Sorry if this has already been raised, but I am a bit confused as to whats now available. I currently have two dishes and a satelite box that receives Nilesat and Astra. I get about 6 Arab movie chanels, a number of news chanels (no longer get sky news) some music chanels and hundreds of other chanels that are not really worth looking at. I used to also get BBC radio chanels but no longer. Still Get some other radio chanels eg Heart Radio.
I know there have been some changes to the satelites (which must admit dont understand) but are there any options currently available to get more free to view chanels eg BBC1, Chanel 5 etc, or are things still changing?
What are the option for subscription chanels??
Be grateful for any enlightenment (in easy to understand language pl :-}
Have a word with Zapparocks on here, highly recommended, he will put you straight.
While you're waiting for Denby, I'll give you my 2p worth !! There's not much left on the old Astra satellite at all I'm afraid.....I disconnected mine when the BBC radio stations disappeared.....Sky News was still on then, so that's another one gone !! The UK channels have all hopped onto a newer satellite which is much more tightly focused on the British Isles making it very difficult if not eventually impossible to receive in the Canaries. As for Nilesat, I've deleted 90% of the channels found on a setup scan, leaving 20 or so showing English language movies / shows (repeated quite often) and English Language News channels.....some with a 'different' slant on world affairs - Press TV for instance. Nilesat still carries BBC world service TV and Radio. There are a number of internet services which were capable of providing UK TV, but, I see some of these are restricting their output to the UK geographical area.....others may follow, so not really dependable. A quick scan of the local papers will give you info on further commercial ventures providing British TV in various ways - some requiring a landline with a reasonably fast internet connection. We've been lucky so far, as it was reasonably easy and inexpensive to pick up TV signals which were never really intended to be spread over such a wide geographical area, but, with all this new technology....it's getting more difficult !! Somewhat paradoxical really, when it was the satellite technology which made it possible for us to receive them in the first place !!!
Whilst the UK PSB channels (BBC,ITV etc) are definately going to be on a very narrow UK Spot beam.....many of the other SKY channels will probably be receivable (surprisingly movies and sports = big subscription) once all the temporaray channel moves are finalised which should be mid september when Astra 2E satellite is on station. I expect the sports channels to come back onto the pan-euro beam, likewise sky news and others. The official footprint for the 2E & 2F pan euro beams indicates a dish size of 1.2 metres in the canaries.....often these predictions air on the side of caution so a 1.1 metre may suffice (though I advise to get a 1.2 for the little extra it costs)
Obviously there are other ways of getting things but this is a public forum so I aint telling!!!!