SKY / DIGITAL ETC

[keith.P]

Can anyone please offer me some information regarding this minefield , we have a home in the Vendee( Pouzages ) we visit apprx 8 times a year and the children would like to watch TV , what is the simple way , do I need to bring a Sky dish / box from uk etc,( there is a dish on the roof left by the previous French owners ) we have an english TV for watching DVD`S .Answers in basic ``god he is stupid ``, not quite in the 21 st c and useless with the remote language please !!!!!!!

Keith .P

[andyh4]

Kieth,

assuming we are talking UK TV.

Then yes sky digibox will do, or you could buy a French box - numerique (very important) - cost can be really quite low when on specail offer.

Dish on the roof is probably about as much use as a chocolate fireguard as it is. 

1.  probably pointing to the wrong satellite (19° or 5° East)

2. probably fitted with an analogue LNB (receiving thingy) - almost definitely if 1 is true.

 

So you will need to re-align the dish to point 28° East and change the LNB to a universal LNB.

 

Alternatively buy a cheap analogue French box and set it up as is and enjoy French, German and other foreign langauge TV.

[Benjamin]

What Andy is saying is spot on but I suspect you're a bit uncertain, like I was, about all the different techie words being used. I chickened out and found the local aerial installer and got him to do the work of aligning the dish for me.

Look in Yellow Pages (pages jaunes) under Antennes pour television to find your nearest installer (could probably be your local electrical shop/retailer). Take with you an English satelite magazine listing what channels are broadcast from which satelites and show them that you need the dish pointing at 28 degrees East. They should immediately know that the dish needs re-aligning. You may also need to tell them that the transmission is digital (numerique in French). A dish by the way is an antenne parabolique.

They should then come along and re-align your dish using a specialised piece of equipment which should result in your dish being "locked on" to the correct satelite. They may or may not need to change the LNB (receiving thingy).

As Andy says it may be cheaper to buy a French decoder box but then again you are exposing yourself to uncertainties if you are not very technical. It may be better to buy a box in the UK and bring it with you. Other people more knowledge than me may correct the next bit but I think you can get all BBC and ITV channels without a card but you cannot yet get Chennels 4 and 5. With a card you can get all of the UK terrestrial channels plus loads of sundry others.

Finally do not let the installer go before you test that you are trully on 28 degrees East!!!!

I paid 28.50€ per hour plus 5.5% TVA last year. I also had some other work done at the time so I cannot tell you exactly how long re-aligning the dish took but his travelling time probably cost more than the actual work involved.

Also doing it this way saved me climbing a ladder as I have a serious case of vertigo and find that changing a light bulb is very challenging!!!!!!!!!

Benjamin

[David]

We live in France and enjoy sky TV on a free to view card.  I am going down to the Perpignan area this weekend, and I plan to take the sky pace box and card, and I will take those with me (plus all attachments).  We are going to buy a new French TV when down there, no problem, but any advice about which TV I could buy which would also act as a computer monitor would be welcome.

Am I correct in thinking that when we have the new TV, in order to get sky, I only have to buy a numerique dish from Carrefor together with a tripod.  Plug it in to the sky box and the TV, outside on the terrace point the dish to 28 degrees east, and use the signal strength meter displayed through skybox on the TV to align the dish?   For planning application reasons we cannot presently mount the dish on an outside wall.

Many thanks for any replies.

David

[Anton Redman]

From memory you will need about 35 degress east as the 29 degree position is a notional position over the equator . Suggest using Leroy Merlin or Castorama for the dish rather than Carrefour

[David]

Many thanks for that Anton.

I think I understand the process of setting up a dish, and I have read the caravan site.

I have only one worry.  When we buy a new TV, we will have to tune in the TV to the sky box before we can start to align the dish, thus the sky box will have no incoming signal from the dish.

Does anyone think this will be a problem?

We will connect the box and dish to the TV, and switch on.  Then I presume the TV will have an auto tune function and find the sky box signal?

Many thanks,

David

[Anton Redman]

The TV remote control will have a button called <<AV>> or something similar. If you use a SCART cable to connect the TV to Sky Box you will have no problems except finding the AV button on the TV remote. Even if it is getting no signal the Sky Box send a message / picture down the SCART saying something like 'No Sattelite Picture is being received' 

[David]

Thanks again Anton,

Very helpful.  I have printed off the instructions, and we leave tomorrow, so I will try out the system next week.

I will let you know how we got on when we return, as we will not have an internet connection.

Thanks again,

David

[Emma]

Sorry, another non-technical person here.  We are moving out to our house in the Mayenne soon and there is no dish there at the moment.  Put simply, if we were to subscribe to Sky here in the UK, and take out the supplied dish, box and our UK tv, would we have everything we need to get up and running?

Thanks

[Quillan]

If you subscribe to Sky and get a new box and dish you are required to plug it in to a telephone socket, it's part of your contract. The matter of if receiving Sky in France being illegal has been debated many times but what is true is that if Sky find you have your box outside of the UK they will cancel your Sky subscription, efectivly turning off you card. They make you plug your box in to a phone socket because they make their money back for the box by you using the interactive services. To ensure this is possible and because it's in the contract they will randomly phone Sky box's to see if they are still there and connected. If they are not at the phone number you told them they will switch off the card thus forcing you to contact them.

So the long and the short of it is to buy a second hand dish and box on Ebay in the UK ensuring it is 'off contract' (this means you don't have to plug it in to a phone line) get a card from Sky, you can say you bought the box on Ebay they don't have a problem. Get a local chap to set it up for you to make sure it works (probably cost around 50 pounds, it did for me 4 years ago). You can then take the dish down yourself pack it all up and bring it over to France and pay a guy to stick the dish up and align it. I actually left my UK dish behind and it cost me 100€ for a new 60cm dish bolted to the wall and aligned. The LMB (square thing on the end of the arm facing in to the dish) went bang and they replaced it FOC.

Hope this helps.

[Deimos]

It used to be possible to buy a new box “off-contract” from most UK TV/Sky dealers. You have to pay RRP for the box (i.e. none of the Sky subsidy) but, as Quillan says, no requirement to plug into the phone line.

I did this many years ago when I lived in the UK. The installer asked if he could plug it into the phone line to activate it (or the card) as, whilst he could call and talk with Sky through the procedure, it was far quicker to do it automatically. Thus the box was plugged-in to the phone for a few minutes but never again.

It may easily be that things have changed since then. If you do need to activate the card from France, be careful when calling in case your caller line ID says “France” (no idea if Sky look at the caller line id though).

I do not know if this “full purchase” for the Sky box is still an available option as I did it quite a few years ago.

Ian

[Btuckey]

[quote user="Deimos"] snip......I do not know if this “full purchase” for the Sky box is still an available option as I did it quite a few years ago. Ian[/quote]

Any SKY approved independent installer will sell you a full price box which can be used without a phone line.  He makes a nice margin.  Look in Yellow Pages.  The term ‘off contract’ is incorrect here.  You still have a contract but certain clauses (the phone bit) are invalid.  ‘Off contract’ refers to a second-hand box that has an active card but expired contract.  You will receive terrestrial and junk channels only.

Brian 11500     

 

[Will]

[quote user="Btuckey"]

‘Off contract’ refers to a second-hand box that has an active card but expired contract.  You will receive terrestrial and junk channels only.

[/quote]

Not entirely true (though it is if you consider the BBC3, 4 News 24 etc as 'junk;). You get the BBC digital channels and ITV2, 3 etc. In fact you don't even need the card for most of these - you can get them on a French digibox too, though it can be a bit of a fag. The digibox and some sort of active card are necessary for channel 4 and five though.

[David]

We went down to Perpignan and after looking in Leroy and Castorama I bought an 80 cms dish from Bricodepot (I think - the big bricolage people) for about 80 euros.  I bought a Eurosat dish which advertised being high quality of 6dbs (?) with a single head (all other dishes in all shops had double heads).  Once home I found that the dish was plastic resin, and quite heavy.  I was not able to find a rotating washing line to use as a tripod (we cannot yet mount the dish on the wall due to planning consent), so I bought a plastic sun brolley stand that fills with water.  This worked very well, but was sensitive to rotating when the wind was strong.

I followed all advice, including the caravan site, and found it remarkably easy to set up, but unfortunately it would not receive any signals through the patio doors, so for the moment it is on the sun terrace.

I had our sky box and card, and set up things.  I set the elevation to about 35 degrees, and started side sweeping from about 40 degrees east, being ready to find a signal at about 35 degrees east.  The only problem I had was that when starting, the sky box showed no signal strength, and no signal quality.  The caravan site states that there should always be a signal strength reading, and if not the connection from the box to the dish was bad.  After checking all connections, despair set in as there was still no signal strength.  I thought that perhaps I had bought the wrong dish.  However, while in despair, I was slowly prodding the dish around ready to kick it, when hey presto - both signal strength and quality appeared.  With fiddling I managed to get about 60 percent signal for both, and that gave a very good picture.  I have to dismantle the dish every night, but it is easy to set up again in the morning.

I would now say to people that if you have a sky box and card, even for total non techies, it is remarkably easy to install a sky dish.  For wall mounting, the only problem would be if you feel confident about working up ladders.  I did not even need a signal test meter, just the wife inside hollering.

I would report the incorrect info about signal strength to the caravan site, but they say they do not accept wanadoo e-mails.  I would be grtateful if someone could pass that on for me.  When we were properly connected our sky box showed nil signal strength, and nil quality.  When we got the correct dish alignment, both came on.

Thanks for all your help,

David