Wee Sonny MacGregor

This question may have been answered previously, if so apologies in advance. What sort of satellite equipment/set up would one need to receive in the UK programmes from say Europe or the USA, and not the usual Freeview/Sky fare?

Steve Crook

How big's your back garden?





Steve

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Big enough, but I couldn't get planning permission

Carl V

Up until a few years ago I used to have a separate satellite dish pointed at 'Hotbird' 13 degrees east. This used to contain many European channels, especially Italian, Spanish and some German ones. However, some were scrambled and required viewing cards. I used to watch various Spanish channels which at the time were free-to-air. Sadly, most of them moved to another satellite position and the remaining ones were scrambled.

My receiver starting developing problems as well, so I never bothered to replace it. Although it is more expensive to install, a motorised dish would be ideal but this would require a specialist installer who could check what coverage you would be able to receive depending on where it is positioned.

I used to buy a monthly magazine called What Satellite and Digital TV which listed many European satellites and their exact locations, as well as the channels you could receive and whether or not they were free-to-air. I assume it is still published.

Steve Crook

Even if you did get a big dish like that I doubt if you could get anything from American satellites in the UK. Most satellites broadcast a "footprint" and it's only if you're in that area of very close to it that you can get anything from them.

The footprint is usually circular and the footprint of the European satellites often covers the UK even though they're not really aiming at us.

This Wikipedia page shows the footprint of a satellite aiming at Germany, Austria and Switzerland and how it covers the eastern half of the UK as well

Steve

hhhhancock

What Satellite magazine always contains very good info. on satellite reception in the UK. There is a regular section listing all the satellites that can be received in the UK which includes all the broadcasters on each satellite.

You will definitely not be able to receive broadcasts from the USA in Europe - as per Steve's reply.

johng

The original Sky analogue channels together with the German channels were on Astra 1A to 1D. When Germany went digital it stayed with the Astra 1 group ( the old Sky position) and if you position a dish at Astra 1 and connect this to a standard satellite box (not a digibox) you will get all the German channels together with some from other European countries and also many of the Arab States which are all within the Astra 1 footprint. You will not of course get the scrambled channels without the appropriate decoder and card however there are more than enough German channels alone to keep you occupied for hours hundreds in fact. The main German channels such as ZDF, MDR etc, the equivalent of the BBC are NOT scrambled and many of them are also completely free of adverts.

Germany uses other satellites as well for the same stations however Astra 1 is probably the easiest to get with a normal sized dish. Reception is every bit as good as Sky since we are still well within the footprint area. Hope this helps

I am on cable for UK programmes however my old analogue disc is still pointed at Astra 1 and with a Universal LNB and an appropriate box there is no problem.