Free Sat on a boat.

[Martin_J]

Freesat!.. Remember, if you can set your polarisation(H/V) and transponder (e.g.3/4) then you can pick up 1000s other channels and not just what most think of as Freesat. Even a basic sky box allows you to modify these and scan for channels...

If you turn the dish slightly right and pick up Hotbird for example you will find 100s of other channels.. Check the following for examples..

Choose a satellite and see what channels it is broadcasting...
http://www.digitalsat.co.uk/frontpage.html

Choose a channel and see if it's free to air or not.. Even if the channel list is not up to date it's a start and you will find more channels than expected.
http://www.satscan.net/transponders.php?SatelliteID=4

 

[Vara]

I used a freesat dish and box ( Aldi) it was a bit of a faff to set up the first time but after that worked perfectly well mounted on the hatch garage with it's sucker base, except in extremely strong winds when the signal was a bit flaky,and my boat does rock a bit.

If I was a live aboard I would have kept it but would have plumbed the leads in permanently as in my arrangement I just draped the wires through a hatch.

If you buy an Aldi one ditch their cable as the plug to cable joints don't stand up to use very well.

 

[DavidGrieves]

"Dishes on boats are smaller, therefore have a wider capture angle." Not true at all... If you want more signal use a bigger dish, good quality LNB and cable


Good site here for footprints. Most of the Freesat stuff is on Astra 2D

http://www.satbeams.com/footprints/



Have a look here you can find out which programes are transmitted from the various sats and which foot print.

http://en.kingofsat.net/pos-28.2E.php


The sat we use here in the UK is at 28.2 degrees, but it is not just one satellite, its 4 including one at 28.5 (Eurobird). There re about 500 TV and 130 radio chanels being beamed down to the UK. The beam is a shaped beam targeted at the uk so the further away you get you will need a bigger dish.

It has already been said that Freesat is nothing new, this is true. The channels were already being sent down to us. What Freesat did was market this service, stick a logo on their boxes and spend a lot of money on advertising. The software in the Freesat box also sorts out all the chanels into a user friendly format ie BBC1 is on channel 1 etc. You also put in your postcode so that you get the right region of BBC and ITV

Any "free to air" reciever will do the job for just connect to an aligned dish and perform a "blind scan". The down side of this is all the channels are mixed up. You usually get loads of channel 4 programmes first. They can be sorted by the user but it takes a bit of time.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-satellite-receiver-for-free-digital-tv-48736?c=froogle&u=48736&t=module



Cheers

David

 

[maby]

Freesat!.. Remember, if you can set your polarisation(H/V) and transponder (e.g.3/4) then you can pick up 1000s other channels and not just what most think of as Freesat. Even a basic sky box allows you to modify these and scan for channels...

If you turn the dish slightly right and pick up Hotbird for example you will find 100s of other channels.. Check the following for examples..

Choose a satellite and see what channels it is broadcasting...
http://www.digitalsat.co.uk/frontpage.html

Choose a channel and see if it's free to air or not.. Even if the channel list is not up to date it's a start and you will find more channels than expected.
http://www.satscan.net/transponders.php?SatelliteID=4

All true, but they are all in foreign and mostly not very good! I speak fluent Spanish and my French is not bad, but there's pretty little that I would bother watching on free-to-air satellite. There used to be a few unencrypted hard-core Spanish channels that could be amusing for half an hour or so, but they all seem to be gone now :-(

 

[st599]

"Dishes on boats are smaller, therefore have a wider capture angle." Not true at all... If you want more signal use a bigger dish, good quality LNB and cable


Guood site here for footprints. Most of the Freesat stuff is on Astra 2D

http://www.satbeams.com/footprints/



Have a look here you can find out which programes are transmitted from the various sats and which foot print.

http://en.kingofsat.net/pos-28.2E.php


The sat we use here in the UK is at 28.2 degrees, but it is not just one satellite, its 4 including one at 28.5 (Eurobird). There re about 500 TV and 130 radio chanels being beamed down to the UK. The beam is a shaped beam targeted at the uk so the further away you get you will need a bigger dish.

It has already been said that Freesat is nothing new, this is true. The channels were already being sent down to us. What Freesat did was market this service, stick a logo on their boxes and spend a lot of money on advertising. The software in the Freesat box also sorts out all the chanels into a user friendly format ie BBC1 is on channel 1 etc. You also put in your postcode so that you get the right region of BBC and ITV

Any "free to air" reciever will do the job for just connect to an aligned dish and perform a "blind scan". The down side of this is all the channels are mixed up. You usually get loads of channel 4 programmes first. They can be sorted by the user but it takes a bit of time.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-satellite-receiver-for-free-digital-tv-48736?c=froogle&u=48736&t=module



Cheers

David

No. A bigger dish gives a narrower beamwidth. Not what you want on a boat.

 

[maby]

No. A bigger dish gives a narrower beamwidth. Not what you want on a boat.

Indeed - I would think that you need something the size of a small saucer!

 

[Martin_J]

yes, the smaller the dish the less important the aim is...

The previous link was just to show how much is possible... and that Freesat from Sky is not the only viewing available.

 

[Dockhead]

If you have a decent Wifi connection, why wouldn't you stream the TV you want to watch, rather than faffing with satellite on a moving boat?

Or something like Slingbox from your satellite box at home?

Maybe a stupid question, from someone who doesn't really watch TV on board (we keep a big library of DVD's, for those times when that sort of entertainment is desired).

 

[maby]

If you have a decent Wifi connection, why wouldn't you stream the TV you want to watch, rather than faffing with satellite on a moving boat?

Or something like Slingbox from your satellite box at home?

Maybe a stupid question, from someone who doesn't really watch TV on board (we keep a big library of DVD's, for those times when that sort of entertainment is desired).

It would have to be a lot faster than the wifi in every marina I've ever tried!

 

[Vara]

If you have a decent Wifi connection, why wouldn't you stream the TV you want to watch, rather than faffing with satellite on a moving boat?

Or something like Slingbox from your satellite box at home?

Maybe a stupid question, from someone who doesn't really watch TV on board (we keep a big library of DVD's, for those times when that sort of entertainment is desired).

Marina wifi very rarely have sufficient oomph to do this satisfactorily, and on 3g it gets expensive.

I must admit I've now gone down the DVD/Recordings route as the easiest way to get visual entertainment.

 

[Hoolie]

Marina wifi very rarely have sufficient oomph to do this satisfactorily, and on 3g it gets expensive.

I must admit I've now gone down the DVD/Recordings route as the easiest way to get visual entertainment.

We have a 500Gb external drive for our on-board PC that we use to store all sorts of films/programmes. Works well