Satellite TV reception over The Channel (1 Viewer)

Oct 20, 2015
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tunbridge wells
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Please don't be confused by the name. There is nothing clever at all about me when it comes to understanding how to receive Sat tv in France and further south. We have a Meccatronic auto sat, I think its 65cm dish, which was fitted on a new French van which we imported to Britain last year. It was set up to receive BBC, ITV etc by the dealer and works fine in Northern France and England. It appeared to stop picking up a signal around half way south and we could get nothing at all around the Med and then sprang back to life when we tried it again in Le Touquet. Our control panel tells us that we use Astra 28 to pick up UK channels but I am now even more confused by reading what you experts have posted as you talk about Astra 2 (E?). Are they the same? My local dealer tells me that because of changes to the positioning of the satellites we will not be able to get any UK tv channels in Southern France, Spain or Portugal and although I suspect he is probably correct some of you guys clearly manage it. I really don't understand whether or not we need to change to a different satellite the further south we travel and whether our satellite is tuned into the UK beam or the European beam and indeed if it changes automatically or has to be done manually, and if so how does one do this.
As you can see from reading the above I, that is my husband and I simply don't have a clue. The Jack Russel probably understands it better than us.
 

tonka

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Jul 2, 2008
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You are all correct and up to speed.
Astra 28 / Astra 2 as they are refered to are the same thing..

Yes you will loose signal as you go south, changes to the strength and beam of the satellite is now more focused on UK.
Others may well have larger 80cm dishes and can get that bit extra from them but they also soon loose the BBC / ITV etc..
 

OldAgeTravellers

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Your Dealer is correct to get BBC, ITV etc past about the centre of France needs a MUCH bigger dish, we live in France in the Languedoc about 30km from the Med. and use a 1.2mtr dish and that is OK most of the time, a friend in Alacante uses a 2.4mtr dish. There are some exceptions because of strange reflections but in general this is the case.
However there are two beams on the 28 deg satellite so if you just want to get the news, Sky News transmits on the wide beam so you should be able to get that if your dish will lock. But it may be set up to lock onto the narrow beam. If this is the case depending on your equipment you may be able to set up another satellite configuration in your box (perhaps with your dealers help) different criteria to tune into the wide beam when you go further south.
If you want Corrie or East Enders etc. then tough, unless you can carry a really big dish and buy a professional alignment meter because it is quite difficult to align even a big dish to the narrow beam when on the fringe of the reception footprint.
Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear.
Steve

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Clever Claire
Oct 20, 2015
100
47
tunbridge wells
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39,672
MH
A Class
Exp
10 years
Thankyou Gentlemen (hope that's correct and apologies if not). Your advice is much appreciated. It looks like DVD's once past Bordeaux!!
 

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