Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Without a doubt this dish is a Fortec Star, or maybe a copy called a Danstar, in any event dont waste your money. The dish will be difficult to assemble and impossible to set up without very specialist equipment, and a lot of experience. as a rule the Fortec 2.4M performs on the Costa Blanca about as good as a 1.5m one piece dish, and I would suspect the 1.8M is worse.
however you say that you only want the news, so therefore i would recommend you get yourself a fairly cheap 1.0m/1.2m offset dish with prefitted LNB, and i would also get myself a satmeter, and copy the instructions off the Caravanners site here
http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/
There is plenty of advice and info also.

If u use a 1.00m or even maybe a 80cm on Astra at 28.2E you will get SKY news, some other news channels ,,maybe one or two of the free movie channels (true movies?) and a host of other Free to air junk channels, etc, you will also get some radio channels all UK based.

The other option is to set up on Hotbird at 13.0E, where you will get some English speaking channels, and I think BBC world is there on FTA

The fortec will be no good for prime channels on Astra 2!!

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

We get these channels with our 65cm Maxview Crank-up dish on our motorhome when in the Alicante area.

If you want BBC News 24 you can get it (picture-in-picture) via the red button on BBC Parliament (504), which is on the south beam.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

The last reply is the correct one. One of the posts in the DS forum referred to is mine, under the name 'Smallbridge'.
You don't need a huge dish to get 'Sky', this is what many people call satellite TV for the UK, inaccurately.
A 60 -80cm dish will get many Sky channels and a number of free non-sky ones. The larger zone 2 dishes are a better bet, but the small 60 cm zone 1 dishes work as well, but just for the south beam.
A small dish such as this will pick up:
Sky sports
four Sky movie channels
Sky News
CNN
BBC Parliament (use red button to get News 24 in quarter screen)
Most kids channels, music, documentary.
Channel Five, Five Life, Five US.
All BBC radio except Radio 5 Live.
You have to re- configure a Sky box to pick up the sky guide using the south beam:

Press 'services' on Sky remote
press '4'
press '0' '1' 'select' (in rapid sequence, nothing happens until
last press)
enter installer menu
press '2' 'Default transponder'
enter in first line '12051'
use cursor keys on remote to scroll down to 'save settings'
press backup three times
Sky guide should now load.

Fortec Star dishes are really terrible, avoid like the plague. They're cheap for a reason.
The best web site for dish set up is:

http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/
If you're only staying for 3 months the best best is to do it yourself. Read the instructions on the aobe site and it will be easy.

Re- broadcasting of UK channels as described in a post above is illegal and largely run by the Russian Mafia. Subscribe at your peril.

You need a large dish for BBC & ITV, a slightly less large one for Channel Four. Only the really biggest dishes can receive BBC2, 3. 4 and Disney. Channels going off at some times of day is a sign of an insufficient- sized dish or a poor installation, of which there are plenty in Spain.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

I am used to setting up my dish in the UK it was mainly that I had been told I needed a huge dish and I thought about the bolt together ones for travelling. Thanks for all your help folks at the moment I just use a £50 suitcase freeview one from maplins

http://www.maplin.co.uk/images/300/A96FJ_in_case.jpg


And what I thought was I could just get a bigger dish and connect the rest of the stuff to it

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Some of the campsites in Benidorm area have sky cabled to the pitches.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Just another thought. If you made your winter base further north along the coast in Castellon, you could get all the UK channels with a much smaller than a 2.4m dish needed in Alicante.

The coast from Benicassim up to Vinarós is very popular with North European Motorhomers/Caravanners over the winter.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Hi Eric,

I am a trained satellite TV installer based in Javea - perhaps I can answer a few questions for you!
Yes, Sky Digital is available in Spain, although not officially! All the different flavours are available, as in the UK, ie. Standard Sky Digital, Sky Plus, and even Sky HD (which has the plus features incorporated too!).
No, your UK dish won't work, unfortunately. You will need to buy a new one, and I STRONGLY recommend that you do that here, as many dishes have been tested (and thrown out) in the process of finding out what works and what doesn't.
What I can tell you is that at present, you need a MINIMUM 2.4m prime-focus dish in Javea to be able to receive UK terrestrial channels, ie BBC, ITV, C4 and Five, paired with a good LNB such as an Invacom 0.3db twin output LNB for C & Ku bands. I won't go all technical on you here, suffice to say that pick n' mix of satellite components is unlikely to lead to a successful result...
By all means bring your Sky digibox and card with you from the UK, but DON'T tell Sky that's what you're going to do, or they'll cut you off (for copyright reasons).
The 2.4m dishes sold here for UK TV are typically either Turkish or Portuguese, and I have found both to work well. The difference? The Turkish one is slightly cheaper, is a deeper dish, and is spun rather than pressed in the manufacturing process, allowing it to retain its parabolic shape for longer. However, it is not 'upgradeable' to a 3.1m dish by adding 'petals' to the outer edge, which IS possible on the Portuguese dishes. Not many Turkish dishes are available any more, it's mostly Poruguese ones we're installing.
However, if BBC and ITV are not of great importance to you (perhaps you're a sports and news fan instead!) then you can have a much smaller dish (typically 1m to 1.35m) which will pull in most of the channels you're after at a fraction of the cost.

It is also worth noting that a completely new system is about to appear on the horizon called FreeSat which will be launching in Spring 2008. Although rumours are thick on the ground, what is known so far is this:

Freesat will be a co-founded project by the BBC and ITV, and will be the first direct competition Sky has had since the early 1990s.

Once the equipment has been installed, there is no on-going cost. It is the satellite equivalent of Freeview in the UK, available through a digital receiver (details of which are currently not known with regard to encryption).

The 300 or so channel slots available will be broadcast from the Eurobird satellite at 28.5 degrees East of South, meaning that they can be received on a 1-1.2m dish whilst retaining many of Sky's own channels - as long as you have a receiver (digibox) for Sky connected as well.

This is likely to mean that unless you subcribe to Sky Movies, a 2.4m dish will be un-necessary from March 2008 onwards!

Rather than write pages and pages of info here, your question (and a hundred similar ones previously) have, this second, prompted me to publish a website for my company, seperating the fact from the fiction regarding satellite TV in Javea!

Of course, since I've only just decided this, the website doesn't exist as yet - I'll get cracking on that and publish the address for the site here once it's up.
In the meantime, feel free to pm (private message) me or call me in Spain on (0034) 660 638 975 if you'd like to have a no-obligations chat about your situation. I'm always happy to help newcomers!

[I]Bill Pole

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

I have a system with an 80cm dish that I bought from Lidl's two years ago.

Although it receives mainly European channels, it does receive Sky News, CNN, and BBC World.

Ok for news then.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Re Bill Poles post, it would appear from another thread that SKY are changing their cards early next year, and cutting off the current ones. If you still have a valid UK address, then no problems, but if not, there may be a problem. It's because they have found that a lot of their customers have the same UK address.:ohmy:

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

You will still need a 1.9 or 2.4 to recieve BBC and ITV as these will remain on the Astra 2D satellite.

I have been inundated with people telling me that from next year BBC and ITV will be available on a smaller dish as they will be available on Freesat.

This is UNTRUE

The only difference between "Sky" Freesat and "BBC" Freesat will be the brand name on the reciever and the EPG style..

All channels wil remain on their current satellite. The main EGP and data from Freesat will be available on smaller dishes as this will be supplied via the Eurobird at 28.5, but when you select to watch bbc and ITV the receiver will still look for the signal on Astra 2D. Similar to what happens now...the Sky EPG on Astra 2A redirects you to the other frequency on another satellite when you choose the channel.

The only difference wil be that Channel 4 (and E4 and More 4 etc) will be only available on a Sky receiver (atleast until their encryption contract runs out in late 2008). And Five have not yet made up their minds yet about if they will join "bbc" freesat.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

Yes. This is correct. It is 99.99% certain that Sky will be issuing new cards from Feb 2008.

They will be delivered to the UK addresses. So if your card is registered at your "own" UK addres then no problems. But this could be tricky if you have "borrowed" a UK address from you installer / agent. All because one agent had over 2000 cards registered at one UK address.

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

My understanding also!!!!,,, The change of the cards is gonna be a minefield,

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

I'm sorry if I was misled, or if I misled others - but where did you find this info? As a local installer I'm very interested in the upcoming launch of FreeSat and what it could mean for people out here. Any links to useful info gratefully received...

Bill Pole

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

I am just a local installer who is well informed.....:D

The new Freesat system is simply a new type of box, with a "non-sky" EPG. The channels themselves will not change satellite and will remain (more or less) where they are at present. Think of it as buying a FTA satellite receiver instead of a Sky receiver!

Re: What will I need Satellite
 

It's absolutely true that Freesat will start next Spring but there are few hard facts. The BBC's own website states that the channels on it will be the same as existing:-

"I already have a non-Sky satellite receiver. Will I be able to receive the new Freesat channels?
The BBC and ITV are planning to launch a new free-to-view satellite service, currently known as Freesat, in spring 2008. If you already have a non-Sky satellite receiver, the channels are the same as those you can already receive. However, for the full range of on-screen programme information and interactivity you will need a Freesat set-top box. And to view BBC high-definition (HD) transmissions, you will need a compatible satellite HD receiver. For more about the free-to-view satellite service from the BBC and ITV, please see the press release."

The only thing that will change is there will be a new electronic programme guide and new receivers under the 'Freesat' brand, some of which will have hard discs and HD.
The dish sizes will remain as existing. The programme guide will be broadcast from Eurobird which only needs a small dish. This is where the crazy rumour started. The current Sky Guide is broadcast on the Astra 2 North beam. It needs to be said again, don't buy Fortec Star dishes from Maplin, or anywhere else. They are dirt cheap for a reason.
About one third of Sky channels and BBC Radio can be received anywhere in Spain on a 60 cm dish. http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/ tells you how to do it. Channel Five can be received easily in many areas, other parts need a 80 cm.
A Sky receiver has to be specially configured to receive the Sky guide on a 60 and 80 cm dish, but this is easy to do.
The change of Sky cards is just a rumour, no one can say this is going to happen, as it will cost Sky many millions.
One of the agents who was rumbled by Sky was using one address for up to 10,000 cards.
Scampicat's dish is pointing to Astra 1, the mainland Europe satellite. It can't receive Astra 2 unless it is moved.