spanish tv

[Polremy]

we have free to air tv.

we get lots of english channels.

we also have french tv.

spanish channels are there but it looks to me as if it is snowing down in spain.

as we are trying to improve our spanish and spend a great part of the winter on spanish soil we would really like to improve our reception of TVE2 especially.

Do we just need an extra booster do you think?

We already have a booster to enable us to see French tele.

Sorry - technophobe here but i can get more info if anybody needs it to advise me.

[Martin963]

I'm assuming you're receiving your TVE 2 via ordinary UHF signals,  not via satellite.

I will need to check tomorrow where your nearest tx is,  but you will already realise that the Pyrenees make an excellent natural barrier both geographically and also from the point of view of radio waves.   UHF signals behave similarly to light waves,  and if you don't have direct line of sight then you don't have much of a picture.

The only way of getting TVE 2 really reliably I suspect would be via satellite,  and that's only possible by taking out a sub to Canalsat Spain (formerly D Piu).   There is a version of TVE international that is FTA on satellite,  again I'll check in the morning.   But they don't show much other than  their non copyright output.

Do you have a separate UHF aerial for Spanish TV?    I suspect that your French TV is coming from Pic de Neulos and the Spanish stuff probably comes from roughly the same direction so there may well not be much point in having a separate aerial....

If you already have a booster a second one is likely only to marginally improve things,  and may actually make things worse.

You can probably tell I'm thinking out loud here.......

[Martin963]

The nearest high power Spanish TV station is the one for Gerona and is situated at Puigsou Rocacorba.   However,  I don't think you'd get much out of that as it's well blocked from you by the Pyrenees.   I suspect what you're getting is coming from a relay on the coast much nearer the border.

A seperate aerial would only help if what's coming from Spain is more than 45 deg off the beam of your existing French aerial.   The main station for France is at Pic de Neulos high up on the frontier,  but of course I don't know if you're using that or a relay.   Which way does your TV aerial point at the moment?

TVE International is available free on both Astra 1 and Hotbird,   and has plenty of speech,  including the main news bulletin in the evening,  which I think is subtitled although I haven't checked.   Some friends of ours in Devon used to ask me to tape it for them to practise their Spanish.

Sorry I can't be more definite about the terrestrial,  I've got the Spanish TV list in front of me from 1995 (the sites won't have changed) and it's 30 pages of telephone directory print.   If you can find out from your TV on what UHF channel numbers you're getting your French and Spahins TV it might allow us to identify which sites are serving you,  and thence the angular spread between them....

[Polremy]

Hi there.

Thanks so much for your interest.

The aeriel seems to be pointing towards Perthus.

Sorry if that is a bit vague - it's all I could get out of OH.

Our programme 09 - channel TVE2 is on system B?G Channel C59

programme 08 - channel TVE1 is on system B?G

Channel 65

The French channels are working fine. Do you still want the channel numbers for them?

Thanks again for your time.

[Martin963]

Well that's narrowed things down quite a bit,   your friendly over-the-border signal is coming from the tx site at

Macanet de Cabranys using 2.8 kW which is not really designed for international coverage!

It looks to me as though your aerial is indeed pointing at Pic de Neulos (which is just a few kms east of Le Perthus) for French TV;  if you look at a map you could work out how far "off beam" Macanet would be (depending on where exactly "Nr Perpignan" you are)  ,  but I think you could waste a lot of time and money (assuming you can't get to the aerial yourselves) and achieve very little.   If you CAN safely get to the aerial and it responds to a bit of bolt loosening then I'd try twisting it round to favour Macanet (you need someone watching the TV to report on progress:   "Better/Worse/Just the same" being the magic words,   but do mark the original position because the more you rotate away from Neulos the worse your French picture is likely to get.

For the sake of €70 for a free to air sat receiver including dish from Bricodepot you'd get TVE International for the price of mounting a sat dish (which isn't that difficult,  and may be far easier than fiddling with your main aerial with no promise of an improvement).

The more I see of things the more convinced I am that for many people satellite is actually the easier and cheaper answer if a roof aerial has deteriorated or sin't picking up what you want.