I have a tv with in built digital (freeview channels). Can I just buy a cheap dish, hook the two up and away we go? There are dishes on ebay for less than a tenner
The simple answer is no. You will need a satellite reciever and dish to utilise the various satellites that are up in the sky.
I have found that the most caravanners use their sky box from home (as I do), but other alternatives can be bought cheaply from Maplins or Aldi etc.
There is also a new system called freesat competing with sky.
A useful site is www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk
For freeview you will need an ariel. Most caravans have them fitted to the roof or you can get an external one on a pole or fixed to the side of the van.
The subject is also fully covered in this forum if you use the search facility.
You say free view, you dont need a dish with freeview. you use the ariel. may be its not up to stratch. BUT if you want a small dish, i have one with suckers on to mount on your van . it is knew. £10. but if you want it it`s pick up.
------------- Roughing it in style at Calloose caravan and camping holiday park nr St Ives.(seasonal pitch)
Its not a hangover, its wine flu!
You'll need an aerial for digital freeview, preferably a high gain digital aerial and you may find that you'll need a booster as well to boost up the signal if it is weak. Not all of the UK can receive digital freeview signals yet. Hopefully the UK will be fully digitalised by 2010. Bearing this in mind, obstacles such as hills, trees and buildings can greatly affect the quality of the signal, which knocks the signal out and in turn causes the freeview picture to pixalate and break up or not receive the signal at all. The coax cable has to be of a good quality as well. Some times it helps to change the polarity of the aerial, from the usual horizontal (for main stream transmitters), to a vertical polarity (for relay transmitters), when twisting the aerial around in a 360 degree rotation to find the best signal direction.
------------- "A.C.L. - Three ways to tackle a problem. Accept it, Change it or Leave it."
As others have said, you need a satellite receiver (e.g. a Sky or Freesat digibox) to receive satellite channels.
With analogue TV, you could watch in marginal reception even if the picture was somewhat grainy. Unfortunately, with Freeview (and all other digital transmission) it's pretty much "all or nothing". When signal strength is low, the picture becomes very pixellated and both audio and video "stutter" enough that you wouldn't want to watch it.
Provided you can get a clean line of sight with the satellite (which you can at most campsites), you should have no problem getting a good picture in UK with a standard Zone 1 (43cm) minidish except for the far West of Cornwall and most of Scotland, where a Zone 2 (60cm) dish might be required. This means that satellite is usually more reliable than Freeview for tourers - but you'll need to buy an additional receiver or use your home digibox.
A quick comment on the dish. You'll probably want to mount it on a tripod, a pole, or the jockey wheel. If so, you'll need a dish that can be "pole mounted". A lot of cheaper 43cm dishes have plate mounting brackets that are not suitable for pole mounting, so it's a good idea to check first.
Provided you can get a clean line of sight with the satellite (which you can at most campsites), you should have no problem getting a good picture in UK with a standard Zone 1 (43cm) minidish except for the far West of Cornwall and most of Scotland, where a Zone 2 (60cm) dish might be required. This means that satellite is usually more reliable than Freeview for tourers - but you'll need to buy an additional receiver or use your home digibox
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I can get a good signal with a 43cm dish n/p in cornwall (st ives) just one of those little dishes with the suckers on the bottom to stick on the van roof, works fine
------------- Roughing it in style at Calloose caravan and camping holiday park nr St Ives.(seasonal pitch)
Its not a hangover, its wine flu!
You stand a good chance of getting a good signal in all of UK and Northern France. However, the footprint centre is approx in the Midlands and trees, clouds, rain, nearby power lines, etc. become more significant the further out you are. This is why I wrote that you might need a zone 2 dish in the far West of Cornwall and Scotland.
Just to add a bit more info on performance of sat dishes, we have just returned from touring SW France for the first time with a satellite set up.
The dish is a solid Triax 54CM unit, the LNB a Sunny Universal and the decoder a Comag SL30/12 [ like in some Maplins kits].
We got excellent UK channel reception at our furthest southerly site at St Jean Pied de Port in the western Pyrenees, even in moderately heavy rain.
Every where else it was also excellent; our only drop out was in a very very heavy thunderstorm right on the coast near Le Havre.
Mr UM: I see that you've changed the image in your post from Astra South Beam to Astra 2D.
There are 4 satellites that carry the channels you find on the Sky EPG: Astra 2A, 2B, 2D, and Eurobird 1. Each carries different channels and has its own footprint. (see here for which satellite carries which channels). Astra 2D carries BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 - so you lose these once you're outside the footprint of Astra 2D. However you can still receive channels from the other satellites.
By default, Sky boxes look for the North Beam for Astra 2A and 2B and don't search for the South Beam if they fail to find it. However, if you follow the instructions in Satellites for Caravans, here, you can retune your system for the South Beam transponders once you're too far South for the North Beam (but take note of the caveats in the linked piece).
Quote: Originally posted by pajaholic on 30/6/2009
Mr UM: I see that you've changed the image in your post from Astra South Beam to Astra 2D.
There are 4 satellites that carry the channels you find on the Sky EPG: Astra 2A, 2B, 2D, and Eurobird 1. Each carries different channels and has its own footprint. (see here for which satellite carries which channels). Astra 2D carries BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 - so you lose these once you're outside the footprint of Astra 2D. However you can still receive channels from the other satellites.
By default, Sky boxes look for the North Beam for Astra 2A and 2B and don't search for the South Beam if they fail to find it. However, if you follow the instructions in Satellites for Caravans, here, you can retune your system for the South Beam transponders once you're too far South for the North Beam (but take note of the caveats in the linked piece).
HTH,
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
I have a Maplin (Lidl) decoder that seems to pick up whatever I point it at.
I do not take my sky box away, but was thinking of trying my Humax Freesat HD decoder.
I can't comment on Freesat. However Satellite for Caravans has what seems to be a fairly detailed section on the subject - so probably worth your while to take a look.
Do you have to tune in the channels when you set it up (for sky?) We are thinking of getting it for when we go to France, but no idea how fiddly it is?
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Topic: sat dish????
