Good evening all.
Just trying to find out geographically who has lost a bunch of channels (Channel 5 group) on their UK satellite TV recently. It is due to operators swapping satellites and Astra 2F has a narrow beam for the UK. Some people in mid France have not lost channels but us in the south have lost them (and the BBC are due to swap soon). Can you let me know if you have lost reception since Christmas and which department you are in? Thanks..
I hope there is an upgrade fix coming up soon..
Peter
Hi John
You'll be fine i am sure as you are further north. I have dishes in Olargues and bezier (110cm) which is the same line as you and never hear from them unless they have box issues. On my 110cm down here i lose itvhd every now again but sd channels have never gone off. Just ensure you get a decent lnb opticum/triax/televes.
For the 1.2m you have to be careful as there is lot of difference in quality. I fitted some 115cm which where a good price and ended changing for the 110 triax as when the signal fluctuated they couldn't handle it for some reason (like some lnb's).
John
I bit the bullet just before all this started being pre warned that my old dish would not do when Astra goes into operation cost me a good few €s but we have not lost any TV to date" touching wood as I type
Shock! Horror! Yesterday BBC1 came back but left on it's holidays just before Homes Under the Hammer. Only have a 90cm dish - should I fork out for a 110 or keep watching via the internet (with lots of buffering)?
Hi John we are just over the mountain from you 30 miles away by road we have a 80cm dish and have received nothing for the last few month 120cm dish was on offer from BFSAT last week for €59 but to big to be delivered by their transport so its going to be a 110cm
Apologies i forgot to mention that a 110cm is still the minimum needed for good viewing in our area
Hi Everyone
This will hopefully help and shed a bit of light on what's been happening. Astra 2g was activated around 8 weeks ago and some channels were moved onto this unexpectedly, this is the final change now as far as i am aware. All the itv hd's, channel 4hd/4seven, bbc news hd, the whole 5 group. This will explain the sudden loss of some channels for those with smaller dishes. This satellite is now coming to the end of the settlement period and the powers should match those of the other 2 satellites. Channel 5 came back on a few weeks ago, 4hd came back last week but is still a bit in and out and itv hd is in and out at the moment. I have also noticed the powers vary more now than before form village to village.
The other thing they have done is move 2e to 28.5 (0.3 degrees) this means smaller dishes won't be able to grab all 3 satellites. Luckily 2e has most of the bbc, itv and channel4 's on so a tweak can get these back. Where i am tuning to 28.5 got most of the channels on an 80cm dish but this doesn't work for everybody and there is no give for rain and cloud.
Another thing you can do is buy a raincover from the internet. This sits over the lnb and stops the rain landing on it which is 80% of the problem solved when you have light/medium rain.
Not sure, Jean Paul I would say about 75cms, certainly under 90.
We have done the same, and if (as is often the case) there is nothing we really want to watch, we get time to enjoy those old fashioned things called books
Nothing here 20kms north of Pau on our 80cm dish. Our friends 3 km west have intermittent reception with a 1m dish and are installing a 1.2. Have been told that this is a bad time of the year as the satellites are a bit further away. Receive via Filmon generally but we have a poor download speed (5-1) so lots of buffering sometimes. BBC have announced that most programmes will be available to purchase form the BBC store after 30 days in the Autumn plus their vast back catalogue. Channel 4 has done something odd so that it recognises we are out of the UK even via Filmon.
Rebecca can you tell me what is the size of your dish? thanks
About 4 weeks ago we lost channel 5, causing consternation over cricket highlights! Miraculously it returned (along with the Ashes)without retuning for the last test match! We live in the SW, Tarn et Garonne dept 82.
Yes we have lost them,. having just got them on our arrival a month ago!!
BFSAT were advertising a 120cm dish for 59€ so tried to order on line the system took me right through the order but wouldnt let me pay using my card rang up the sales who do speak very good English sorry cant order anything over 110cm as unable to deliver , but its on your site saying in stock and available with 24 hour delivery ,i know but you cant have one.
No problems here in 01 near Geneve using the larger dish supplied by Sky. We do reboot the Sky+ box quite often as we lose the signal during mountain storms. BBC insist that lots of their programs involve licences for UK-only transmission so we in Europe have no right to watch them, hence need to fool the iPlayer using a VPN. I pay for the French TV licence here and the UK one as well for our flat there, as well as two Sky subscriptions, so have little respect for the BBC's nitpicking, particularly as I can find little on BBC worth watching.
I gave up on UK TV last year. I had a good talk with myself and decided that it was not worth all the cost and faffing about. My old 90 dish is pointed at the French satellite and I use Orange Livebox Play and Netflix. There's enough English language content there to keep me amused (a lot of the movies broadcast on French channels are VO) and in any case, I am living in France!
We have recently subscribed to Unlocator and installed DNS on our TP Link router. Our Freebox is connected to the router by cable (disabled Freebox wifi). Great instructions from Unlocator for changing the router’s DNS settings. All gadgets, PCs and Smart TV now functioning well. Apple TV connected to UK App Store, Sony TV has iPlayer. iPads also have iPlayer. Why didn’t we do this years ago?! Unlocator’s support is excellent too.
I have given up with the PC as have most of my friends all but 2 of us have purchased 110 cm dishes and they still loose channels on a bad night one friend has a 120 dish and that is without a problem ,so far, so for the sake of my ears with her indoors a 120 dish will be purchased this weekend, probably.
I've tried several solutions to getting UK TV and UK Amazon Prime on my TV here in France. It started by using Hola on my PC and watching TV on my PC. I ran a HDMI cable to my TV. I hooked a laptop to my TV. I purchased a Android mini computer for my TV. I purchased a Chromecast stick. I have a Roku device running Filmon. My most recent is purchasing a TP Link Router and trying to configure Unblocker on the new router behind my NEUFBox. None of these solutions have proven reliable nor working well. I've seen discussions previously on configuring a router other ways. Does anyone have any recommendations for a simple clean solutions other than a huge satellite dish?