Satellite issues

[TonyJones]

OK friends, who are the satellite techies on here? Our 2005 van came fitted with a flat, square "Kathrein BAS60" satellite antenna, and a little TV, but no decoder. Although we're in France, I want to get UK TV when we're touring. I've tried using a domestic Humax Freesat box we brought with us, but all its channels have been erased because we tried (unsuccessfully) to use it for French satellite channels. Connected up in the van, I used instructions from sat-direction.com to point the antenna at the Astra 2 (28.2), but the box just showed "no signal or signal too weak" when I tried a channel search. Possibilities: (1) I'd missed the satellite by a mile; (2) the antenna isn't man enough to get UK stuff over here; (3) the box objects to not having a UK postcode to work from. Any ideas which it might be, or other suggestions? TIA.

 

[Inca]

As I understand it. Sky (who basically have a monopoly on Astra) have moved the goal posts and in order to receive any UK channels, you'll need quite a big dish. I had a motorhome with an Oyster system which worked fine to start with. However, after a while, as soon as I got out of Normandy/Brittany, no chance !
Right now, I use a View Cube together with a built in decoder. What I do when on foreign travels, is retune to Eutelsat. There are a few English channels on there, but not anywhere near as many as Astra.
The other alternative is to A) lean to speak French/Spanish/German/Italian etc or B) Get onto Ebay and buy yourself a load of £1 DVD's to take with you.

 

[TonyJones]

Thanks Eric
It doesn't look as if the system is going to be much use to us. No great loss, as we've never had (or wanted) TV in any of our previous five vans!
I'll probably convert the TV cupboard into a drinks cabinet. Much more useful!

 

[Parahandy]

Bit late for a response but first let me say this is an immensely big subject with lots of variables. So to begin wth, assuming your Humax IS in working order the next question is whereabouts in France? Anywhere south of a line from La Rochelle to Strasbourg will need a larger dish (min 60cms). This is because the UK government has told the BBC to restrict its use of satellites and as someone has pointed out Big Bro Sky has lots of the bandwidth. Humax defers to Freesat which is only easily available north of that line. However, you can manually tune a Humax to any satellite and any service on that satellite provided you have an adequate dish. The various numbers and sub-settings are freely available on the internet. My sources tell me that only big round dishes can be relied upon. So it is worth trying again with the Humax. Try astra 1b or indeed any satellite and each time you get a nice sounding (high pitched whistle) signal do a channel search and see what comes up. Among the stations you will inevitably get will be Sky News but you should also get BBC World. Having said that their programmes are rubbish and you won't want to sit watching them for hours....but in the F1 season with some effort you might get a German station transmitting live coverage not on the Beeb!....or you might get formerly UK progs such as Midsomer Murders which with a bit of effort you might find English subtitles for. I have an ex BBC Engineer friend who ilves in Murcia, Spain, and has a array of several huge dishes to feed his need! My biggest problem is that long before I have finished searching/tuning/fiddling the OH is bellowing so don't become obsessive about it. What I have found is that a recent purchase of a Maxview dish which has a built in tuner and adjusts by tiny degrees has been a godsend, along with a sat-finder app on my phone which shows the horizon in real time and just where you should be point it. Far cheaper than a four-figure auto dish. Finally.....take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIPEHenB1A
A youtube guide to retuning a Humax pvr. Good luck!

 

[klyne]

It could well be that the Satellite System software needs updating as there are often minor changes to them. I have an 85cms Mecatronic dish and a few months ago I had to go back to Road Pro to have it re-programmed.
David