A 60cm dish is generally OK for most of France. I have used that size dish half way across Germany. We now have an 85cm dish as we tend to go further East. If you look at David Sullivan's website www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk he has a section where people post in and say what size dish they used at certain locations in Europe. He also has charts that plot dish size geographically. Obviously a bigger dish gives you more options if at a later stage you decide to travel to Germany or Italy. A useful tip is to buy one with a folding LNB arm as it makes storage and use easier.
True David, a 60cm dish will get you a long way. For a better quality signal though, a bigger dish may be preferable. Most folks coming here have the 60cm dish and don't have too many problems. But, I have noticed the signal quality & strength does improve with a larger dish.
We have used a 80cm Dish down at Antibes, and also in the Southern Ardeche, to be fair a 65cm would mostly take take care of business, although as most sites have tree shade, an 80cm can somtimes ofset the loss of signal, 90cm IMHO would be overkill, although some 90cm Dish's only perform as well as some 60cm Dish's, but that is down to the construction of the Dish, and partly to the type of Lnb being used, an Aluminium Dish will often outperform a Steel Dish of the same size, also I would avoid a mesh Dish, and go for a solid Dish, as they hold there shape better whilst in transit.
Using skybox & a solid 60cm dish,stayed at el pina campsite the 1 on the right hand side of ave de Madrid which has no trees so a clear shot at astra 2, also enjoyed Dale wintons music on Radio 2.
I use an old domestic Oval Mini Dish 43cmx53cm with my old Skybox and new HD Skyplus Box [this year]. This year we went across Eastern France to Alsace - Haguenau then South to Ornans. Last year Chamonix Mont Blanc and South as far as Carcassonne. Good reception everywhere we have been in France including West coast down to Bordeaux. The small dish never let us down.
This year we bought a SLX Sat finder from B&Q Dover £14.98 and this speeded up setup with the new Sky+HD box.
I mount the mini dish with a long lead on an old camera tripod so that I can move it around, compass also helps before pitching to avoid possible obstacles.
Hi bowler.
What a lot of folk don't know, is that the Sky Mini-Dish is a design wonder, and often outperforms say even a 65cm Dish, the reason for this being that the eleptical design of the Dish is also perfectly matched to the Lnb, even down to the FeedHorn aparture of the Lnb, the fact that the Sky Dish is wider than it is tall, is also a factor, as the majotity of ofset Dish's are taller than they are wide, and are not always perfectly matched to the Lnb used, again the Sky Dish aims to get as much signal from Astra2D as is technicaly possible, the only downside is that almost all Sky Dish's are made from mesh, and are not realy designed to be lugged around, but look after your Dish and all will be fine, although I know of many folk who can not get a signal with a Sky Mini-Dish South of Lyon, and the same on the Cote d Azur.
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Topic: Satellite Dish size
