MXL003/85 - OMNISAT CRANK UP 85cm Sat Dish

Thinking about getting a satellite setup in the Broadway but don't want to spend a fortune as generally don't spend that much time watching TV when away except to catch up with News, Weather or pass the time if its raining etc 

Have been looking at this 85cm manual crank up dish by Maxview http://www.maxview.co.uk/products/info-B2590-85.html
which is around £450 online + will have to upgrade our current Avtex Freeview TV to an L187DRS with built in Sat tuner as can't be doing with additional boxes, which I think are about £350 so around £800 in total. 

Im guessing a few of you might advise going for the Avtex Snipe, but I worry theres more to go wrong plus needing power etc would mean probably a job for an expert to fit. Has anyone got or used the Omnisat or Avtex Snipe? 

Also what kind of range would one expect throughout Europe? Initial thought was to remove existing TV aerial but now think I'll retain that as we had good TV in Austria & Italy plus if we sell the Broadway I'd possibly want to keep the dish.

CC

Hi CC

A few points that I pondered last year when getting the new van. (The old one had an Alden auto-seek system, which wasn't very good so it went with the van! Please read on )

First off - our telly habits are very similar to yours. Minimal in the UK - and almost non existent when abroad. Therefore only minimal expenditure can be justified.

Having had in the past both a Maxview Crankup manual dish, and more recently an auto-seeking Alden dish, I would go back to the Maxview manual every time if I wanted satellite TV. With a bit of experience it took about one minute to get a solid lock onto the satellite, whereas the Alden Auto sometimes spent half an hour fizzing round and getting itself dizzy, and quite often it wouldn't lock on at all. Having watched a lot of other pirouetting dishes on campsites, that is by no means an uncommon event, so I don't think it was a fault of the Alden dish!!

The Maxview occasionally needed a bit of fiddling to align it, but if there was a signal it would definitely find it - and I had control over it. With the auto system you can only press the button and hope!!

All this pre-supposes that you have a definite preference for a satellite system, bearing in mind that the footprint is now very much narrower so it won't work on the Continent much south of Paris.

Also the dish has to be tuned to the correct frequencies for the signal you want to receive - which is fine until they alter the frequency of the transmitted signal. Then your setup has to be re-tuned, which isn't always easy and may not be a D.I.Y task.

I'm sticking to the digital terrestrial aerial fitted by A/S, which I have just enhanced (I hope) this afternoon with a Maxview signal finder. That should make it very easy to find the strongest signal almost anywhere in the UK, and we don't want TV abroad other than perhaps a DVD or two if the weather is vile.

I can now park under trees if I want to, and don't have to get the compass out to be sure there isn't a very tall one some way off in the way of the satellite. If we want the TV it can be up and running in a minute or two, rather than waiting for the dish to stop rotating and finally lock on. (Sometimes it locked on before completing one revolution, but equally often it took quite a while - if it succeeded at all!!!)

Sorry about the epistle.

Short answer in our case - we don't watch TV enough to justify spending a lot, so a decent set (Avtex) with a DVD slot and a USB port is all we need. It sounds like you may be the same???

Dave

We upgraded last year to a new Avtex L187 DRS, its connected to a new Status 580 aerial, the reception is excellent and picture and sound quality superb .
Would love to review a satellite system, will have to wait until Santa comes next Christmas .
Boaby

I didn't mention the ultimate question.

How many real advantages would a satellite system give over what you have already, and are they worth the expenditure?

Advantages to you personally of course - the ones that you and Mrs CC would value and appreciate. (In our case the answer is "not many".)

Dave

How comprehensive a reception Peter? I've seen a lot of confusing claims in the forums and reviews since the footprint was restricted in 2014.

I think the only sensible yardstick would be, "How far South can you get all the Freesat channels that are available in the UK?"

Some purveyors of equipment are not strictly lying with their claim that their dish will work as far South as Xxxxxxxx, but in reality they can only guarantee a rapidly reducing range of "British" programmes as one nears the edge of the footprint.

Dave

P.S. If I was going to have another dish, it would be the Camos Crank up. All the advantages of the Maxview we once had, plus a few more besides.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone... 

Is there really no sat reception in southern Europe? 
What do people out their watch or is it different to what our UK equipment can pickup?

Thanks gromit... I like the idea of a manual dish for the reasons you mention, just worry the automatic dishes just more likely to go wrong at some point, just paranoid i guess. 

I must admit to having been slightly jealous when touring Europe when on the aires and they all pop up their sat dishes within mins of arrival... anyway I'll have a further think and no doubt be back again with more questions 

CC

We had a laugh some years back on the Killin C & C site,  a Autocruise Augusta pulled in next to us and before hooking up the satellite dish sprung up from the roof and started burling around trying to find a signal, at that time we were still using the Avtex aerial, the only location I could get a good signal was to stick  the aerial on the passenger side mirror.
The chap came over and asked how the hell did I receive a signal from a coat hanger and he was unsuccessful with his expensive satellite dish system.
Line of site Pal, was the answer .
Boaby

burlingtonboaby wrote:
Line of site Pal, was the answer .
Boaby

Nice one Boaby  Bet he loved you!

Peter Brown wrote:
So for satellite:

Once Astra 2 gets iffy I usually move to Astra 1 as I use it for F1 anyway.  There is plenty of news in English and I'm quite happy following films etc in German or French.

Astra 1 at 19 degrees east This is the main satellite of choice for most people wanting free european tv . Mostly german channels on here including the german public broadcasters but also some french and spanish channels too , lots of sports on the german channels , here too the german language version of eurosport for free , also available is the bbc world service tv channel.

Eutelsat hotbird at 13 degrees east This satellite has lots of free to air tv from almost everywhere in the world Lots of italian stations including the rai channels , but also polish , french , thai , chinese , arabic , russian , e.t.c even a couple of english channels including the bbc world service tv .

Atlantic bird 3 at 5 degrees west This satellite has only french free to air channels on it , but the channels on here are different to the french channels on astra 1 and hotbird , these include the french public broadcasters france 2 , 3 and 5.

Thanks Peter... Lots to take in there, guess I'll need some kind of inline signal meter in order to latch on them sat signals? Thats whats kinda whats put me off satellite dishes in the past, don't want to find myself messing around trying to pick up a signal, thats what I like about the Teleco wing omni & Avtex tv just press QT on the remote & if it finds something great, if not don't tend to worry. 

Will have to have a good think before committing myself... do the manual dishes just have the one coax feed like the aerials? guessing they also need some kind of mechanical fixing rather than just rely solely on sealant? 

CC

Cruising Comet wrote:

burlingtonboaby wrote:
Line of site Pal, was the answer .
Boaby

Nice one Boaby  Bet he loved you!

I didnt have the heart to tell him it was a DVD i was watching, although we did get a T.V picture, He give up the pitch and moved over the other side of the site, he must have got bored with trying to get a picture and tried his hand at fishing the Lochee river from the bank.
The only thing he caught was the overhead power lines that ran over head parallel with the river, I was on my third can and was pxxxxxxg myself watching the him.
Oh happy holidays
Boaby

burlingtonboaby wrote:
I didnt have the heart to tell him it was a DVD i was watching
Boaby

Boaby how could you  

If you have a Sky TV subscription reception is ok on the French med coast and down in to Spain using the Astra 2 satellite.