where are you located Dermot in the South of France? do you connect your freesat box to the Internet? how do you tweak the DNS addresses? what is apple TV?
I know I need a 1.2m dish to get a clear signal. Since May the UK channels have been bad and will get better in October, based on last years behaviour. I'm not going to put up a bigger dish so will use the internet instead. It doesn't have dish size or weather problems and by tweaking the DNS addresses on a freesat box you can get all the catchup channels.
That plus an apple TV is enough for me to get by.
With my 80 cm diameter dish and 0.1 lnb with gain 70, I receive occasionaly the Astra 2E and 2F satellites channels in the South of Frances (BBC, ITV, channel 5, channel 4 etc... today I have received them well until about 5 pm when the signal for channel 5 deteriorated. On Saturday and Sunday I had no signals for these 2 satellites. I have read that they will migrate the channels of Eutelsat 28A 28°Est currently having a European beam on the new satellite called Astra 2G that will have a UK beam like the two others Astra 2E, 2F. The quality of signal I get for Astra 2E and 2F is from 22 to 25% with an intensity of 86% of the signal. When signal remains at 25% is ok and image is fine.
Hi Brian,
Can you give me details of how to retune my receiver.
Thanks Ken
I suspect the rumour i heard is a bit of wishful thinking plus a little bit of information where 2+2 = 5. We are in the Montagne Noire close to Mazamet between Toulouse and Carcassonne we have a 80cm dish and had intermittent reception from day one but now nothing recently friends with 110cm dish's have lost all channels as well so it may look as an even bigger dish is needed in certain areas
In64 just north of Pau we lost all signals on our 90cm dish so relying on Filmon via broadband and a Droid box but when we get extra buffering we plug in the laptop and this mostly restores the signal. We also have a VPN on this so we download from the BBC iPlaery and watch cathup on everything else. With the box I only bought a cheap one and as we only have .5mb download speed there can be a bit of a problem. I'm looking at the Amazon Fire box as this has a much faster quad core chip and more memory . However apple are launching a new, upgraded TV box so a will wait - anyone have any experiences with this? I think UK TV as we knew it has gone for good.
Hi everyone
I have been looking at this as this is what i do in 11 and 34 aude and herault.
It is the new Astra 2g that is moving into position and as far as i'm aware 2f is staying where it is. I will email somebody i know and try and find out. If it did move it would help some with the signal but generally we would still be in the same boat due to not being within the boundary of the uk beam. Some channels have been moved onto the uk beam as stated and there is no definite answer yet on whether the rest will go onto it as well. Astra 2g is more powerful as it is newer but that is for the channels moving over not the ones already on 2e and 2f. This is what has happened for us not on the uk beam over the last 2 years (depending on location) i am between Carcassonne and Narbonne:
Astra 2f channel 5 etc. was the first to change and nobody was bothered as they didn't watch it. During this change it was found that around this area the 110cm dish was the minimum needed to keep the channels for this satellite due to the natural seasonal fluctuations (not ses playing with the signal which they have never done). The problems occurred during the time change march-october. In october the signal steadied through to March and this was the same for 2e when it came into action. People got channel 5 back on smaller dishes but only when the weather was clear. When the time change happened last year in March(just after the 2e change) there was a drop in signal again and everybody with smaller dishes who thought they got away with it ended up changing. The 110cm seemed to work fine although hd was a problem at certain times up until June. In June last year the signal suddenly steadied and everybody on a 88cm and above dish found that it was working. In October at the time change again the signal increased a bit more again until this March. Then again a small drop. There is small fluctuation everyday morning and evening but only noticeable on smaller dishes. There is also larger fluctuations which affect the hd channels on some larger dishes again this depends on location. On Saturday throughtout the day all 110cm dishes and some larger lost signal completely for a while and gradually the signal is building back up. I put this down to atmospherics/solar flares/electrical interuption as if was a manmade problem it wouldn't take so long to come back and it is always a gradual resurgence. This morning channel 5 was ok and steadily we have got back all the regional channels and over the next few days hd will re-appear. Now the question is will the signal follow the first year of fluctuations mar-oct or last year mar-june? Hopefully the latter but there is no way of predicting as we are not within the boundary.
I found an older forum on the astra 2d satellite ages ago and cannot find it now but they were in the same boat as we are now in spain and portugal before all the changes and it helped me understand the problems we have.
John
I have heard of a few people this last week who’s signal seems to have worsened, very relieved that ours is fine on all channels. (Dept 32 Gers)
I have read that Astra 2F is in the process of being repositioned at the moment moving westward by 0.64 of a degree per day, it is said that it will be in its new position by 15 June. Guess it’s just a waiting game. Same article said that those who don’t lose their signal will see it improve over the coming months with better signal strength. Fingers crossed!
Yet again there is a rumour circulating that come August a new satellite will go into orbit and all channels will be returned for those such as ourselves that haven't bothered as yet to fit a bigger dish, our reception comes and goes the weather seems to have no effect we receive a good signal when its pouring down none at all when there are clear skies and good weather i assume its purely atmospherics playing games having used radio years ago we had the same problems one day able to communicate halfway around the world next could not get out of the UK. So has anyone heard anymore of this magic satellite
Thank you
I just did it
Hi Jean- Paul
Please update your profile with your surname (nom de famille) BEFORE posting again as per my previous comment on your profile. Cheers!
can you tell where they have installed it? on the ground? thanks
do you know which size of dish for the south of France to get the BBC? thanks
Here in Montpellier during the gales of a few weeks ago, our reception was virtually non-existent, yet others near us were not affected. However, their dishes were low down, while ours in on the roof of a three-storey building, which is really the equivalent of three storeys because the ceilings inside are very high. Now we are back to normal, only losing the signal for brief periods either when there is extemely torrential rain here, or storms raging further north from us. Someone suggested that I should check how securely our dish is attached to a chimney stack in case it is waving about in the wind. It is a new bigger one installed only last year because the old smaller one didn't need very bad weather to affect its performance. Where are you Neil?
Any updates on the situation. lost all our channels a couple of weeks ago. reception was intermitent but now nothing.
We get an OK signal with the .5mb speed most of the time but our neighbour's I assume are sharing the signal with us watching their French TV's. We have an Orange box for this hooked up to the internet as well. But we are now receiving HD channels on the Manhattan which we never had before so what is going on? Is it just the atmospheric conditions or has something technical been done to the Astra satellite or signal strength. The best signal we ever had was about 80% last year before the changeover.
Hi Neil
First thing i would do is change your box or exchange with a friend for a few days to try a different type as i ended up changing 4 manhattan boxes for clients when they kept losing channels. I tried one at home and lost 5 and a few others at night so i plugged my old panasonic sky digibox in and it worked perfectly. There are a few people who had a 1.2/1.25m dishes near'ish you on a forum who said they lost it when there was a fluctuation between April and June however it has been good since the signal levelled out in June. The issue is although the signal is stable we still don't know if will fluctuate again between April and June next year or at any other point.
For the internet streaming a few things i learnt is that 2.5mb speed is ok if you don't have anything else running. When i did a course they said the actual speeds required for smooth streaming are 4mb sd and 10mb hd. Due to fluctuations in time of day (traffic) and if you have other internet based items running at the same time e.g mobile with auto update running in the back ground. If you are watching something that is hd then try switching to the standard version
Trouble is we still get a bit of buffering due to our.5mg download speed.
At least Filmon is free though Neil! If you record then download the progs you want to watch there's no buffering issue plus you can fast forward through the ads. We watch Downton Abbey via http://www.watch-tvseries.net/ - no adverts!
To keep to the subject, a friend in Le Rouret north of Nice has never lost channels, they have a 1.2 m dish which they bought and installed themselves. I understand it even works in inclement weather.