All of our friends have a 110cm even they sometimes loose signal but how big to we have to get to be 100% sure of retaining a good signal in poor weather ,pity the programs aren't that good if it wasn't for my wife i wouldn't bother happy just playing music all night
Ours vanished this afternoon. Some stations were weaker than others. My neighbour about 3 kms west is installing a 1.2m dish, ground fixed, so I will await the outcome with interest.
Well that was short lived, we got the signal back for two days now back to normal with no signal on any channels, we will have to bite the bullet at some time and get a larger dish
We are 20kms north of Pau, 64, and have most of the channels back though the signal is weak, using a 90cm dish with a Manhattan box. Been watching via Filmon over the low speed internet but the buffering has got worse recently. Now considering installing a 1.2m dish.
Thank you John. I didn't know any of that. Certainly, there have been a few occasions (during the rains that caused the floods in September) when it hasn't been raining here, but coming down in torrents elsewhere not so far away (over the Cevennes, for example) when the signal has been bad.
However, I think I'll put up with that. I'm in a first floor flat. My dish is on the roof over one of the flats on the third floor. A long ladder and access through one of my neighbour's flat's skylights is the only way to reach the dish. It's a job for a professional insured to clamber about on a roof and needs him to fix a rdv with my neighbour.
Useful, info. though. I'll pass it on to a friend in the Gard who loses the signal during heavy rain. She lives in a house and he dish is on a wall and not too difficult for someone with a ladder to get at.
Clive
Hi Clive
It sounds silly but you can buy a rain cover for the lnb (knob) and this will reduce the amount of signal lost during rain. these have been proven to work as it is the rain settling on the lnb that is normally the issue. When you get the heavy rain that obscures the signal reflecting between the dish and lnb is when you can't do anything about it or storms due to electrical interference.
I'm in Montpellier, Herault. Many months ago some TV stations became difficult to receive or unstable, even when the weather was good. After talking about the problem with friends in this and a neighbouring department, I opted to replace my 6-year-old 80cm dish with a 100cm one. Friends advised me to make sure that the knob in the middle was replaced as well as the dish because apparently this becomes damaged by sunlight. I employed Sky-in-France (though I don't pay for Sky stations) to supply and install the new dish. (I'd used this firm six years ago.) The total cost was 250 euros payable to Sky-in-Europe. Since then all stations come through loud and clear - except when the weather is really atrocious rain-wise. Friends report the same - over the border in Gard as well as in Herault - and there is nothing that can be done about that.
Thanks for the information John will hang fire for a while as the picture sound and signal strength is better than its ever been or perhaps its been so long without a tv we are amazed. There is an installer near to us who has spouted so much rubbish in the past even denying the loss would ever happen went around fitting very small dishes then went around again refitting larger when the signal disappeared I wouldn't want him to fit the batteries to the remote control
Or they are cheap enough and good quality get the triax 88cm great signal powers.
If you can do it change your lnb and tweak the position if not get somebody in to have a look. You want the inverto black ultra lnb which was found to hold the signal better when there was a fluctuation. We have had a signal south of you on the 80cm for around 6 weeks with a lnb change or tweak. Bezier have had it since back since August as i did a few up there and have had a few cancellations now the signal is back and they want to wait and see. I emailed a contact in SES at the beginning of June to try and sort out the rumours about it being turned off in October/we'll need a 1.5m when they tweak it again etc. His reply was 'we haven't, don't plan to and haven't been asked to adjust the signal and all fluctuations are natural'. I then emailed him in September asking about the steadiness of the signal and his reply was ' the signal levels are working as they should be' Not a great help i know. My personal take on this is that the corporations noticed the drop in viewers especially during the olympics which significantly affects sponsrship deals and it was stabilized and strengthened but nothing has been declared. Again just my pennies worth to the cause
I am using a 80 cm dish which was fine until the change of satellite then we lost all signal unable to get any channel at all , others here on the Tarn Aude border have changed to a 110 dish some time back but i have waited checking the signal periodically.Up to last week we still had nothing at all then by sheer chance i put the tv on and got a perfect picture all channels have returned so wasnt sure if it was a freak of atmospherics or they had tweeked the signal
Hi John
The signal has been different this year to the pattern of the channel 5 satellite last year. There was the same steady signal including the march time change then from march to mid-june it fluctuated as before from atmospherics/solar flares etc. We are in the minervois and a 110cm tall dish was the minimum needed for a signal on standard definition although in certain villages this still pixellated slightly at times. From June until now it has been a steady signal and people with a decent quality 80cm dish and lnb or bigger have been fine (except in rain on the smaller dishes). There has been no fluctuations of a great proportion since June. If this follows the same pattern you will be fine on the country channels ireland/scotland etc. and we may not know now until next June how it's going to pan out due to the last fluctuation being in May. It's fingers crossed this is now the steady signal and we all know what dish size dish is required in the future. I am still fitting a minimum of 110cm to new customers moving here to be sure.
The TV has returned not since Feb 2013 have we been able to receive a signal then suddenly this week the TV is working slight pixelation on BBC but we can get around that by searching for an obscure channel on the 900s has there been a tweek of some sort or is it going to be short lived and purely down yo atmospherics
There won't be a problem for those of us in Brittany.
We are at Beaulieu (87) near Chalus, watching Sky on 85 cm dish all channels seem to be ok, only arrived yesterday took the dish a little while to lock on. Auto satellite system on Motorhome.
Haven’t tried the house one yet will let you know!!
We now have a date, for the BBC channels anyway. ITV, C4 etc will not be far behind, probably either at the same time or within 48 hours.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/news/news_item25.html
Now we will see who is right and who is wrong. As I said before if you lost C5 don't expect to get BBC channels on Thursday morning when you get up.
Pretty quick off the mark there Keith, it actually started its move two or three days ago and as there was no post I added mine 11 hours before yours (wink).
Here in 64 just north of Pau everything OK up to now except four7 is prone to breaking up. Rather surprisingly we regained all the 5's last November after around 5pm. The Manhattan Freesat box continues to work well-love the 'pause live TV' button to make a cuppa whilst viewing non-commercial TV.
Our broadband has improved recently as well. Pau has 4G mobile coverage now.
Neil
I thought people might like an update.
Astra 2E is on the move as of a couple of days ago. It has departed Somalia and is currently half way across Kenya. The trip is normally about 10 days then of course another quick round of testing before the switchover in Feb.
You can follow its progress using the following link. http://www.n2yo.com/?s=39285
I think your more likely to own that him (smile).