Satellite T V

[cool]

Hi ,,Can anyone tell me if you can receive satellite tv in and around Scalea.Would love some programmes in English while on the holidays.If not Sky, how about free to Air stations .Cool

[Lynn]

If you can position your dish correctly you can get Sky. Though in Italian, you can get BBC Prime, Sky news BBC World and,if the original film is in English( that is all programmes and films can be heard in their original language), a sports channel and a film channel for 15euro a month. We asked about freeview but were told that in the area it is virtually impossible to receive English channels via a digibox. We tried a few places but were told the samething by each of them. Unfortunately our aparment faces the wrong way for the dish.

Hope that helps.

Lynn

[forzascalea]

SKY UK and IRE is transmitted on 4 seperate transponders A,B,C,D.

A,B and C will reach southern Italy on a 1 metre dish (do-able)
D will reach southern Italy on a 3 metre dish (massive dish!)

The problem is that all the good channels are on D = BBC, ITV etc... and all the others are on A,B and C.

So to get the good channels you would need a 3 metre dish which is totally impractical and would look pretty stupid hanging off a balcony or on a roof. I suppose that if you have some land then it would be possible. Assuming that you manage to get your 3 Metre dish you still have to take your card and decoder over with you every time as the card and decoder are linked together and will not work seperately. The only other alternative is to get a seperate installation of sky at someone elses house (your Mums house etc...) and use those at your place in Italy, so that sky think that the installation is in the UK but really your using it in Italy. Also if you call Sky to report faults etc... then you have to pretend your are in the UK as they can't legally broadcast outside the UK and Ireland.

The other option is the one Lynn Pointed out and that is Italian sky, it is subscription but all the movies, discovery, sports can usually be put back into English (if the program originated in English). And in addition there are several English channels - BBC Prime, Sky News, FOX and others so there will always be something to watch.

The free to view satellite services are not very good, the only free channels in English are stuff like CNN and BBC world which are not very interesting. If you didn;t want to have a subscription then I suggest getting a DVD player and just watching DVD's.

I hope this information helps, I researched this for myself some time ago.

[cool]

Thank Yoy Lynn and Forzascalea for the info.I guess its DVDs for the summer.Thanks for the help,,, Cool

[paulcam11]

To all,

I am currently looking onto another alternative, English Freesat ( a relatively new service) is available on the Astra satellite, again the best channels are on Transponder D but apparently the signal is much stronger than previously and therefore a smaller dish would be required (1.8m)

All it requires is a dish and and receiver box with an out of date Receiver card, this will give access to all Free to view channels.

Will keep everyone posted and will add a link to a forum on this subject.

Thanks

Paul.

[torwood]

We bought a cheap dish and box from Lidl before we moved here in October. We have currently around 400 channels on Hotbird with a small dish. Around 70 are in English. We have tried Astra but not successfully neither is Eurotel.
The new combined BBC/ITV service sounds great. WHEN?
Torwood
xxx

[cool]

Thanks Thorwood for the info about the LIDL Sat System .I will bring down my set and see can I get the hotbird .Sorry to keep coming back with another question,but is it easy to get onto Hotbird rather than Astra.Thanks for all the help so far ,,,,Cool

[forzascalea]

Hotbird is easy to get and lies at 13 Degrees east, just align the dish to that and then do an automatic search with any digital free to air receiver.

I have to say I can't remember having 70 English channels on hotbird? Please tell us what they are just out of interest.

I didn't recommend hotbird for this reason, but if there are some good channels then please let us know.