Is it really worth investing in satellite? (1 Viewer)

MrsM

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We are getting a new van in a few weeks and would like to know if it is worth investing in a satellite dish or should we just stick with the standard aerial for our Avtec tv? We have our eye on a 45 cm dome which is around £1200 more than a standard arial.

We intend to spend a lot of time travelling in Spain and are a bit unsure as to current performance of the British satellites in Spain. We are not sure whether to invest in a satellite dish or not, and if we do we don't know which size will actually give us half a chance at a reasonable signal given the satellite changes in February.

We enjoying watching local tv, but would like some contact with the UK as we will be away for several months. What would you do?

Muchas gratias as always!:)
 

eddie

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nothing will get you BBC/ITV/Channel 4 and Channel5 in Spain.

If you subscribe to Sky and have things like Sky1 Sky Movies, Sky Sports etc and take your Sky box (which you shouldn't :whistle:) you will be able to receive your subscribed channels in "most of Spain" with a dome and "more of Spain" with a dish. I don't want to start selling this system over that, will work "here" as it breaks the forum rules, but if you PM me I will tell you whats what.

I have just come back from the South of France and don't watch loads of TV, when I do want it, I want it if that makes sense.

We are going to Gibraltar in December for Christmas and New Year and do not expect to be able to receive "British TV" I will however be able to get English speaking news and current affairs programes

Eddie
 
Sep 26, 2013
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A dome will be useless in Spain as would any other dish such as Oyster except perhaps the Northern parts.
We are at the moment around the Arcachon area in France and our Maxview Crank up dish which is around 550mm dia is picking up all BBC and ITV channels. Could be a cheaper option for you.

Mike

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eddie

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Hi Mike not strictly true. It depends on if your a Sky subscriber to be honest. Broken Link Removed

Also any dome with a FTA receiver will be able to pick up about 25 news and current affairs programmes (in English) including Sky news and BBC World news on Astra 19.2 pretty much anywhere in Europe
 
Sep 26, 2013
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Hi Mike not strictly true. It depends on if your a Sky subscriber to be honest. Broken Link Removed

Also any dome with a FTA receiver will be able to pick up about 25 news and current affairs programmes (in English) including Sky news and BBC World news on Astra 19.2 pretty much anywhere in Europe
True but not the same as picking up what I would call normal channels.

Mike
 

voyagerstan

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internet is the way to go filmon.com works world wide with a local sim . all english channels . (y)STAN

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mariner

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Internet TV burns around 2gb an hour, so if you are abroad, that is gonna cost shed loads of money on a sim.
Intelsat 907 @27.5w carries some UK Freeview stations, so if you must have the Soaps, get a Linux box, search for the appropriate BISS codes and :cooler:then, you can get UKTV in most of Southern Europe.

:cooler:
 

ourcampersbeentrashed

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Work out how often will you watch TV in your motorhome and what you want the tv for. If its just for the news use a radio? I rarely watch tv when away. If you are bored how about buying a few dvds you can get quite a few for £1200 and once watched can sell them on - then theres the charity shops where you can pick up 2nd hand ones really cheaply.
 

wanderer

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We are off next week for six months in Southern Spain and have decided to leave our 1.3 metre dish and stand at home . We have bought 10 dvd box sets plus many films and will use Film on if we get a good Wifi signal , i have the cables to transfer from the laptop to the Avtex so hopefully that will be enough for the long winter nights

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mariner

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We are off next week for six months in Southern Spain and have decided to leave our 1.3 metre dish and stand at home . We have bought 10 dvd box sets plus many films and will use Film on if we get a good Wifi signal , i have the cables to transfer from the laptop to the Avtex so hopefully that will be enough for the long winter nights


I spend my Winters in Southern Spain and have done for a few years, are you planning on a fixed location or just wandering around?


:cooler:
 

wanderer

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I spend my Winters in Southern Spain and have done for a few years, are you planning on a fixed location or just wandering around?


:cooler:
This will be our 6th winter in Spain . We are catching the Economique ferry to Santander on the 13th sept then a week driving down to Calahonda for 2 weeks in our timeshare then a bit of touring until 1st Nov where we have a pitch booked at Cabo De Gato in Almeria where we camp up through the winter . We spent our first year driving down the coast from Calais all the way round until Benidorm staying in over 60 sites and found Cabo to be our favourite . What are your plans ?
 

Welsh girl

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We use filmon but use wi fi to get my soaps.
We have recorded lots of films prior to going end of Sept on our freesat box but I love to keep up with soaps. Strictly, I'm a celeb, holby city, Downton abbey and the like.
We never go out of an evening and like to watch tv that we can understand without learning a new language.
 

BwB

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With digital terrestrial TV there a several audio streams broadcast with each channel. So, for instance, if a programme originally recorded in English is shown in Spain or France (etc,) it will be dubbed into the local language on the main audio stream. But... the original English is also broadcast on Audio Stream 2.

All digital TV's I've seen allow selection of which audio stream you want to listen to (see your manual) so if you're just looking for some entertainment for the evening it's simply a case tuning to the locally available channels, skip through until you see something dubbed, click the audio 2 button and job done. In Spain there were even some Euro News channels with English.

If you're a soap addict then this won't help you get your fix of Corrie or Crossroads or whatever it is you watch, but for a bit of entertainment on a wet evening :)
 

mariner

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This will be our 6th winter in Spain . We are catching the Economique ferry to Santander on the 13th sept then a week driving down to Calahonda for 2 weeks in our timeshare then a bit of touring until 1st Nov where we have a pitch booked at Cabo De Gato in Almeria where we camp up through the winter . We spent our first year driving down the coast from Calais all the way round until Benidorm staying in over 60 sites and found Cabo to be our favourite . What are your plans ?


This will be my 7th winter season and I travel to Santander via Portsmouth on the 30th Sept and then straight down to Cabopino.
I have a sited caravan at Cabopino and also a small tourer for wandering about when I get bored.
This is my first winter without the MH. So far I haven't missed it, as the tourer has served me very well over the summer.


:cooler:

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Aug 18, 2011
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This will be our 6th winter in Spain . We are catching the Economique ferry to Santander on the 13th sept then a week driving down to Calahonda for 2 weeks in our timeshare then a bit of touring until 1st Nov where we have a pitch booked at Cabo De Gato in Almeria where we camp up through the winter . We spent our first year driving down the coast from Calais all the way round until Benidorm staying in over 60 sites and found Cabo to be our favourite . What are your plans ?

Not been there since 2007..Is Fernando still the manager ?? Had some good times there. BUSBY:):)

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MrsM

MrsM

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Thanks folks for all the fabulous advice!

As we are not big soap fans we have decided not to bother with the dome and pick up what we can with the normal arial. Our Avtex has a built in DVD so going to start a box set collection and give BwB (Bryan) idea with the dubbed programmes a go!

Also I really want to improve my Spanish so we intend to do a lot of what joner8888 suggested too! ;)
 
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MrsM

MrsM

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This will be our 6th winter in Spain . We are catching the Economique ferry to Santander on the 13th sept then a week driving down to Calahonda for 2 weeks in our timeshare then a bit of touring until 1st Nov where we have a pitch booked at Cabo De Gato in Almeria where we camp up through the winter . We spent our first year driving down the coast from Calais all the way round until Benidorm staying in over 60 sites and found Cabo to be our favourite . What are your plans ?
We like the look of Cabo so might see you there! I know some of the sites only take long termers in the winter, is this one of them? We are based inland near Murcia so would only want to pop down for a few days at a time.
 

DJA

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Hi MrsM

We have accumulated a collection of films that we can play whilst we are away. They are all stored on a hardrive and so we do not have to carry loads of DVD's. We also have an Avtex and we play the films and recorded TV programmes from the harddrive or USB sticks.

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wanderer

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Not been there since 2007..Is Fernando still the manager ?? Had some good times there. BUSBY:):)[/QUOTe
Yes Fernando is still in charge he likes the English better than the Germans says we are easier to get on with. Still a lot of campers around from your era
 

wanderer

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We like the look of Cabo so might see you there! I know some of the sites only take long termers in the winter, is this one of them? We are based inland near Murcia so would only want to pop down for a few days at a time.
No it takes short term campers but i would recommend ACSI as the rates for 1/2 nights can be expensive .
 
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MrsM

MrsM

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No it takes short term campers but i would recommend ACSI as the rates for 1/2 nights can be expensive .
Thanks for that. We used the ACSI card a lot this summer and saved quite a bit. We enjoyed the big site at Bolneuvo near Mazzaron but for 3 months in winter you have to stay a minimum of a month! Look forward to trying somewhere new too :)

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MrsM

MrsM

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Hi MrsM

We have accumulated a collection of films that we can play whilst we are away. They are all stored on a hardrive and so we do not have to carry loads of DVD's. We also have an Avtex and we play the films and recorded TV programmes from the harddrive or USB sticks.
Thanks for that. Good idea taking a hard drive as DVD boxes certainly take up room. Mind you the new motorhome has got a cavernous garage so hopefully we won't be stuck for space! :)
 

SuperMike

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What is the best software for ripping the DVD to hard drive ?
 

Minxy

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Make sure that the format you use for your films etc on the hard drive is compatible with your TV, can't remember what Avtex likes (might be Fat 32?) but I know it doesn't like some, neither does the LG TV in our lounge.
 

DJA

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Hi

I use MagicDVDRipper with the additional DivX download available from the their website.. You have to pay for it but after trying various sets of Software this one worked for me. You can set the format you want the software to produce and although I do not use it to do this, don't buy DVD's, it does Rip bought DVD's.

The Avtex TV's do require you to use Fat32 formatted Harddrives and USB sticks which are usually Fat32. From my experience the Transcend Harddrives are suitable. You could play all films from a Stick. A 16Gb stick holds between 10 and 13 films.

Another thing is we have a 16" Avtex and it will work with USB2 units. Whilst they say that USB3 are backward compatable they will not work on with our TV even if they are the same Fat32 Transcend make. Also there is a DivX setting in the Avtex Tv which can be turned off. If so you need to get into the TV's Software settings to turn it on. Our Tv occasionally turns the setting off for no apparent reason but does not take me long to correct.

Others will suggest free software but I have found this particular software very reliable.

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