UK TV in France - again

[napoleon]

I have read every posting about this subject and still need advice. I hope some experienced members can give me staraight answers to these questions.

When we return to France next week I have been given permission to set up whatever is needed to pick up UK TV and radio. My plan is to visit BricoMarche and buy a standard digital satellite kit for about €75. I understand about dish sizes, satellite angles, feeders and general setting up procedures BUT will this standard French system give me access to the UK satellite transmissions? What should I look for in the specification? We only need to receive the basic BBC and ITV channels.

Alternatively, I could rush out and buy a cheap satellite receiver box before we leave. Is this a better option and what should I buy?

I have seen systems working in friends' houses in France and they claim to have very little technical knowledge and just bought things locally or from other friends.

I would be grateful if anyone with experience could guide  me to the best solution.

Thanks,   Alistair

[Pierre ZFP]

You'll be fine.  Do exactly as you propose.  Any €75 sat kit will do you fine, just make sure you get a Digital box, not analogue.  Point it at Astra 2d at 28.2 deg east of south and you'll get all the BBC and ITV TV/Radio but not E4 or Channel 5 (need a card for that - bovvered? I'm not) .    No such thing as a 'French' or 'UK' sat system, apart from the coded channels, just plug the sat box into the scart socket on the TV. .  The Free to Air is exactly that.  Who would want to pay Murdoch for all the extra tosh? 

[Martin963]

As long as the box mentions DVB-S and the LNB (tete in French) is universal then it is entirely suitable for the TV services from the UK,  carried on Astra 2.

The only complication comes if you want to pick up scrambled channels;  in the case of anything scrambled by Sky's Videoguard system (like ch 4 and ch 5 and Sky's own progs) you HAVE to have a Sky box - in flagrant contravnetion of EU law,  but that's another matter.

If you just want the BBC and ITV then any DVB-S (ie digital sat) box is suitable.   They seem to be easier to buy and cheaper in France.   Nowadays you will probably need a TV with a SCART socket as many boxes don't have a UHF modulator,  but unless your TV came out of the ark then it will have one (certainly post 1992).

Sorry Pierre - you beat me to it,  by about a minute!

[napoleon]

Martin and Pierre,

                         Thanks for your super-rapid responses. You have made me feel far more comfortable about the process and I am now impatient to get there and set it up. I will be checking all the details at Brico before I buy or move on to another store that will supply the right system.

Our TV is almost new as it is a replacement following a burglary!

  Thanks again.     Alistair

[Benjamin]

As napoleon sounds happy with the answers could I piggy back a related question?

If you use a Brico sourced digital decoder do you still get the Sky program planner and the embedded ability to set reminders etc?

[Pierre ZFP]

Generally speaking no.  It depends on the EPG  (Electronic Program Guide) but they are usually pretty basic, at least on the cheaper boxes.  You will probably find that the channel numbers don't even correspond to the Sky ones even for BBC/ITV.  Not usually a problem as you can just add what you want to your 'Favourites' list and forget about channel numbers altogether.  If you want the full-on EPG you would maybe have to go to something like the dreambox at around €500.

[Martin963]

No - at least not at the moment.   You're likely just to get a NOW and NEXT info banner,  possibly in the form of a crude EPG across more than one channel if you're lucky.   But not the eight day Sky planner

However,  one of the features of the BBC Freesat offer - if they ever get it working - is that they (the BBC,  ITV) will transmit their own "non Sky" EPG which will work more widely on different types of sat receiver (although it may still only work on a selection as chosen by the BBC and ITV - no-one knows yet for sure) and will be much more than the present NOW and NEXT system.

I think Pierre and I seem to be working in tandem - my excuse is that it's pouring with rain which is keeping me indoors!

[AnOther]

One caveat, the OP dosesn't say what area of France he/she is in but in some dish size is more critical than others.

This plan should give you some guidance but is not definitive.

http://www.brymar.co.uk/info/europe_dish_size/France/Dish-France.gif

You'll likely get away with 80cm in most areas although if you're marginal you might find yourself losing reception in med to heavy rain.

EDIT:

Found this handy Elevation/Azimuth calculator

http://g.guenin.chez-alice.fr/theo/calcule.htm

Get your Latitude & Longitude here

http://world.maporama.com/idl/maporama/default.aspx

[napoleon]

Thanks for the websites. I have just looked at the dish size map, located my exact co-ordinates and calculated the azimuth and elevation.

Very helpful.

Alistair

[napoleon]

Have bought a kit from Brico and with the help of my grandson we have located strong signals from Astra2a. This is in the list of satellites on the screen. We have also received well from Astra19 and Hotbird which give a huge range of French and other European channels. From Astra2a we can get lots of BBC programmes but not ITV. Also the BBC radio channels all come up with "no signal".

   I expected to use Astra2d but it is not listed on the screen. Is it a different satellite? I have used the calculator on two satellites named Astra and Astra2a which have significantly different positional data. If I find Astra, will it be Astra 2d and will it have the BBC, ITV and radio channels available?

  I feel that it just needs a little more work on my part and all will be well.

 Hope the members can advise me before I start again. Thanks, Alistair.

[Fridgeman]

Hi Nap,

Lets try and answer/sort out one thing at a time, for BBC / ITV you need to be on Astra2 once you are fixed on Astra2 you will receive Astra 2a,b,d and Eurobird1 these satellites are grouped close together and you should get a signal from all of them which will cover BBC and ITV channels, as all brands of stb (set top box) are slightly different in they way you go about searching for channels you really need to read the manual, your best bet is to do a Blind Search, you should end up with about 300 channels, there may be a screen that allows you to choose TV / FTA / ALL if you want radio as well you need to choose ALL and that is what you will get including all the encrypted channels (Sly Sports, Sly Movies) don't get too excited you will only get a blank screen when you select these channels, you now need to goto "edit channels" menu go through your list of channels deleting the ones you do not want and IMO there is a lot of c**p channels and ones you do not want your children to see once you have sorted your channels turn the stb OFF at the MAINS this will clear the deleted channels totally from your stb, now if you do not have ITV you need to goto Menu, Installation, Advanced Search, Add Transponder, then enter 10758 22000 V, This is the transponder number, it's symbol rate and it's polarity, then SCAN this will scan this Transponder only, you should end up with ITV1,2,4, men and motors and some ITV regional variants.

Try this first, I cannot guarantee your stb menu/screen shots will be exactly the same  but I feel they will be very close, if in doubt READ THE MANUAL.

You also state you can get Hotbird was this achieved by moving the dish by hand or have you fitted a motorised dish?

Try the above FIRST then we can sort out the Radio channels, but you must have a good signal from Astra2 first.

Let us know how you get on

[andyh4]

For what its worth, when we have heavy rain ITV is always the first station to go.  I think Fridgeman is on the money and your alignment - including angle of the LNB (7 o'clock as you look at the dish) is just a tad off optimum.

[Tim]

One thing to be aware of is that a lot of the boxes you can buy in France come pre-loaded with transponder information - it's possible that the ITV transponders have not been put in.

I normally delete everything that's pre-loaded and then manually input the channels I want and sort them out in the right order at the same time. It takes a bit longer but I think it works better that way.

Napolean, do you have the transponder info. Have got your channels by just doing a scan or have you manually input them?

Tim

[napoleon]

Thanks everyone. I am getting a strong signal from Astra. I simply carried out a scan as the handbook suggested and I have been relying on the pre-loaded information which does not mention ITV. I will visit one of the internet sites for more transponder data but will also try a few manual inputs. It will be educational and fun if I am allowed some play time.

Must play some cricket now!   Alistair

[Martin963]

As Timco has said,  they would have built your box and loaded the presets before Auntie decided to re-arrange her radio stations.   The ones that have moved are now on

11954 MHz (11.954 GHz) Horizontal pol,  27500 kbps and (if you need it) 2/3 Forward Error Correction.

As you will have seen,  and Fridgeman is an expert on,  it is not that difficult to enjoy programmes from many countries by using more than one satellite.   And it's fun.

[napoleon]

Just to finish this thread, I would like to thank all of you who provided me with advice and sources of useful data. We finished up with a superb system that allows us to watch most of the UK channels (not Channel 4 or 5) and as a bonus we can listen to noise free, UK radio programmes. I have developed a good  understanding of what is possible and discovered a few likely sources for initial failure.

The dish has now been moved from the lawn, just outside the salon window, to the top of my workshop at the back of the house. The TV pictures are better than anything we usually watch back in Surrey. I am now considering a second dish to improve the quality of our French TV reception which is currently from the chimney mounted aerial. During the installation of the first dish I sampled the dozens of European channels from Astra19 and Hotbird.

Thanks everyone!  Alistair

[Tim]

Glad you're sorted Alistair - it sounds as if this operation may have opened a whole new world for you.

Tim

[Rupert]

great link for the dish sizes many thanks

[Gyn_Paul]

If your off-air signal is not too bad, you might consider seeing if you

can get digial terrestrial in your area (there's usually a service area

map in your nearest brico; they#ll certainly know if your local

transmitter is equipped). So that's more expense : a TNT Box (It'll

blow your mind - ouch [:$]! ) which will give you another 5 or 6

channels including the French equivalent of news 24.

p