Maritime satellite TV systems ?

ACE

ACE

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:confused: Would like some advice, does anyone have any particular experience with marine Sat TV systems. I am looking to install a fairly decent system on my T40 (thought I’d only do it once so may well get the best HD system I can afford) anyway the boat yard has recommended the following system…

Raymarine 45STV Satellite TV Antenna System (for Europe)

I’ve done some of my own research and have looked at …

TracVision M5 or the TracVision HD7. (or equivelent)

My boat will be berthed in Spain (Nr Marbella) and I would like to have the availability for both at sea or at berth viewing.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :) :)
 
I have head mixed reports on research for a customer so he opted for KVH trackvision system which ive just fitted this week for him, very easy to install, good instructions and manuals, over raymarines systems.

As far south as your planning to go you will need the version 5 to get full coverage.
 
I believe the KVH systems to be the best. But the size of dome you will need for the south of Spain will look a bit odd on a Targa 40! IMHO.
 
I looked into this about 3 years ago and opted for the Raymarine system.
Glad I did - IMO it out performs the KVH systems.

Technically, some of the Raymarine 60 cm domes have an automatic skew - mine has. This means that it can automatically set its vertical / horizontal alignment for the best signal. Horizontal/vertical skew varies as you travel around and from satellite to satellite. The KVH system is prety basic and needs the domes removed and the skew manually adjusted - IMO poor design. They may have changed this in newer designs.

Spain - Now then - this is a huge can of worms that you are opening.

What TV do you want to pick up?
The good news is that most Sky TV can be received and works well at sea. The bad news is that if you want BBC 1/2 or ITV, forget it on a 45cm dish. BBC 1/2 and ITV are transmitted on Astra 2D which focusses its transmissions on the UK. You can pick up Astra 2D in Spain but you need a bigger dish. In your part of Spain I think you would need a 1 meter dia dish. The good news is that BBC News 24 transmits on a the same satellites that SKY use - and in your area that would be Astra 2A or Astra 2B.

Still with me?

We are based at the Sant Carles Marina mid way between Barcelona and Valencia. We have 60cm domes and they are just not quite big enough to pick up Astra 2D transmissions. On a good day, they will pick up Astra 2D but the boat next to us has KVH domes and they cant get Astra 2D at all. Most of us have brought cheap domestic dishes that we use when we are in our home berth - 80 cm dia seems to work well where we are.

I'm only scraping the surface of the problems you will encounter - for example here's another. You arent supposed to receive Sky outside the UK - everyone does though. So Sky output their default transponder (containing the EPG - electronic program guide) on a weak signal in Spain. This means that you cant get a Sky box working at all - well with a bit of fiddling, you CAN get it going - I have the solution if anyone wants to know.

Finally, I havent yet found a supplier who knows what he is talking about - Raymarine included - they rebadge their kit and I've found that their technical help on Sat systems next to useless.

So - still interested in TV in Spain?
On the other hand - it's very rewarding whe you get it working.

BTW its only a guess but the 45 cm dish might work in your part of Spain for BBC news 24 and some Sky channels plus BBC radio.


This is the kind of solution we have for use in the marina - I'm sure a similar set up would work in your part of Spain - you would get all UK TV channels with something like this:-

DSC00628_Small.jpg


In answer to your question about use at sea - the following video clip has a sound track - no apologies for the selection of music but satellite system (domes of course!!) was receiving Magic FM broadcast from London. At the time we were 50 miles off the south coast of Spain.

 
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I appreciate there will be the cost of the broadband connection, but the up front cost of sat TV, isn't cheap. Seems a workable option, is there a reason why peeps don't do it, or do they ?

Mike, I trust you have recovered from the sea survival course, we did together ?
 
SPOTTYDOG3 said:
I appreciate there will be the cost of the broadband connection, but the up front cost of sat TV, isn't cheap. Seems a workable option, is there a reason why peeps don't do it, or do they ?

Mike, I trust you have recovered from the sea survival course, we did together ?
Click to expand...

Yep - I remember it well!!

Internet TV is very much to do wwith bandwidth available.
Our marina only offers WiFi and its hopeless - at the moment anyway - we have complained and the marina is trying to sort it out. Other than that, internet TV is a good solution. I've got all my TVs in the boat connected to a central PC which in turn is connected to the internet so I'm ready for it but the WiFi isnt.........yet.
 
ACE said:
:confused: Would like some advice, does anyone have any particular experience with marine Sat TV systems. I am looking to install a fairly decent system on my T40 (thought I’d only do it once so may well get the best HD system I can afford) anyway the boat yard has recommended the following system…

Raymarine 45STV Satellite TV Antenna System (for Europe)

I’ve done some of my own research and have looked at …

TracVision M5 or the TracVision HD7. (or equivelent)

My boat will be berthed in Spain (Nr Marbella) and I would like to have the availability for both at sea or at berth viewing.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :) :)
Click to expand...

I had the M5 on our previous Doral & now have the raymarine on our Absolute, both do an equally good job but the Raymarine allows twin lnb so can have two skybox's & whatch different channels in different cabins, a must when youve got kids.
 
Internet vs satelitte

Hi,

Its a tricky subject at the mo cos as usual, the tech is at a stage where no clear winner.

Internet vs Sat

I have decided that i am going with the internet for our AV solution on the boat...cos if that aint working then all other bets are off..including kids running away from the boat with a vacant stare and tears streaming from there little eyes :-) no amount of sky boxes would make them happy if they cant get to their mates on facebook..

also, sat tracking, coverage, rubbish content from sky all drives me up the wall..at least I know where i am with the internet :-)

However, to get a best of both worlds solution...

We can get all our UK Sky channels by connecting the UK House box to a Slingbox which allows me to see and control home sky system over the internet and I use a slingcatcher on the boat to display the sky signal on the TV's. This works for HD or SD and adjusts the quality based on the bandwidth available.

If there is nothing on sky we want to watch (very often these days) I have gone for apple TV box (£100) which gets you all the latest rentals/purchases via download from Itunes and cos we are an Itunes/Ipod house we choses the sonos audio system with zones for flybridge, saloon, bedrooms etc. that way anyone with an ipod can either play there songs on it or playlisten to my songs (god forbid they share my taste !!) you can connect the TV audio out to these guys and use the sonos amp and speakers to boost the TV qulaity.

Certainly works well in the UK but the bandwidth may be an issue in Spain. We have a house near Marbella (which also has all the above, but has a broadband connection). However, if I want to pay the hugely expensive vodafone tarriffs i can watch my UK sky package on my Iphone using the slingbox app!!! while sitting by the pool or on our small boat out there.

Not sure you can get vodaphone 3G in St Carles?

Hope that helps...

Martin
 
When I was a kid, and my parents had a boat it was terrible, we didn't have a TV on board, no internet, christ we ended up having to talk to each other.... dreadful....

I don't know about anyone else, but I always go boating to ESCAPE the hustle, bustle and general everyday life... a Radio is nice, but the rest of it - why do you want it? Surely the point of a boat is that it's a boat - if you just watch telly on it, save yourself a fortune and stay at home!
 
its all things to all men

no offence meant, but I had a feeling that the next post would say why ?

yes i agree, if it were down to me and the boat was just used by me and like minded peeps, i would probably keep it simple. 1 Iphone & pair of headphones all thats required.

However, many people (my kids and their friends in particular) don't really come boating with me because they want to...it is not their dream to spend every weekend on the boat and they can probably think of nothing worse than having to spend evenings quietly watching the sun set over a mirror pond sea with a glass of wine.(as i do)..mainly cos they are moody teenagers with far too many hormones and not legally able to drink. So i have provided this up as a sort of bribe to make it as easy and interesting as possible for them.

By way of penance, i do make them participate during the day in the running and cleaning of the boat..and try and get them interested in skippering...its tuff though .. in the evenings, after a day of bobbing about and trying to have a converation with a teenager, i am happy to sit on the back and watch the sunset, while they retreat to their virtual friends and own choice of music... Its probably a generation thing, but thats how they enjoy themselves. Who am i to judge them?
 
Yes I do know what you mean - kids are not the most communicative creatures are they!

I must admit though, I think it was good for me as a teenager to HAVE to talk to my parents (nothing else to do on the boat in the evenings) - we read books, played cards, chatted etc.

I always think it's sad that kids today seem almost incapable of having a conversation that consists of a sentence with more than three words - one of which will be slang I don't understand!

Good luck with the install!
 
Have a look at the Intellian range of satellite systems. I don't know if it's true but was told that they make Raymarine Satellite systems. Alot better price too.
David
 
David of Essex said:
Have a look at the Intellian range of satellite systems. I don't know if it's true but was told that they make Raymarine Satellite systems. Alot better price too.
David
Click to expand...

Yep - thats the one.
However, I think Raymarine had some bits removed from their spec.
IIRC the Intellian kit has its own GPS inbuilt whereas Raymarine systems input the position data from their own GPS systems. Specs may have changed now though.
The geographical position is required so that the dish can find the satellite,


The manuals that I downloaded from Intellian were better than the Raymarine ones.
Helped me work out how to use the system.
As I said Raymarine support was hopeless but the kit works very well.

Anyone thinking of buying a sat system should expect to have to find out about it themselves - In my experience the dealers know **** all.
As I said above - very rewarding when you get it working yourself.
 
My Company sells land based KVH systems, and the back up from C A Clase is second to none.

I spec'd my boat Wicked Wench, with the KVH M3 system (don't intend to use her in the Med) and have been delighted with the performance.

Other than the KVH everything else is Raymarine, and has all worked faultlessly as well, other than it took months to get a replacement video card for one of my monitors, so I had no cameras and I was also dissapointed that Raymarine consider any pixelation less than 10% as acceptable when I pointed out green dots on the E120. Don't like Companies that charge top money and offer 2nd class back up.

I am not sure that Raymarine actually make their domes in house, I was told that they rebadge a system? KVH of course as the worlds biggest dome manufacturer and supplier have a unique ability to back up their systems.

I would recommend KVH wholeheartedly

Eddie
 
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Hurricane said:
Yep - I remember it well!!

Internet TV is very much to do wwith bandwidth available.
Our marina only offers WiFi and its hopeless - at the moment anyway - we have complained and the marina is trying to sort it out. Other than that, internet TV is a good solution. I've got all my TVs in the boat connected to a central PC which in turn is connected to the internet so I'm ready for it but the WiFi isnt.........yet.
Click to expand...

We use a £200 slingbox pro and can get all the sky channels, plus all freeview plus connection to our apple tv at home from any where in SoF using wifi or pay as you go 3g. Obviously only as good as the bandwidth but we find it great as you can watch programs you've recorded on your home SKY+ box as well as buy film etc. Connect a decent laptop into an HDMI port and away you go. You can use/install a sling catcher at the viewing end (another £200 i believe) and no pc or laptop required.
 
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