UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Linked very much to another question I asked on this forum, here on the Costa Blanca I get very good UK TV satellite reception however I recall there being real problems down on the Costa Del Sol.
I have looked on the site of "The Sat & PC Guy", usually in my experience a good source of advice and this difficulty is confirmed.
Could someone please give the latest on this subject? Does this still remain a problem without a dish of around 4 metres in diameter?
Thanks.

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Still the same

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Thanks Bob, much obliged. Don't know anyone living down there to ask!
Thanks again.

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Yes, it's still the same. I don't know of anyone who has tried a 4m dish, but that would be prohibitively expensive and would probably breach the planning regs.

Most people down here use the Intelsat 907 sat for BBC, ITV, C4 and C5. Brilliant HD pictures. For Sky and others, most use the Internet.

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Thanks for that Fred, guessed the internet would be a choice. Never thought about Intelsat and know nothing about it really. Didn’t even know UK TV was on it! What dish size is needed please for HD reception?

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

It's the sat used mainly for beaming to Africa. The US use it for Voice of America stuff. It is also used as a backup service for UK Freeview channels in case their normal feed goes down. It is encrypted, but the codes are readily available on the Internet. They used to change every few months, but that seems to have stopped. You need a sat receiver with extended frequencies, but these are pretty cheap and can cost around €100 setup and installed.

An 80cm dish is fine, or in some cases the redundant Sky dish can be realigned.

The only potential snag is that the sat is due for replacement within a year or two and no one knows whether the UK companies will continue to need a backup. Details of all the channels are here

https://www.lyngsat.com/Intelsat-907.html

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Thanks for that comprehensive reply Fred, much obliged. Guess that rules out my Humax Freesat box!

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

I just use internet and android box or now TV box. Does what I need

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Thanks again Bob.

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Of course satellite reception in the CdS does depend which UK channels you want. Most of the Sky pay channels can still be received on a "smallish" dish. It is just the free main UK TV channels (BBC ITV C4 Five, Dave, and a few pay channels like BT SPort) that are on the harder to receive UK beam , that requires a very large dish in that area. However, if you have a SKy subscription, then you can always get these "uk beam channels" programming via catch up and on demand.


The other snag is that Arqiva , who operate the service, is up for sale, so who knows what the new owners will do with the service, especially if it is no longer cost effective to run.

Re: UK TV satellite reception Costa Del Sol
 

Thanks The Guy for all the information. Much obliged.