Satellite dishes - do I need one?
Is it worth getting a satellite dish? On some sites the terrestrial reception can be poor. Will a satellite dish always remedy this? And as we are not Sky customers at home (we are Virgin Media) we will presumable only be able to receive the freeview channels?
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Satellite dishes only work when they can see the Satellite, so tree filled sites can present a bit of a challenge. Some pitches that would be OK in winter, will have no reception in high summer. If you mainly use CC sites, those that don't have reasonable terrestrial reception usually have a loop system, so you should always be able to get access to reasonable reception. As to programmes, a freesat box will give you a similar selection to freeview and cost from £50 upwards, depending on if you want any pause / record functions. Some TV's have a built in decoder.The main advantage over terrestrial is in more remote locations, where even if good reception, the local transmitter will not cover the normal range of freesat channels, just the main ones. It does of course add yet another dimension to pitch selection.😀
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Hi Wilko,
I'ved used various sat setups over the years and find it more useful than the terrestrial aerial.
My present set up is SatGear off EBay. Comes complete with dish/Lnb/cable/connections/freeview box/tripod and sat finder.
This can be sited and pegged down anywhere on pitch ( unlike a fixed unit ) Thankfully the fitted TV / DVD / RADIO on my Hymer is already plumbed in for sat/terrestrial and does not require a box.
Happy caravanning.
BTW: Do not try to set up the TV in those T shirts, you'll never get a signal !!! LoL.
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When you cannot get a signal from the caravan aerial then a dish is ideal, use ours most of the time, if there are lots of trees on site which block the line of sight then extra sat cable is needed (25m). I have a Avtex DRS TV with a freeview (terrestrial) and a free to air sat receiver built in which will get all the channels on Astra 28, not encrypted (Sky). You can also change to other satellites i.e. Astra19, Hotbird, etc. you just have to point the dish to the correct location in the sky!
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the other point not mentioned so far is....do you travel in Europe and wish to receive uk to while away?
if so, a normal terrestrial system won't do...so it's satellite (or Internet..) and a 85cm dish should receive. BBC/ITV etc as far south as the French med coast....
again, I'm talking about free channels...
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If you’re only interested in reception in the UK, Wilko, I’d say you don’t need a satellite system but a good terrestrial aerial and a signal booster will do the job.
Unfortunately, many vans either have poor aerials, or they’re not wired properly.
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A feature that may or may not be of value to users is that one can tune into your "home" regions channels when off your local patch.
I carry a dish and cable as our Avtex has the appropriate free to air satellite decoder already built in; we also have a Status terrestrial aerial, that is tried first and if poor then the small dish is quickly deployed. As said you need to be aware of trees. A rule of thumb with these is if you can place the dish twice as far from them, or other high object, then you can "see" the satellite over it.
Far from essential but so is a TV, just the dish means it is very rarely a waste of time taking the TV.
Note a small dish is all we now need in the UK, 50 CM is quite adequate it does not need to be a gross one here unless you have a "mine is bigger than yours" complex.
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"Note a small dish is all we now need in the UK, 50 CM is quite adequate it does not need to be a gross one here unless you have a "mine is bigger than yours" complex."
Ocsid, this is correct. as is the fact that one can receive Sky Premium channels (Sports, Movies, etc) well into Spain with a small dish, as these channels reside on the Pan Euro beam which has a large footprint.
however, it's the UK channels 'away from the U.K.' which are difficult to receive as one moves south. and in this case, bigger is better.
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No,don't bother get to the pub😎
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I suspect the answer is how important watching television is. Digital signals via an aerial are usually a lot better than the old analogue system. So providing you are in a reasonable signal area the aerial should work perfectly well. As said before Club sites with a poor signal usually have a booster on the EHU bollard. For years we messed around with a freestanding dish which used to take anywhere between a minute and half a day to set up, especially abroad. We got rid of that and went for an automatic dish on the motorhome roof and providing I have a clear view of the sky it's tuned in within the minute. Realistically many people won't want to go to that expense. In my view if you have a clear view of the sky a satellite dish will provide a more consistent picture than a roof mounted aerial in a poorer signal area. We have a small Avtex aerial which we use if we have overhead trees and can't use the dish. It works pretty well but you have to have a strong signal to get all channels in one position. You can buy a satellite system fairly cheaply, sometimes the value supermarkets have them on offer or perhaps B&Q so it might be worth a punt to try one and see how you get on. But don't forget you could always end up on a site with lots of tree cover, poor aerial reception and no boosters so nothing is guaranteed
David
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Don't forget the internet as a TV source, especially if you are not 'heavy' TV users. I know streaming over site WiFi is frowned upon on most UK sites because the incoming bandwidth is often so low, but 3G/4G mobile reception is usually adequate. (you can always download and view later if necessary to avoid annoying buffering).
In southern Spain you have no realistic hope of BBC on satellite. The WiFi bandwidth on the site we were on this winter was so high that we had no concerns accessing BBC iplayer or ITV Hub (via VPN).
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The OP has asked a question, not a debate on wether owning a TV is worth it , it could be said ,why the food when there are restaurants about ,why have a toilet in the van when there are toilet blocks ,why take the caravan when there are hotels . It's called choice , for myself I take and watch tv in the motorhome and I don't have to justify it to anyone
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Surely since the satellites are equatorial one will require a bigger and bigger dish the further north one goes?
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Hi I use satilite when I can't receive terrestrial tv on some sites in uk . aldi did a sat kit quite recently may have some left over in your local store have a look.dish supplied is a bit too small and hard to find signal with so I use a sat dish taken of the house which has worked as far south as the dordogne . I use it on a tripod . but also I can break the dish down to three parts which is very easy to do by taking the lnb off plus the lnb holder into dish which i have drilled out the fixings that attach it to the dish then I use butterfly nut and bolts for quick reassembly, so it can all be packed away flat .
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We also use satilite to pick up radio stations in Europe. we can keep up to date with our local news
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We wouldn’t be without a satellite system 👍we enjoy watching the tv in the evenings with a glass or three of wine 😊for us it gives us what we need and help to make our hobby all the more enjoyable.
Brian & Jo
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not in those shirts, I hope....
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We've not found that, rather the opposite the further South you go into France,Spain and Portugal the bigger the dish needs to be. An 85cm will take you to the bottom of France and even a bit into Spain with as Sky box, after that you will need a 1mtr down to Valencia and 1.4 mtr for Murcia and yes some folk do carry dishes that big. Some sites in Spain and Portugal will rent you a dish or you can on some sites have access to satellite on your pitch as they have it wired in to the bollard.
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You are kidding us?
Here we are dealing with a focused beam and unfortunately one they quite recently narrowed down a lot tighter onto their target viewers.
The size dish needed depends on how close your location is to the beam's centre point, though a bit asymmetrically. Did I read somewhere it is Leicester?
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as above, Astra 2 sends a UK Spot Beam onto the UK mainland and in fact, viewers in northern Scotland need a slightly larger dish to pick up the signal than those in the south...
moving further south into Europe requires an ever larger dish...as described by TG above...
OTOH, Sky sends out its Premium Sports/Movie channels (still from Astra 2) via a different beam (Pan European) which makes it easy to receive them, even in Spain, with a normal sized dish....compared to the huge ones required to pick up the UK Spot Beam.
hence the difficulty in ex pats watching their soaps...
other European countries send out their own programs from groups of satellites in similar 'space' locations.....but, because they are directed 'all over' Europe, they can be viewed with quite small dishes...
its only that the UK beam has such tight constraints over the UK that it makes it hard to receive it when not 'at home'....
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So much for all EU citizens being treated equally. Our continental neighbours can get their TV virtually anywhere but we can only get it in Blighty.
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