We are going to spain in December for three months,we are thinking of taking a satellite dish with us,any advice to size of dish required etc would be greatfully recieved.
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Well the only UK channel your going to get is BBC World from Hotbird at 13East or Astra1 at 19.2East, and for that a 60cm should do the trick, but I would use a 80cm, as for the regular BBC/ITV stuff that we get here, which comes from the Astra2 fleet at 28.2East, you will need a Dish of around 3metres in diameter!, and I am not joking, unless you get very lucky and find a hotspot, and there are some, then your 80cm may get you a picture, if your on the French side of Spain, then your prospects will be a little better, but on the whole, Spain is a pain for recieving UK satellite channels, as many ex-pats will concure.
Dont know where your going but we were in Alcossebre in january and could recieve BBC1 and ITV with a 85 cm dish , occasionally losing BBC in bad weather .Some vanners had 1.3 metre dishes and were recieving all BBC&ITV 24/7 however the further south you go into Spain you will need 1.5 or 2 meter . We are of to La Manga in january and am looking at buying a larger dish or possibly renting one for the duration of our stay
Having spent several winters in S of Spain and portugal. find a 90cm dish pulls in most stations except on the extreme south coast, ie Algarve etc and there is another dodgy area in SE Spain along coast. However with a 120 cm aerial, pulled in just about every UK station with my sky digibox. The downside is 120cm is awfully large to lug around.:-(
------------- Pegotty and getting past it :-)
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Paul as far as i know you can hire Satellite dishes at La Manga we are there from the 16th january on the C&CC rally for 65 nights so may see you there
It's crazy realy as when Sky was in analogue, all you needed was a 80cm Dish anywhere in Spain, even for the BBC/ITV Channels, and this even remained the case for a short time when digital came along, what messed things up was the launch of Astra2 D, once that was operational, the BBC/ITV channels migrated to what is known as the UK spot beam, which also carries the default transponder info, that tells the Sky box to start working, all in all a it's a bit of a dogs breakfast.
That's interesting, and quite possible, no reason why the campsite could not have a satellite conection at each EHU point, problem is the feed dish would have to be pointing at the Astra2 satellite, and I think it would be more likley to be pointing at Astra1, HotBird or Hispasat, as to cater for the Spanish/German/Dutch/French campers if that's the case, BBC World would be just about the only English channel available. from the campsites point of view this would mean only having to say use a 80cm Dish and not a 2m Dish.
Andy
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Quote: Originally posted by jaymac on 21/8/2009
I thought I'd heard that on sites like La Manga it was possible to hire a share of a dish, is this right?
Yes you are correct you can hire from a local company who will come and setup a dish for you
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Topic: satellite dish
