Help - Satellite TV in France

[David in Little Haven]

We have a small cottage in the hills above Castres in the Tarn region (81). We bought an 'Etap' box & dish from a bricollage & had it installed & tuned by an 'expert'! We can only now get BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, CNN, S4C (we're from Wales!), ITV3 & we used to get Film4, all through the Astra satellite. Is this the sum total of channels we can expect to receive without installing a full 'Sky' system with associated monthly rent? - we don't use it enough to warrant this although we have Sky in the UK.

Any suggestions would be most welcome - thanks

[Tim]

No, your equipment, if set up correctly, should be able to receive all the 'free to air' channels - the same as your Sky box in the UK if you take out the viewing card.

Your problem lies either with the tuning of your receiver, or possibly, the alignment of your dish.

Unlike your UK Sky box, your receiver needs to be told what channels to tune into for you to be able to watch them. With the information you've given, it sounds to me as if you need to find the tuning menu on your receiver and then look at this website http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html - this gives the frequencies and parameters of all the free to air channels available at 28 east.

If you need more info - please feel free to come back and ask.

Regards - Tim

[Bugsy]

I have a non-sky box (Technomate) that was installed by a non-expert (me) and after running an initial search I get nearly 350 channels. Many of these are useless, of course but I do watch the following

BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, News 24

ITV 1, 2, 3, 4

Channel 4

Film 4, True Movies, World movies, Movies for men

Men & motors

Sky news

Euronews

France 24

Suggest you try an auto-search.

Gary.

[Anton Redman]

If the expert was French it is possible they did not adjust the Skew ( turn on the LNB) in its holder as French channels systems need their LNB  vertical.

[CeeJay]

Very interesting, I have a Sky connection and would love to watch World Movies but every time I go to Channel 331 I get a "No satellite signal is being received" message.

I have an 80cm dish and am in  Herault, and have no other problems with reception, except when it sheets down with rain or we have an orage.

[Martin963]

It may be because World Movies is on Eurobird,  which whilst close to the rest of the 28.2 deg E fleet,  is actually at 28.5 deg E.    If your dish was optimised at the time of installation on (say ) Astra 2D to favour the BBC/ITV,  or even on Astra 2A/B,  it may be that it's not responding so well to Eurobird.   The bigger the dish the tighter the focus,  and whilst you should get 2A/B/C/D/Eurobird on the same dish,  it might take a bit of tweaking to bring in Eurobird.

In addition the skew may have been optimised for 2D,   which for some reason (unexplained,   not admitted,  but true nevertheless) is slightly more slanted than the rest of the fleet.

http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

tells you what's on which,  do a search for World Movies and then see what else is on Eurobird and if you're having problems with those too.

http://www.lyngsat.com/eb1.html

[CeeJay]

Martin

Thanks for that very useful information, when the rain stops I will have a tweak!!!

[Martin963]

Just a little tweak,   unless something else is wrong that signal will only just be below the digital threshold.     Be jolly careful (I'm not trying to be patronising here) as it's all too easy to make the overall situation worse unless you can get back to the original situation accurately.

But there's no reason (according to the maps) why that Eurobird Fixed Beam should be weak where you are,  you can often (although it's poor practice) gently apply a little pressure to the dish in various directions  without actually moving it to see if the signal strength improves.   In your case that would mean a gentle "persuasion" a tiny bit east (ie to the left standing behind the dish).  Before I did that though I'd look at the skew.    It can of course also be the elevation,  you're just going to have to play.

What does the Sky box say about signal quality (not strength) at the moment (although it only applies on one particular frequency of course).   Are the other channels on Eurobird Fixed beam down too?

[Bugsy]

I have a funny, but true story about setting up satellite dishes. Before we moved to france we had a large american motorhome and spent the winters in Spain. We had an 80cm dish mounted on a tripod that I used to set up outside the motorhome wherever we stopped. Over time I got quite good at doing this, usually taking a few minutes to set up.

On one occasion, we were in a campsite in Narbonne and I just couldn't get a signal, trying all the little tweaks and nothing. I should add that when setting up my wife used to shout from inside the motorhome when the thing was working. On this occasion, after all my futile attempts had failed I gave up and kicked, in anger, the dish and tripod over...................... thats it, came the cry from inside the vehicle and sure enough the signal and picture was perfect. Now the dish was on its side on the grass and should never have worked, but it did.

[:D]

[CeeJay]

Martin

What does the Sky box say about signal quality (not strength) at the

moment (although it only applies on one particular frequency of

course).   Are the other channels on Eurobird Fixed beam down too?

Signal quality is about 60% and some of the other channels on Eurobird are ok but most are not.

But I have noticed lately that even in  a moderate downpour all the major channels i.e BBC, ITV etc  start breaking up, so maybe the orage we had a few weeks ago has knocked something askew. Time for a combined effort of 'er indoors and me outdoors!!

[le rouge]

I have just re-downloaded all the satellite channels and was pleased to find out that I gained a few new ones (to me that is) in Channel 4 + 1 (not Ch 4 though), plus ITV4, E4, More4 and France 24 plus a few music channels.

I lost BBC2 and BBC News 24 recently and still dont seem to be able to get them back. Any advice?

 

[Martin963]

le rouge - did you do a "complete rescan (with deletion of exisiting channels)" or an "add channels"?   (I'm assuming non-sky box here)

If the former it's likely that the master list of transponders is incomplete and that you need to do an "add channels" type scan on specific frequencies such as 10714 MHz  H  SR=22000  (ch 4 real time).

Full details here

http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

To explain,  boxes come preloaded with frequencies to search on according to what satellite they're told to deal with,   and this list is often incomplete at the time of manufacture.   Hence the need to tell the box to look for other transponders in the light of developments.

However,  if some channels have simply jumped ship then it's likely that your dish has moved a tad,  or the skew needs tweaking.

BBC News moved over a year ago,  did you hunt it down to its new frequency  (11954 MHz)?    It could be you were watching the temporary feed on 10773 MHz which suddenly "became" channel 5.

Start with the add channels/manual scan/add transponder type manoeuvre first.

Come back if you get into difficulties,  we love finding missing channels on here!

[le rouge]

Thanks Martin.

Yes I did a complete scan rather than add.

I remember reading on here (now you say it) that BBC News 24 moved. I will try hunting under the new frequency.

BBC2 comes and goes - by that I mean somedays it is there and others not - it doesnt sort of fade away!!!  (so maybe that would be the satellite dish moving?)

BBC 3 and 4 I had when I was here in October but now they are gone!

I am busy renovating so TV is a low(ish) priority but will try your suggestions and come back to you if necessary.

Nice to have had a good response from someone - cheers.

Mike

 

 

 

[Martin963]

If channels come and go then you would do well to check the alignement, elevation, and skew of the dish and LNB.   That's the thing about digital,   there's a cliff edge below which the signal just doesn't trigger the decode process.   The difference between working and not working can be no more than a cloud in the sky,  or rain,  or even the gentle "dance" that the satellites perform en continu in their slots (it's only about 100 kms each way but it could make all the difference at certain points if your dish is already on the threshold).

Skew is the easiest to check,  loosen the clamp holding the LNB and give it a twist.  Generally a good compromise is so that it's at about 7 o'clock/1 o'clock (ie twisted clockwise from the "natural vertical" position where the cable hangs down straight).  But if your problems have suddenly appeared it's more likely that the dish has budged slightly.   If you move it, make carefully where it is at the moment,  both elevation and direction,  and do not move it far!

Not sure we'd better ask about the bad responses.   We try and be very civilised on this subsection of the forum!  I know it isn't always as it should be.

[Tim]

Just a thought - are you looking for BBC 3 & 4 during the day - if so you will not find them.

On a Sky or freesat box they appear as separate channels when in fact they actually share their frequencies with CBBC & CBEEBIES. So, a scan during the day, up to 8 p.m. French time will show the children's channels, a scan after that will show BBC 3 & 4.

Sorry to but in, but in my experience not everyone with a FTA box knows that.

Regards - Tim

[Martin963]

Tim,  quite right to mention that.   You could never be accused of butting in!

[le rouge]

Cheers again. No problems with 'butters in' - more the merrier.

I did know about BBC3 and 4 - they came up as something like ETV and CCTV or something like that. You are correct that during the day I got childrens progs but for a month now I get 'no signal'.

Looks like 'get the ladder out' time then and tweaking.

I didnt mean to be disrespectful to posters but sometimes I ask a question and it is not really answered but hijacked by someone on a tangent, albeit similar to my original question, and then I dont get an answer - that was the refreshing part about your replies so thanks.

I am now covered in paint and dust so need a shower before disappearing to the nearest hostelry for wine and food. C'est la vie! Someone has to do it!

A plus

 

 

 

 

[Martin963]

Far be it from me to offer an explanation,  but it may well be that people like Tim and I (and probably Anton and Ernie and a few others) are all scientifically grounded,   so we've been taught ab initio (second time I've used that phrase today) to ATQ!!

[WendyG]

Martin many thanks

 

I completely lost the signal on one of my sky boxes and tried moving the LNB etc.  Signal strength was excellent but there was no signal quality at all, I then read your post and went into ADD CHANNELS and low and behold after a few tweaks back came everything as before!

The other sky box has continued working normally (off another dish and LNB just below the other one, mystery.

Anyway all is well, many many thanks, can now watch tv again upstairs.

WendyG

[Martin963]

Glad you've got thingsback to normal WendyG.

Did you get anywhere with that integrated TV/DVD recorder problem you had on another thread?