Which Satellite

[14yew]

Currently our condo dish receives Astra 1fgh channels which have very few English language programmes. I think this is was done originally to suit the majority of German residents. Which satellite could we have it realigned with to give the most English free to air programmes. The dish is around 1.4 mtrs. Roughly how much would this cost.

[ZappaRocks]

Depends what you want.

Astra 28.2 has loads of shopping channels, though does have Sky News and for the Irish RTE radio. It has two movie channels but are aged as are many of the series channels, the CBS network have three, True Entertainment and lately Pick TV. It's good for music channels such as Bliss, Chart Show, Flava etc and several kids channels like Pop, Pop Girl, Tiny Pop etc

The newly added ITV has gone off again but there maybe further changes, also gone are the BBC radio channels and BBC sports so at the moment the Nilesat offers a better range with a small 65cm dish. I've listed the channels below as most won't have heard of them before. Any free to air channels can go off and on so it needs rescanned periodically to pick any new ones or those that change frequency.

The cost of moving the dish, rescanning your box and setting up a favourites menu usually starts around thirty euros but it depends what needs to be done as rusty dishes and bolts easily break, especially here. You need to be careful with those dishes as the arms that hold the LNB frequently corrode and can snap off. As you're moving it to another satellite the LNB will need adjustment and the holders can also seize up and in freeing it can again snap off the arms.

These are on the Nilesat satellite.

24hr Movie channels, in English.

Fox Movies

http://foxmoviestv.com/homeen

MBC 2 and MBC Max

http://www.mbc.net/en.html


Panorama Action

Schedule http://www.etfarag.com/programs/ChannelDisplay.aspx?ChannelId=87


Top Movies

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/TOP-MOVIES-channel/205864452812326



Kanal 4, mostly English also concerts and other stuff no link


Al Nahar Movies, formely Play Movies.

http://www.etfarag.com/programs/ChannelDisplay.aspx?ChannelId=106

The Auto Channel broadcasts some top English movies as well as other channels which show a movie/series or two daily.

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Mixture of series and films

Dubai one, this a good channel but has a tendency to reboot more modern boxes as does Fox Series on occasion.

http://www.dmi.ae/dubaione/


MBC 3 kids, English in the morning, sometimes later. (other channels also show kids stuff in the morning)

MBC 4, MBC Action, MBC Persia

http://www.mbc.net/portal/site/mbc-en


Fox Series

http://www.foxme.tv/Default_en.aspx

FX TV (Fox)

http://www.fxme.tv/home/english/


Kuwait tv 2

http://kuwaitlink.localweb.com/ktv2/


City 7 TV

http://www.city7tv.com/city7tv/demo/aboutus.aspx


Infinity TV, some English.

http://www.infinitytv.tv/


MTV Arabia

https://www.facebook.com/mtvme


Fatafeat, cooking channel, multilingual.

Info here http://www.expatwoman.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=51700

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News channels

Also BBC world news, CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera news, France 24, Press tv, Euronews and CCTV (China) all English.

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Sports channels

It also has several international sports channels though unless it's pay per view these days top football is out, though games from other countries leagues are shown.

Gear one, multilingual, motor sports land, water and air

http://www.gearone.ae/index.htm


Dubai racing, Shows live horse racing, show jumping and other horsey stuff in English at times from all over the world including USA, Britain and Ireland and at times even switches to the premium channels Racing UK and At the Races. Camel racing too just for interest.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dubai-Racing-Channel/139892278127?sk=app_2309869772

Al Jazeera sports 1 & 2 & Global which show various sports normally in Arabic but not always and has had the major boxing fights which are box office only to the UK but free, in English sometimes too if it's being fought in an English speaking place.
Other sports stations show the odd smaller league games and also Scottish games, also golf, tennis, basketball, WWF etc sometimes live sometimes not but of course all free.

Abu Dhabi sports 1 and 2 also show formula one both cars and bikes as well as other sports. Also Melody Sports, Modern Sports, Line Sports, Zoom sports, Dubai Sports 1 & 2, Kuwait Sports, Iraqia Sports,  and lately 2 Bahrain sports.

[djk99]

'Dubai one, this a good channel but has a tendency to reboot more modern boxes as does Fox Series on occasion.'
Thank's Denby, I thought I had a fault with my newish Televes receiver. Is there a way to prevent this ??  (Other than not watch the channels affected of course !)

[ZappaRocks]

Reboots and crashes can be caused by various things like signal level, bugs in the software, combination of key presses etc

Many boxes are affected in different ways, some can lock up just scanning certain satellites which is normally got around by pulling out the sat cable while it passes the point of lock up, not something recommended but it's a work around.

Many boxes are modified by teams working on bug fixes but not so much for basic free to air such as these and others.

You can keep a watch out for new software (firmware) but applying it must be followed by the letter with the correct firmware using the correct cable and software to pass it over other wise you could end up with an expensive doorstop.

So far it affects some Televes, Echolink, Illusion, Technomate, FTE and other clones of those boxes affected.

Personally I prefer the Televes because it's reasonably priced and has proved reliable, plus the fact it has two scart outputs. Which is handy when so many tvs lately have only one scart input which leaves nowhere for other devices such as dvd players without using switches or leads which don't autoswitch the tv to the receiver.

Not a major problem normally but can be with every new tourist family that arrives and the instructions left for them aren't clear.