Continental TV reception

Some observations from my recent trip to Italy:

Satellite

Astra 2 - 60 cm dish. A full set of UK free channels is available on the Mosel so I assume the same in the Netherlands, Belgium, North west Germany and the very north of France. Sky news and some film/drama channels were available in Bavaria and all the way down to Pompeii.

Astra 1 19.2E is fully available and channels include BBC news, Sky news and many other news channels. I prefer this to the other continental satellites as I watch F1 on RTL.

Italian Digital TV - very good reception in all places visited. Channels numbered over 1000 but probably 700ish!!!. I found that many programmes originally in English and duded in Italian were broadcast with both soundtracks. Using the 'audio' button on my Avtek TV I could select the English Track.

Peter

Thanks for that information Peter.

There have been a few threads on various sites, but the actual situation has still been a bit confused as far as I could see!  It's great to have some real-life experiences.

Steve

There are some new dead spots since the new Astra SATs came online. One of them is around Bremen/Hamburg in northern Germany. It pays to do some research if travelling to make sure that there's coverage if your wife (or you) can't do without Corry. :D

Hi there,

Just one small point on the subject of satellite reception ....

.... it is a "black art"!

In Toulouse they built a seven storey block of flats between where we moored our boat in the port and the Astra 2 satellite; and the only time we lost reception was when the tower crane was moving!

In Moissac we had perfect Astra 2 satellite reception in the port right up until May when the leaves started to grow!

On the East Fortune CL a month ago (a place where we have had perfect reception before) we had zero Astra 2 reception when the wind blew and made the trees (about half a mile away) sway!

In view of this I don't think there are any "dead spots" within Europe; but there may be a single leaf waving in front of your satellite dish!  

Hope this helps. 

Best regards,

Here in Wales we lose Sky when it rains heavily...quite often, in fact!

Hi Swansea Jac.
I suggest a bigger dish as there should be no 'rain' problems in the UK unless it is an extreme storm. They are so cheap nowadays and easy to fit it really would be worth the effort.

Swansea Jac wrote:Here in Wales we lose Sky when it rains heavily...quite often, in fact!

Oh, sorry!   

Wales is a dead-spot for just about everything isn't it ....  

.... but even in Skegness we lose reception in thunder storms and heavy rain.  

Best regards,

We do tend to have rather a lot of heavy rain and thunderstorms around here...Had a corker last evening.... just as "Strictly" was about to start...got it on terrestrial in the other room, though!

Your signal strength and signal quality bars for sky should be 7/8 to full under normal circumstances and rain should not normally cause a problem. If the bars are less ie 1/2 way ask for a dish realignment or do it yourself. Its pretty easy.

Swansea Jac wrote:We do tend to have rather a lot of heavy rain and thunderstorms around here...Had a corker last evening.... just as "Strictly" was about to start...got it on terrestrial in the other room, though!

Oh dear, here was me thinking  "Lucky   !" and then you finally got "Strictly" on terrestrial.   


Ian

      I really do enjoy "Strictly", Dutto, ...especially after they have eliminated the plonkers and get down to the proper competition...Oh sorry!