Satelite Dish for Southern Spain/ Portugal
- Thread starter vansmudge
- Start date
The further south you go in Europe then the bigger dish you need - at least thats the theory! I have used a 60cm dish with a sky digibox as far down as Southern France with no problems. However, it is not as simple as just plugging the dish into the digibox - there are all sorts of other considerations such as elevation of the dish and the direction it is pointed in.
I have been on sites with people who have invested in 'sat finders' and a host of other equipment Which still didnt work where mine did.
I got all the information that I needed from the following brilliant link - http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/
I bought my satellite dish from 'Melksham satellites' on the following link - http://www.satelliteonline.co.uk/touring.htm - choose the 'fastfinder' option. It's a great piece of kit.
Even using this takes a bit of getting used to. I tried it at home first and got so frustrated I nearly packed in trying. However, if you buy a cheap compass (about
I have been on sites with people who have invested in 'sat finders' and a host of other equipment Which still didnt work where mine did.
I got all the information that I needed from the following brilliant link - http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/
I bought my satellite dish from 'Melksham satellites' on the following link - http://www.satelliteonline.co.uk/touring.htm - choose the 'fastfinder' option. It's a great piece of kit.
Even using this takes a bit of getting used to. I tried it at home first and got so frustrated I nearly packed in trying. However, if you buy a cheap compass (about
Correction to above - the 'Melksham' fastfinder satellite dish I have is 54cm not 60cm - but it still works as described.
Hi Barry,
For years I have only used a 60cm dish with a sky+ box and have never failed. I have used this combination in All areas of France, Southern Spain and Italy. The only time I had any trouble was Italy when BBC just pleased itself now and again. Follow the advice given by "S" above, it realy is a good site. The only luxury I have allowed myself is the Electronic Compass from Maplins. I am usualy up and running in a few minutes after taking care where I pitch my van. I carry the compass with me when I view available pitches. No trees etc in the way. This coming year I will using my new Humax Freesat HDR box and not a Sky box.
Good luck.
JTS.
For years I have only used a 60cm dish with a sky+ box and have never failed. I have used this combination in All areas of France, Southern Spain and Italy. The only time I had any trouble was Italy when BBC just pleased itself now and again. Follow the advice given by "S" above, it realy is a good site. The only luxury I have allowed myself is the Electronic Compass from Maplins. I am usualy up and running in a few minutes after taking care where I pitch my van. I carry the compass with me when I view available pitches. No trees etc in the way. This coming year I will using my new Humax Freesat HDR box and not a Sky box.
Good luck.
JTS.
If you intend to receive UK channels then you would need an enormous dish, probably well over 2m to ensure reasonable reception in southern Spain and Portugal. However, if you are prepared to make do with a few English speaking news channels such as BBC World, CNBC, Sky News, CNN, etc., then a 60cm dish would be adequate.
We carry a 90cm dish and this year we got all the free channels in Almeria. But a van next to us with a lot of expensive equipment got hardly any channels, it really is a hit or miss situation.
Hi Barry, we are currently near Nerja in Andalucia and could not get any channels at all with the 80cm dish and Sky digibox we bought with us. We consulted a Sky installer in the area and he has fixed us up with a 1.1 metre high gain dish (these all seem to be white instead of black) and we now have all the channels we have at home. The installer explained that the 1.1 dish was ok for us because we only have the basic sky package, but if we wanted to get the full sky service (movies etc) we would need at least a 1.3 dish. A check around the campsite of the British permanent caravans here confirms this. They all have these large dishes. The Dutch caravaners on site find this very strange, because their programmes are broadcast on Astra 1 which has a much stronger signal and wider footprint than our Astra 2 sattelite they only need dishes the same size as we use at home. Rip off Britain stretches far beyond the channel!!!
I have a 90cm dish and it is a real pain to carry but in Andalusia it does get us most of the sky channels that we get at home +BBC1 BBC2 Channel 5. Setting up takes some time and a clear view of the sky but it can be done and the site we use is nearly as far south as one gets in Europe. 60cm will get Sky news and a few other other sat channels. If you dont want to carry a monster dish there seem to be (as previously mentioned) local firms that will fix you up with a bigger dish on hire. In Conil I think they were paying _30 plus 1 euro a day.
Dave
Dave
Hi A Barry
Sorry, didnt see your question before. The weather has been cooler than usual for December, as it has all over Europe I think. Mostly bright sunny days between 12 and 17 celsius with quite cold nights. There was snow on the Sierra Tajeda, not seen for 20 years apperently! Finding sites no problem, but it does tend to get much busier once Christmas is over, when it seems the entire retired caravanning population of northern Europe sensibly heads south!!
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