Satellite Systems
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A not very expensive system would appear to be what you have. Locking onto the satellite will become easier with practice and the help of a relatively cheap sat signal finder, if you don't already have one. It is easier to tune your sat box in at home before you go, you will then know immediately that you are on the correct satellite, as you will get a picture. A free app for your phone, will also show you exactly where to point.
As to Europe, I fear you now need such a large dish, 80 cm plus, that I will no longer bother anymore, except north of Paris. That is for freesat type programmes. I believe you can still get sky movies and sports, with a sky box, if you subscribe, in the south of Europe as well. However none of the General channels.
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I use this:
It gives you the dish set up info: (example from my location)
Elevation: 22.7°
Azimuth (true): 144.8°
Azimuth (magn.): 146.4°
LNB Skew [?]: -12.3°You just put in the postcode or location, click on Astra 28.2.
Set the dish to the above use Azimuth magn with a compass, then fine tune with a digital sat meter, takes me less than 10mins to set up and get a picture. I use a Avtex drs TV with a free to air sat receiver built in, before that I used a separate free to air receiver (12v). I also use WF100 sat cable, 25mtr just in case the line of sight is blocked by trees etc.
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Are you looking for a completely new system or just an easier method to align the dish?
Have a look on this site https://www.satellitesuperstore.com/caravan-satellite.htm for different dishes and equipment
I use this Satlink WS-6906 with integral screen:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282275724825?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
It works really well and makes it easy to ensure that you pick up a strong signal.
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I recently bought a Maxview system. Not cheap at £300 for 65cm dish, tripod and receiver, but set-up was so easy. It took me longer to fold out the tripod and peg it down than it did to find the satellite. The dish has a built in finder gizmo. British made and works brilliantly...so far.
The 65cm dish should allow use in Northern France for free to air channels. That's about as far South as I would ever plan to drag the van. Further South needs bigger dish as I understand it, because the signal is now concentrated over the UK (for the FTA channels). Northern France is OK, but further South gets a bit questionable I think.
Where in Europe do you plan to use it..?
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hi, we have travelled to various sites in the past 17 years of caravaning, for most of that time we have taken a satellite system,
originally we used a satellite compass and a sat finder to locate the satellite, the problem with the basic sat finders is that you cant tell it exactly which satellite that you are looking for.
About 3 years ago, i bought a product similar to this one, it connects via cable to the satellite lnb, you input the satellite that you are trying to locate, you then rotate the dish and when your dish is pointing in the correct direction the tv picture appears on the small lcd screen.
I can locate a satellite within 3 mins of connecting the finder - so long as there are no obstacles such as trees in the way.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282275724825?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
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My experience with satellite systems is that cheap and cheerful = problems and frustration! I bought the Aldi caravan TV and satellite dish last year and ended up taking both back. The TV kept losing even the terrestrial signal in previously good reception areas and the satellite dish was a pain to set up and took ages to align. I then went to the other extreme and spent over £400 on an Avtex 24DRS and the Avtex flat satellite dish with 'Easyfind' technology which was another £200. Not cheap by any means but it works faultlessly and takes only a minute or so to align the dish using the combination of digital readout and flashing LEDs on the back of the dish. Clearly not the "not very expensive" solution you are looking for - but it works!
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the 'flat/square' systems use many receptors inside the rectangular 'box' that encloses them, this really helps when tuning the dish.
we had a 'through the roof' system in our Bolero which worked really well......set the elevation (x turns of the handle) and then slowly rotate the dish and the picture comes up on the screen....a little fine tuning and jobs done.
range was also very good considering the small size/weight of the dish.
Snipe is an automatic version of the same system with the same Selfsat rectangular 'dish'.....a really good compromise of cost and ease of use.
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I don't recall ever coming across such a site.
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Anyone had any experience using the Quick Sat 65 system abroad, how good/bad was it...
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