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Hey everyone, Am very much enjoying my new camper van life style but a tad worried about the switch to digital tv am wondering does anyone know of anywhere who won't rip me off re fitting satellite tv or a digi box ?

Also I would like internet access - anyone with any knowledge of how this is workable in a mobile camper ?

I would need these both to work in Europe too as I'm heading on a three month trip next April !

Lix :-)

 i have a dish and box, it works all over the uk and france, its only freeview (£20.00) for 3 years, if i had sky at home i could take the box and card and get the same channels. hope that helps.

floppy

Thank you :-) - So you need the dish and the box for digi ? Presume I need to look into getting a dish fitted and then buy a normal digi box from somewhere ? does that allow internet ?

Just spoken to an expert and its looks like the internet and auto satelitte are way out of my price range !!!

Does anyone know of anywhere to get a cheap manual system ?

Use internet cafes!!!!!!  And an internet enabled mobile phone connected to your laptop for when there are no internet cafes around.  Don't really know about the technicalities of this, except I can't imagine the call charges are particularly cheap!

Lidl occassionally have portable satellite systems in for about £60.  Not sure if this is what you're after

Excellent thank you - does it get channel four as I notice this isn't mentioned ? or can you link it up to a preview box thereby getting all the other channels ?

Thanks

Lix

You dont have to go for a fancy/ pricey satalite dish you can use a similar one thats fitted to a house cost £20 and an Omnistor tripod.

I have a mate whos converted a rotory line frame as a tripod.

It all depends on what you want to spend

I have sky subscription and take my box away (its Security while im away sky dont like you doing it but tough) Ive received signals in Northern germany and as far south as Austria and its only a mini dish.

Pete

There's a bit about it here as well

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=8&TopicID=16400&PagePosition=1&ThreadPage=1&ReturnPage=Search&search=&searchIn=

Hi, Here is a page with detail of differences and what's available via links.

http://www.wickonline.com/fta.htm

Phil.

Depending upon where you want to go, and what channels you want to pick up will depend upon what size dish you need, the larger the dish the further afield you can go and still get the normal signals. A lower cost alternative to a fitted dish is to have a tripod mount one, these work well and do not add aditional height to the vehicle for travelling.

With regards to internet, the best is to use your phone as the modem for the PC, as described by DandD. Now people will say that wil be very expensive using your phone whilst abroad, well the answer is yes it can be, but if you do a little bit of research and sign up for free accounts in the countries you are going to , they provide you with a local rate (for that country) phone number.Use that to dial, instead of having to dial back to the UK for your ISP. I did this for France and Spain and it worked out very very cheaply. Before for a 1week trip to France my calls cost aprox £300, using the local ISP phone number for 4 weeks the whole of the phone bill was only about £90, this included for France and Spain

Hope this helps