[Mesh or solid dish?]

Q, thanks for the reply and the options.  May update anyway to give a bit more tolerence to the signal

Pierre, did in fact have a dish on the side of the house. Arrived there once, connected all up and the box stated no signal, went outside to see if the dish had moved, infact it had moved somewhere else, some toe rag had decided they wanted the dish more then me, so its on the chimney now.

[Mesh or solid dish?]

Q, thanks for your input, yes I have one of those squawk and needle meters and  have used it on three installations successfully. My thoughts were on the upgrade option, going by some of the footprint figures I have seen my 60cm dish would be just on the edge of reliable reception for our area .And as people say the bigger the better.

My concern would be about the possibility of the wind knocking the dish out of alignment if I went for a solid dish, (not keen of having to pop up the ladder each time it moves) hence the question about using a new mesh one. If I did go for a new 80cm I would go for a French sourced solid dish but if it was mesh I think i'd have to  bring it over with me as never seen these in the Brico's. Yet!

Still looking for info about the transponder question. anyone?

[Mesh or solid dish?]

Bit of informed assistance requested. Off to Southern Burgundy in the next couple of weeks ( 40 miles north of Macon) at the moment we have a 60cm mesh dish up on the roof to pick up Freesat which has been suitable up to now, we have been told that we should be ok keeping the 60cm dish, for the narrow UK 2E beam, but I am looking into the option of upgrading to a 80cm just in case.

Now this where I am not sure, we are at the top of a hill so any wind about we will get it, I opted originally for a mesh as my view was as it gets windy any air will go through the mesh and hopefully not push the dish out of alignment, but a solid dish would not allow air to pass through therefore there could be more of a chance of it moving, any comments on this, plus is there any difference in the performance of either dish.

Next question refers to the Sky box  and the built in signal meter if I read some of posts correctly there is a default transponder frequency that the box uses, is this transponder on the Europe wide beam or on the narrow UK beam, can this be changed to one that uses say a transponder from 2E to enable to see what the strength/quality is actually like?

Sorry for the ramble, hope you can understand me. Not a whizz kid.

[Hot water pressure]

Whats the cold water pressure going into the hot water tank like, maybe the security valve has something wrong with it? worth a look.

[Cannot login]

[quote user="Gardian"]Suggest that you email James on

[email protected]

He'll sort you out. You have to use your original email address [/quote]

Well wouldn't be able to use mine, the E-mail address I used to register, and have still got to use to log in has long gone. It is dead so would not be able to send anything through it.

Why can you sometimes see previous posts in the thread and sometimes not, when you want to reply?

[Forum quiet, peoples priorities]

I can remember in the mists of time about 1968/9 Molesey (near Hampton Court) flooded,  Went to buy a car there and they were all talking about it.

Saw on the TV this morning that Staines under Thames is the latest town in the news.

[Internet for Second Homes]

Changing tack  a wee bit but if you are a UK resident and have BT Broadband they say you have the use of loads of hotspots all over Europe, would this work? or is it only localised in built up areas.

Something we have looked into as well is satellite broadband, one I have found is on a PAYG tariff,  I think its 7 pounds per gigabyte. Also I would be tempted to have a UK contract against a French contract. Saves getting any HADOPI letters.

[Tescos]

[quote user="The Riff-Raff Element"], Noz is often a good bet. They often have Spanish, Italian or Portuguese wines in stock, offered at silly prices and largely ignored by the French clientèle. .

[/quote]

Another option for us is "Big Bazaar" not sure how many branches there are in Burgundy, they are a bit like Noz but I think a bit more upmarket. There you can buy end of line stuff cheaper plus wine from around the world, we once saw Manchester United labeled wine, and wine that is supplied to Marks and Sparks UK stores Etc.

A couple of brothers we know often go the the Big Bazaar with a cork screw and two wine glasses, they buy a few different  bottles of wine, go out to the car, sample them and if to their taste return to the shop and buy a few cases of each.  We have often purchased some very good wine at a reasonable price.

[Buying tyres?]

[quote user="Jonzjob"]Great idea Pierre, but I'm not too sure if SWMBO would approve [:-))]

Reference to the spare. We have just been into the local Citroën dealer to see how much a roue galette would cost. The stores guy was very helpful and it took him ages before he found out that if we did order one he couldn't tell us how long it would take to arrive because the tyres are specially made for them and they don't make them until they have enough to make[8-)] Could be anything up to 6 months!!!!! I had phoned Citroën in the U.K. and they told me how much straight away and no problems getting them?

French car, French wheel, French tyre? What the hell is wrong here?

[/quote]

Its what they call French customer service.

[Re: Idiots!!]

[quote user="woolybanana"]What a bunch of *ankers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520240/Crash-test-Mary-Bizarre-Elf-Safety-rule-mother-baby-Jesus-ride-Bethlehem-Donkey-wearing-HARD-HAT.html[/quote]

If I was involved in this I think I would get Mary to wear a hard hat with day-glo jacket, not forgetting the donkey also wearing a hard hat.

[Astra 2F Discussion Here Please!]

[quote user="Quillan"]Another update.

Firstly I just have a Sky box and no HD TV at present so I can't look at anything technical other than what is on that box unfortunately.

[/quote]

I have a 37" Plasma Panasonic that can handle HD signals, I also have a Humax freesat HD box and quite frankly I can't see much difference between normal terrestial pictures via the aerial and the Humax throwing out a HD signal via satellite on say BBC channels. So Q I don't think you are missing much.

 Maybe if my eyes were perfect my views might be different, but as they are getting older I'm happy with the terrestrial picture.

Now don't get me on about the audio on programs.

 

[Driving in Italy]

[quote user="sid"]

It's a few years since we were driving there, but I remember that the autostradas seemed to have narrower lanes than normal and were poorly surfaced.  Driving through Naples is a nightmare! [/quote]

Can't comment if the lanes were narrow or not on our trip to Venice, but whats the point of narrow or wide lanes if drivers don't stay in them, I commented on the lorries overtaking slower ones on an earlier post, usually they just pulled out to the middle lane without any signals and continued to overtake slowly the slow vehicle.

The road in our bit of Italy was smooth and boy was it straight for miles, Exits and entrances  to the autostrada seemed to be in short supply though.

Naples, we went through on a coach back to the airport once, totally amazed no motorcyclists were killed on that trip.

[Driving in Italy]

Mrs T.

Re the question "can you not use cash at the toll booths"

Sorry can't remember if the first few were manned or not, it was the navigator who paid for the tolls, if not manned I assume it was chuck the coins in a basket ( thats if you had the money to start with) paying by card was a lot easier then scrabbling around for the correct change.

Have a good trip. The scenery is stunning on the trip to the Frejus tunnel, (if you are going that way) we went at the end of April and the mountains were still full of snow, in fact the passes were still closed to traffic

[Driving in Italy]

Last year we drove to Venice from France, we went through the Frejus tunnel and onto the autostrada, we found the first two or three toll booths you just put your credit card in the slot to pay, you will then get to another booth with the slot, put the credit card in, nothing happens, hear some message in Italian that you don't understand, someone shouts press the red button, try and get the credit card out of the slot, after a couple of minutes manage to get card out, press button, ticket comes out of said slot, continue journey.

Autostrada was three lanes wide, slow lane was full of lorries, middle lane was used by lorries to pass slower lorries usually about 3 MPH faster  then slower vehicle so it took ages, outside lane was used by the Ferrari works team roadtesting their cars. Typical Roman road straight and smooth.

But Venice was worth it.

Depends on when you travel you may be lucky

[can someone explain why I can't send e-mails]

Thanks all for the suggestions to fix the problem, will have a go when next back in France. I do know that one friend has Orange and another uses Wanadoo, suppose I'll have to have loads of different account names to cater for this.

I know I can use web mail at Mc Donalds etc, but the option of being able to download messages and reply at my leisure later on is for me better, especially when time is short and battery life to consider.

But why can they be sent via McDonalds that is the question.

JohnM, I never have much luck on searching the archives, usually the answer is tucked in away somewhere where a thread has wandered back and forth, and you have to be fairly specific on the search question.

Will gratefully accept any more input.

[can someone explain why I can't send e-mails]

We have to check our e-mails and get internet access via Mc donalds wi.fi whilst in France. I don't have any problem with receiving and sending e-mails via Mc Donalds system.

On the occasional times I can hook up to one of our friends internet connection in France I can receive e-mails, surf the web but I can't send e-mails via their system. What is so special about the Mc.Donalds system that enable e-mails to be sent with out problem. Is there a work around to this as its annoying at times.

System is Windows XP  using Outlook express.

Cheers

[Using a Sky HD box for non HD]

Ok taking this a stage further, if I had a twin LNB and as said you can't record if you don't have a subscription does the box have two outputs, IE could I say watch UK television on one tuner and record another channel via a dvd recorder on the other tuner output? or am I talking rubbish.

[French SIM card: Pommier]

[quote user="Frederick"]http://www.lycamobile.fr/en/                 Works for me ... Free sim...account and top up easy to manage on line . They don't take your money and cut you off if you fail to make a call for months

[/quote]

Well their Q/A states if you don't use it for 90 days the sim is cancelled and they can't re-instate it.

[french urinating in public]

This will make your eyes run.

Well there was supposed to be a picture there as well, don't know where its gone.

[Gift advice please]

[quote user="Pommier"]

[quote user="nomoss"]I have a hammer which I bought nearly 30 years ago. I use it regularly. It has had 2 new handles and one new head [:)][/quote]

I've got a broom like that. It's had 5 new heads and three new handles.

[/quote]

Pommier.

My mate Trigger has one like that.

[Ryanair again]

[quote user="Val_2"]

Sorry but Ryanair are a LOW COST airline, in other words you get the basic service an airline can offer.People keep slagging them off but how many of you in all honesty could/can afford to fly with a scheduled airline if there is one in your neck of the woods???

[/quote]

Suppose it is swings and roundabouts as well.

My sister-in-law wanted to fly from Manchester to Paris to visit us, she looked on the web at various airlines who flew that route. She finally booked with Air France who were actually cheaper the Easyjet.

When she got to the airport they informed the passengers they were overbooked and needed some volunteers to give up their seat, get a nice amount of cash back and a confirmed seat on the next flight. As there was a long wait at Paris for the TGV she opted for the cash. So a flight that was actually cheaper then Easyjet got even cheaper.

So it also works both ways. So check budget flights and normal airlines you could save money.

[UK insurance for fully comp European cover and breakdown]

Sid, Not quite right there, there is basic cover on the policy IE third party for use abroad. The green card  that was issued for an extra premium years ago was to extend the policy to the level of cover you had in the UK it was also proof to plod etc you had the required Insurance. Now you are given notification by way of the green card certificate that Garden Girl has or in my case it was written on the back of the certificate of Insurance, but not this year. Saying that some company's I believe still charge extra for this " Green card" Some company's include the cover as standard, the Pru and Saga being two of them, the only difference being the length of time you are allowed abroad with full cover. The Pru's was unlimited but not now.

Looks as if I'll be changing to Saga for the insurance then.

[UK insurance for fully comp European cover and breakdown]

Would appreciate a bit of help from Saga policyholders.

 My insurer Prudential has offered inclusive european cover for years with Green flag thrown in, on my last certificate of insurance on the back it has the information in different languages stating that cover is extended for visits to these countries (green card). But on my last renewal this information is missing on the cert.

 I phoned them up requesting this be included on a duplicate certificate. I have just received the duplicate but its still missing. Now their terms still say I have European cover but my concern is trying to tell some gendarme on a Sunday afternoon that I do have the cover although its not shown. Plus they have changed the period allowed abroad from unlimited to 90 days.

This is where I would need a bit of assistance would any Saga policyholders have a look at their cert of insurance and tell me if they have the International Motor insurance card (green card) printed on the back of their certificate or any help what Saga supply.

Cheers.

[How to turn phone on/off via 3000 system]

A while back I had a discussion with Theiere about turning the phone on/off if you are on the  residence secondaire tariff.

I said I managed to find details on how to do it on Oranges site( in English and French) and printed them out ages ago, but alas couldn't find them again when telling Theiere about it.

Well now I have managed to get my scanner working and have scanned the pages I found.

Think I have managed to upload and put the correct links to enable all to see them.

 1st one tells you how to register your phone number

second how to turn it on/off .

If these are any help, enjoy.

[IMG]http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i367/chaumes/ft2-1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i367/chaumes/ft12.jpg[/IMG]

[Telephone for guests]

Ok Theiere done a bit more digging

http://assistance.orange.fr/telephone-fixe/votre-compte-gerer-votre-compte-avec-le-3000-compte_3000.php

Above is the page I got to about the 3000 system. If this link doesn't work I found it by going to Orange fr site, assistance page, click FIXE tab, ( not internet or mobile) slide mouse hand over "votre compte, votre facture" stuff for 3000 there.

You will have to register your landline number with Orange and give them a passnumber, this is only needed if you use the service from another phone as your number will be registered with them. Be blowed if I can find the English translation pages on how to do it but I have hard copies, in English and French if you run into any problem.

Good luck