UK TV

Hi Folks

For the last week or so, I've been able to receive Freesat using my old Sky box and old dish (1.3m). It appears that the Astra satelite has been tweaked giving me some reception. It does not work in bad weather or at some times of the day. It was working when Corrie and Emmerdale were being broadcast and even the morning edition of JK although God forbid I wasn't watching them, just passing through.
BBC NW is a poor signal so I've had to use Midlands but ITV (Granada) is very strong and I can also get the other regions using "Other Channels"

Word of warning my friend in Seron does not get anything so, if you've still got your sky boxes, give it a try BUT DON'T BLAME ME if it doesn't work for you.

Yes, we've been picking up some channels at certain times of the day on our 1.2M dish. Don't know what has changed though..

Thanks for the tip, have just checked and am getting Ch4, More4, Ch5 and some ITV channels.  I have a 1.2m dish.

What receivers are these signals being picked up on, that is make model are they hd boxes?

Mine is a Sky+HD Box.

I think the hd boxes are better at picking up weaker signals. Nothing like what you report here on a standard sky box.

Blatantadvertising.com wrote:What receivers are these signals being picked up on, that is make model are they hd boxes?

mine is a Pace Sky digibox and is not HD

Like you 1940 ours is a pace box and we are getting quite a few channels back.

The Panasonic TU-DSB30 have more sensitive tuners and for a long time were the preferred option for Spain for that reason. Not sure if anyone still has one to try.

La Mancha wrote:The Panasonic TU-DSB30 have more sensitive tuners and for a long time were the preferred option for Spain for that reason. Not sure if anyone still has one to try.

Well, I've got an old TU-DSB31 that I used to use. But it only has SCART outputs (so no HD) and I don't think it could cope with my DiSEqC 1.1 8 way satellite switch. I'm not about to start futzing around with that - but if someone else wants to borrow it for an experiment, they're welcome to try it.

we've been getting main uk channels about 7-10pm.. which meant watching X Factor really clearly...

...not sure if that's a good thing though

You really do need to get out more, Dunc!

Think we do.. see you soon!

Satellite signal strength varies throughout the year due to many reasons, mainly due to atmospheric conditions but it as regular as the seasons. The reason satellite users did not realise this before the "switch off" was that sat signals were very strong year round due all the channels beings broadcast on the European beam. Since the change over the UK terrestrial channels are now on a much tighter UK only beam, hence why big 1.9m dishes are needed to receive these channels from Astra. The strongest signal time is around Dec 21st, it will then wain away and be weakest in the summer, only to return again in the early winter. The sky premium channels are however now being broadcast on the new European beam and are as strong as ever, and should remain so for another 15 years or so... The sky package can be received at minimal cost with the right equipment.
It is possible to receive BBC, ITV and Ch4 from a different satellite, subscription free, and on dishes as small as 80cm (most have a 1.2m or bigger)

Has anyone used this or tried it look good

Amazon TV

http://www.engadget.com/products/amazon/fire/tv/

http://www.tvcatchup.com/

These dont work great here for 2 reasons...
1st you will need to be running a VPN, free ones are available, but are normally insecure, and unstable.
2nd, this is just internet TV, same issues as all the android and IPTV boxes have, with the added addition of vpn issues. These devices work great for box sets and films, but not for "LIVE UK TV"..