Satelite TV

Sandmartin

Sandmartin

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OK I am a ludite. I have read all the posts about satelite TV and I am completely bafflled. But skipper says she wants Holby city in the South of France. I, as mere coxwain, engineer, and bige cleaner must comply. Could someone, in basic simple terms, please recomend something I can stick on the mast and, other than pugging in to TV and switching on and off, not worry about. I have seen people spending hours trying to align dishes on the boat, bank and jetty. Please is there a simple, not too expensive, foolproof system out there.
 
You need wifi for that unfortunatly, and most moorings down there do not have it, and if they do you have to be moored right next to the harbour office. Also no wifi at anchor or on river/canal moorings
 
If you don't have WiFi you have to use data units (ie dosh on the phone) or else get a big fat dish aligned to a satellite and probably an illegal box/card or two. Best to look for a good data contract I think.
 
I used to use an 80cm dish on the stern in my berth in La Napoule & that was perfect until the new satellites took over. Now you need around 1.2m, not practical.

I use wifi or 4g but you need a vpn on your tablet or pc to make it look like you are in the UK.

If you don't have good wifi avaliable it isn't going to happen unless you can get an unlimited 3/4G contract.

For example i have an Sfr sim at €14.99/mth for 10Gig, not enough for much TV. The Free network do a better one if you are within range of their own 4G Cells.

DVD's are your sensible choice or get someone in the UK to record & post to you.
 
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nigelmercier said:
Even with 4G or Wi-Fi there is the added complication of iPlayer being blocked outside the UK.

Certainly not possible to mount a dish on a boat, probably not even a pontoon; need to have a dish fixed to terra firma.
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Many of the yachts in the Med have a small non-gimballed dish on the floating pontoon and they seem to work and only need re-aligining (they have a small box SS meter for this) a couple of times a day. However, the tides are small and the dishes would be too small to pick up the UK focussed satellites I think.

I guess 3G/4G is the way to go in tidal areas. You're probably best to buy an unlimited download data SIM for a fixed price. Filmon and Modbro both seem to get around the BBC restrictions but there are plenty of proxy servers if necessary.

Richard
 
The caravan mob have self aligning dishes. Here, half way down France, we can use a 60cm dish for all the freeview and we used to use a 1.2mt dish in the Algarve for the same, but I gather that might be a bit small now. Recently set up a dish for our gite, only a few minutes with a h/bearing compass, spirit level (for the post) and the info off the web about bearing and elevation. I also have a meter, but found the sat without, this time. Good for fine tuning though. Meter is only a few euros.
You obviously need a sat box, they turn up in the local adds for €25 up, depending on spec. Angloinfo usually has several in the classifieds.
Brico Depot has dishes with LMBs for less than €30 for a 60cm. Bit more for 1.2mt
DW
Just a thought, but if in a marina, could you not attach it to one of the piles?
 
Watching live UK TV is easy if you have a 4G dongle, you have to go via Expat Shield or Filmon (or others) as you can't watch UK TV or catchup with a foreign IP address. Many TV programs can also be downloaded as torrents from Pirate Bay and other sites using slow wi-fi .
 
Thanks for all the responses - But I am now more baffled than ever. I thought it would be something simple. I was hoping someone could suggest a marine equivalent of the automatic ones that I have seen on motorhome roofs. I enquired about one of these at a caravan dealership, but they told me it was not recommended for marine use. As I said, I am an OAP telecom novice, I have a pay as you go phone, and all the scare stories of huge bills on contract phones and thefts leaving you with bills put me off contract phones. I would not trust internet abroad (or at home) on my phone and I have not a clue what 3g or 4g means, (my 10 year old nokia is probably 1g) . Mind you I use Skype a lot when were are in range of a marina wifi for my laptop. Anyway, I will probably carry on as now, my son downloads TV programs onto a hard drive when we are away, and we watch them the next time we go away, we just end up watching series 4 after series 5 and so on. --- --- And before anyone comments, yes I have GPS, radar, AIS and EPERB. But I still navigate at sea on paper charts and have a sextant, although the only time I use the sextant now is demonstrating to grandchildren how we used to do it.
 
Bit like you... But, what I was trying to say and pretty much failed, was that you need to mount a dish on a bit of firm turf. The various Gs work if you want to spend some dosh.
In your situation, I would fab up a simple mount for a dish that I could plonk on the nearest solid tow path. Build in a couple of spirit levels to make sure the post is upright and a sighting frame for the orientation, then just set up when moored. If a swinging mooring, tough. The actual set up takes very little time and would save you much agro..
 
Sandmartin said:
Thanks for all the responses - But I am now more baffled than ever. I thought it would be something simple. I was hoping someone could suggest a marine equivalent of the automatic ones that I have seen on motorhome roofs. I enquired about one of these at a caravan dealership, but they told me it was not recommended for marine use. As I said, I am an OAP telecom novice, I have a pay as you go phone, and all the scare stories of huge bills on contract phones and thefts leaving you with bills put me off contract phones. I would not trust internet abroad (or at home) on my phone and I have not a clue what 3g or 4g means, (my 10 year old nokia is probably 1g) . Mind you I use Skype a lot when were are in range of a marina wifi for my laptop. Anyway, I will probably carry on as now, my son downloads TV programs onto a hard drive when we are away, and we watch them the next time we go away, we just end up watching series 4 after series 5 and so on. --- --- And before anyone comments, yes I have GPS, radar, AIS and EPERB. But I still navigate at sea on paper charts and have a sextant, although the only time I use the sextant now is demonstrating to grandchildren how we used to do it.
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The beam with UK TV on is designed for use in the UK with a sub 80cm dish. The further off axis (i.e. away from the UK) you are, the bigger the dish you need to receive the signal. In Southern France/Spain you'd be looking at 1.2m+
 
ST599 is spot on. Each satelite has a coverage 'footprint'. I used to use Satelite on my boat in the UK and it was a doddle to set up with the right meter (I was a radio engineer/aerial rigger in a previous life so had a slight advantage). However outside the UK you need a bigger dish for the additional gain required which then gives you a narrower bandwidgth which is more difficult to set up. On the current boat (and in the UK) I use 4G with an Open VPN client (which means I can use it anywhere in the world if I use a UK POP) but the data can be quite heavy. The average movie, as an example, uses over 5Gb. No easy answer. I suspect iPlayer when you get back to the UK is a sensible option and DVD's/media servers on the boat?
 
How does satellite TV work on a craft that's always moving? Surely even rocking in a marina will set off bad signal messages? Motorhome ones work well as you park and then re-align. Looked into a caravan one on a tripod but to be honest freeview is adequate and who wants to spend time watching loads of TV when on holiday?
 
Sandmartin said:
Thanks for all the responses - But I am now more baffled than ever. I thought it would be something simple. I was hoping someone could suggest a marine equivalent of the automatic ones that I have seen on motorhome roofs. I enquired about one of these at a caravan dealership, but they told me it was not recommended for marine use. As I said, I am an OAP telecom novice, I have a pay as you go phone, and all the scare stories of huge bills on contract phones and thefts leaving you with bills put me off contract phones. I would not trust internet abroad (or at home) on my phone and I have not a clue what 3g or 4g means, (my 10 year old nokia is probably 1g) . Mind you I use Skype a lot when were are in range of a marina wifi for my laptop. Anyway, I will probably carry on as now, my son downloads TV programs onto a hard drive when we are away, and we watch them the next time we go away, we just end up watching series 4 after series 5 and so on. --- --- And before anyone comments, yes I have GPS, radar, AIS and EPERB. But I still navigate at sea on paper charts and have a sextant, although the only time I use the sextant now is demonstrating to grandchildren how we used to do it.
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Without becoming a little more knowledgeable about such things and potentially upgrading your phone I'm afraid you are probably stuck with postal service after a friend records. My advise would be to speak to other english cruisers and see if they pick up british tv and their methods.
 
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