Satellite TV aboard?

[mdrifter]

We're thinking of having some sort of Sat tv aboard and are looking for ideas of what we need since we don't know anything about such a system which we'd like to have for some of those long dark winter nights in Southern Spain/Portugal/Med...
We're thinking of a 15" LCD TV and have seen one with DVD for c.£400 - is that a good price? Would such a TV be able to receive local terrestrial programmes abroad? What sort of digibox and dish should we get and how much should it cost and will it be useable abroad if we buy in UK?

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[StuDryden]

in safeway at the moment thet also have 15" tft screen with built in multi region dvd player & multi national tv tuner for £399, build quality is good, make is not so good - but all techie things seem to made by the same people these days

anyway - i was out in canaries a couple of weeks ago (and am taking the boat there next year to live) and they use a standard 50cm Sky Digital Dish and decoder (keeping any UK address for billing / new card purposes) and with the full package they recieve everything except some sports, all films and bbc channels (which apart from Eastenders - for the better half - of course - is no loss)

Hope this helps

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[Guest]

i live i marbella (s spain) my boat is parked in gib... my satellite dish in my home is 1.2 metres. this size is required to get a signal here. If you wish to use one on a boat , you will have to put one of these large disks on the pontoon. it is frowned upon in most marinas, as they are so big. They will not let you bolt it to the pontoon directly. they may let you bolt it to a removable slab or the likes... hope this helps

tom www.puertofuengirola.com



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[MedMan]

If you want to be able to receive the local terrestrial channels as well as satellite you must buy a multi-standard set. I would commend you to go down that route. The local channels often transmit English-speaking films with sub-titles, they are good for weather forecasts, in some areas they re-transmit CNN and the like on a terrestrial channel and, you never know, it might even help with the language!

I don't know how big your boat is but 15" is more than adequate on most boats. We have a 12" set and it is fine. If you have room, fit in a video recorder and/or DVD player. Yachties swap videos and DVDs like they swap books and you can always persuade someone back home to record stuff for you whilst you are away cruising. We first saw the 9/11 plane strike in November on a tape recorded for us in that way.

On the satellite front, you must decide whether to go for a digital satellite receiver or analogue. Analogue is on the way out but the digital transmissions often have a tighter UK footprint so there is less 'spill' into the continent. That means you need a larger dish to receive the signals. We still have an analogue receiver and a 30cm dish. Yes, that's right - 30cm. We can't fit a bigger one in our lockers. We have received good pictures with it in Southern Spain and (from the Early Bird Satellite) in Croatia. However, if you have room to carry it, a bigger dish would undoubtedly be better.

If you want to receive Sky, you will need a card. So long as you have a UK address that is not too difficult to arrange especially if you already have a Sky account. It used to be possible to get a card from the BBC (so long as you had a UK TV Licence) that enabled you to receive the FTA (Free to Air) transmissions including all 5 UK terrestrial channels. However, that has all changed. The BBC have moved all their channels onto a new Astra satellite with a very tight footprint and their programs are no longer scrambled and are truely Free to Air. Howver, ITV and Ch5 are still scrambled but there is no longer a free card to enable you to receive them. In short, its a dog's dinner!

Good luck

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[MarkR]

You might like to check out the following sites

http://tinyurl.com/6p73

The former has great detail on the footprint of the astra sats in Europe and the latter is a great reference on set-up once you get the required kit.

Along with the other responses, I would doubt if you get any decent reception at sea and the digi-dish size may be prohibitive in marinas.

We are going through the same process ashore in Spain and small fixed dishes may be used consistently to get access to everything but the UK terrestial channels (BBC, ITV, CH4) and most premium sky channels.

Hope this helps...



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[ccscott49]

I used a 60cm dish in barcelona to good effect, I had a 30cm dish, which didnt work. I'm now in sardinia and would love to find out how to get a sky card, I dont mind paying, but I have no UK address, any help out there?

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[mdrifter]

Many thanks for al the info. The Safeway Noika 1003 looks a useful bit of kit, Runs dvd, mp3, audio cd's and "picture" cd's as well as PC monitor and TV. Also runs from 12V. Hope it works aboard - anyone know? Heard of "seeking" dish/digibox - any views/info?

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[Bejasus]

According to this astra 2D site, I require a 130cm dish here in Denmark, but in fact I only use a 60cm dish and tune it with a meter and can get every channel no problem. Signal strength is off the scale and signal quality is 3/4. You just have to take the trouble to set it up to the best possible signal., but I find it reasonably tolerant.

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