't help us.

The Guy

That footprint map that is linked to is for 1N when it is at 28 east.

When 1N moves to 19 east, its footprint will be repositioned also. In fact most of the footprint will cover France and Spain and the bulge you see is for the Islands. Thats what 1N and its footprint was designed for - when it is located at 19 east. Thats what the bulge is for - which you can see if you move the footprint on that link down towards France and west so its center is on south west France.

I have no idea what "Spanish authorites" have to do with 1N though.

MikeJ

Thought I'd post on this thread as it seems to have the attention of some knowledgeable people

Has anyone being having trouble with Sky (freesat) reception lately. Last week we had an interruption on 4 seperate days at exactly the same time 10:33 BST/11:33 CET of around 5-10 mins. Interestingly the 'FIVE' channels (I have a seperate card fitted in my Sky Box) still worked.
Anyone else experience the same thing/have an explanation? Does it have something to do with the new satellite referred to on a previous post?

snikpoh

Yes. Not sure if it's the same though. I lost BBC1 (101), BBC2 (102) and ITV2 (118) and maybe others. It was only for about an hour then they all came back - strange!

The Guy

Nothing to do with any new satellites.
Nothing to do with your setups
Nothing you can do about it really.
This happens for two week, in March / April and October / Nov, can last for about 15-20 minutes around 1030-1130.
And has been happening sice I have been in Spain doing satellite systems!

Its all to do with the positioning of the sun.
Twice a year the sun is directly behind the satellites.
And its energy basically swamps the weaker signals.

It will have an effect on the "free to air" version of Five, but not the "free to view" sky card versions of five - so as you dont lose five you will be using the stronger "FTV" versions that is not affected by this.

MikeJ

Thanks very much for that info - that's really interesting. Thought we were about to loose our service at one time - you've set my mind at rest.

EsuriJohn

Hi "The GUY", welcome to our little remote corner of Andalucia that is Ayamonte. We struggle down here to get consistent help and advice on problems associated with Sat reception of UK channels.

I am lucky to have a Panasonic Freesat TV and a Sky + box fed from a quad lnb. 2 feeds are used elsewhere and two come down into the lounge for three inputs so I have to make a choice if I want to use "record" on the sky box or watch an HD programme on the TV. This is a pain just as a programme is about to start, as last night, when a scenic programme on Ireland came on great to watch in HD, and the last use was to record a whole afternoon of moto gp.

About 6 mths ago my Sky man left saying he would get me a small self powered gizmo which could split one feed into two and sit behind the TV out of sight. Not seen since and this is frustrating. What is the gizmo called, can they be bought in Spain are they expensive, and most important do they work?

The Guy

Helllooooo
.
Theya re called stackers, and allow one cable to run two feeds. One unit is powered, and it sends the two signals down the cable at two different frequencies.
HOWEVER, you will encounter loss / drop in signal with stackers, so it may not perform as you want it to, especally on those critical / weaker BBC and ITV frequencies.