Astra satallite

[bobhalliday]

Has anyone on the forum had any dealings with this system? I don't contribute a great deal of the hard earned to Sky, mainly because it is sh*te and because the fat controller is only interested in her soaps. A friend on my caravan site was telling me about Astra he bought at Maplins but although I've tied to check it out I don't know what content he gets. He says that he gets all the freeserve stuff + but I have a freeserve box I got for free but he says he also gets a lot more than this, so I wondered about all this, is it better than Sky? (wouldn't be difficult!) and why no charge?
Bob

[kenhall]

Hi Bob,

I think what you are referring to is the Freesat service which is a joint effort by the BBC and ITV. Have a look at www.freesat.co.uk and you will see that it offers around 140 digital TV and radio channels for free (with the right equipment of course).

I have just recently set up my own system to receive Freesat and other satellites because I have no intention of joining the herd who subscribe to Rupert Murdoch's coffers. Let me know if you want further details of the kit that I used.

Ken

[colinxm]

Hi Bob, I bought my freesat box in the uk (look for humax freesat receivers), bought it back with me to Norway, connected it to the sattelite dish that I was using to receive Sky and off it went. It asks for a postcode when installing so I used my old English postcode thereby giving me all the local programs for the Midlands - I'm very happy and no-longer contribute to Sky

Recommended, Colin.P

[bobhalliday]

Hi Ken and Colin P.
The system I was looking at in Maplins was only £60.00 as I have the dish at both the caravan and home so only need the box or box's, my friend bought the whole deal, Dish, box and remote for £99.00. The price of any Freesat is out of my league at present, the XM Beast is demanding all the readies I can muster at the present time, if it doesn't ease up I'll buy a gun and put it out of MY misery!
Bob.

[kenhall]

Bob,

One significant problem with the cheaper satellite tuners is that you do not get the comprehensive Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) like you do with Freeview or Freesat. My local Focus DIY was recently selling off a cheap dish + tuner kit for around £50.

Like Colin I went for the Humax Freesat PVR which gives similar capabilities to a SKY box ie watch one programme whilst recording another to the 320GB built in hard drive, pause and rewind live TV, etc etc. The tuner can also pick up the hundreds of none Freesat free to air transmissions from the same satellite which cover allsorts of interests from a tourists guide to Russia to Arab porn!! My interest is the former by the way.

Ken

[robert_e_smart]

Can you pick up much foreign TV on these kits? My interest mianly being in French telly.

[bobhalliday]

Hi all.
I have had a brilliant PVR for years, it's a Tivo and I put a 250Gb HDD into it, only problem is that it needs a phone connection to make it's free calls every night to get the program listing, I have the lifetime subscription. I can't get one for the caravan as I use my mobile there on call divert.
I have sky at the van but only use it for freeview, at the house I have sky's 22 Quid subscription but it is crap and I want to drop it. Our main needs at home are BBC 1&2 ITV Scotland's programs and channels 119 and 132, some other non essential channels in there too but not important.
Bob.

[xmexclusive]

Freesat and Sky are not relayed from the same satellite but ones about 6 degrees apart.
The effect of this difference depends on the dish design but can make good reception of both signals difficult.
The cheaper oval Sky dishes are least suited to dealing with the freesat signal unless realigned to look directly at the freesat satellite.
There are ways round this problem including a combined signal receiver LNB.
This contains two signal receivers set 6 degree apart with the signals combined in a single output.
When set up in the southern half of the UK the dish will be aimed in the middle between the two satellites with a receiver looking directly at each one.

John

[kenhall]

John

Freesat and Sky are not relayed from the same satellite but ones about 6 degrees apart

Not quite true, the two satellites for Sky and Freesat are almost identically located in orbit ie Eurobird 1 and Astra 2A/2B/2D @ 28.5/28.2° East, which a bog standard cheapo Sky dish can pick up normally but is not the best set up. My set up has a 1 metre dish, 3 metres off the ground for relatively easy access, and with 4 indepedent LNB's so I can pick up Sky (not needed) + Freesat plus three other satellites at 19.2, 16.0 and 13.0 degrees East.

Bob

From what I can gather the TIVO is a very well respected bit of kit but was dropped from UK sale for some reason some time ago. i think they pop up on ebay from time to time.

Robert

If you want to search for available satellite broadcasts in French I suggest you have a look at this website: http://www.flysat.com It lists the broadcasts from each satellite, the language, FTA or encrypted, satellite footprint map and other info.

Ken

[robert_e_smart]

Thanks for the tip Ken, I'll check that out.