UK TV SATELLITE ISSUES

In view of the move of UK TV channels to a new satellite, this topic is opened for discussion and advice on the need to have a bigger dish. This first post is repeated from another associated topic, but this topic will be reserved solely for Q&A on the issues which are now beginning to be apparent.

I am sure a lot of people are going to need advice about new installations over the coming months.

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The new sized dish Algarve residents will soon need to continue to receive UK Sky and Freesat broadcasts.



Seriously, everyone is going to need a bigger dish sometime soon as the channels migrate to a new satellite platform Astra 2F. Some theories are that a 3 metre dish might suffice down here, others that it might have to be as big as 5 metres. No-one really knows yet.

All the places I have read say that it is too early to say exactly what the effects will be, although with some channels (eg Channel 5) already moved reports I have seen posted  (and have heard at first hand) from the Algarve say that with a 1.3 metre dish (the current norm) no signal can be seen from Astra 2F.

It gets fairly technical, but I am sure your satellite man is one of many trying to get to grips with the situation, which is far from clear.

Those of you who like such stuff can read this

http://www.astra2.org/astra2f-maps.html

It's the Uk spotbeam that's the issue. If UK broadcasters use this, you can clearly see from the maps that it doesn't come anywhere near here and even the pan-European footprint hardly brushes the Algarve.

Bob your BBC ITV channels where were they broadcast from? all mine came through channel Isles + channel5. Originally ITV came from Anglia & London and always breaking up but have had a good signal from the channel Isle ones on all channels.Not sure what the outcome is now though as we are back in UK.

I've recently investigated this extensively, and took advice from a number of sources, including several established satellite installers in the Algarve.
I was told that a minimum 1.8m dish is now required to view Sky/Freesat down here, but even that will probably not be big enough in a couple of years time.

The end result will be that for most people, watching UK TV in the Algarve will gradually be eliminated because they cannot accomodate dishes of that size on their property.

Of course, the long term aim behind all this is to prevent anyone outside of the UK from receiving UK broadcasts, and this objective, sooner rather than later, will be realised.
Therefore, investing in a new bigger dish may solve the problem in the short term but eventually watching UK TV here via satellite will be a thing of the past.

One of the main reasons behind this is that Sky/BBC/ITV have serious copyright issues if some of their programs are broadcast outside of the UK - particularly sporting events (Sky's Premier League Football) where exclusive broadcasting rights of these games are bought by Sky for huge sums of money, and then sold, again for huge sums of money, to other Foreign broadcasters (e.g. SportTV in Portugal)

Naturally, these local Foreign broadcasters are not happy if they've paid out a lot of money to buy these exclusive rights only to find that the programmes can be watched on a service that is essentially designed for viewers who are resident in the UK and in many cases, from the very same Company that that sold them the rights to show these events, exclusively in their own Country, in the first place. 

It's the same reason why you can't watch BBC iplayer abroad.
Likewise, if you listen to Radio 5 over the internet, you can listen to everything except live football comentaries - as soon as they start, you're automatically blocked from listening.

Jayjan wrote: well end of day Sky will lose a lot of revenue from expats & bars/businesses owned by expats etc all over Europe who are subscribing through  a UK address, for freesat or whatever programmes, after all its still money in the pot for sky.

It's all small beer compared to the money involved in Premier League Football rights.
The Premier League will receive £3 billion for TV rights over the next 3 years from Sky & BT, who have replaced ESPN.
Sky's share of that is a staggering £2.3 billion.

"Likewise, if you listen to Radio 5 over the internet, you can listen to everything except live football comentaries - as soon as they start, you're automatically blocked from listening."

Find a reliable UK based proxy server and you can bypass the block. I am listening to the Test Match as I write (blocked to non-UK IP addresses as BBC is not the host broadcaster)  and regularly listen to otherwise blocked football.

You can find out which TV and radio channels are migrating and when at this forum. An Albufeira.com regular (satellite man Patrick aka Ziproz) is a contributor.

http://astra2.proboards.com/

I hadn't realised until I read it that many UK channels were being broadcast to this area via Astra 1N, which was a temporary fix when one of the other old satellites went  wrong a while back. Astra 1N's footprint included right down to the Canary Islands, by accident of a Spanish requirement, rather than by design.

Astra 2F and the other new ones are configured for the new wave of HD and 3D TV broadcasting, digital radio plus the rise in internet and other services. The UK signal needs to be more concentrated on the areas is it supposed to serve ie UK. Sky are probably privately moaning into their beer about the potential loss of several tens of thousands of subscriptions from Spain and Portugal, but they have no remit to provide services here.

Copyright issues have never seemed to exercise the Portuguese and Spanish TV companies, otherwise every bar advertising Sky Sports would have been raided long ago.

Perhaps a solution for condos would be a big dish in the garden, a receiving station  with a mini-network cabled out to the apartments. But that would cost £££ and will never get agreed to because of the non-British occupants.

just had a look at kingofsat.net....the bbc free channels are allready sitting on intelsat 907 positioned at 27.5 west...not a far cry away from all the portuguese on 30 west. futhermore there is the british forces package on eutelsat 10a positioned on 10 east. they carry sky sports 1 and 2 plus a few other brit popular channels....both these satelites can be picked up down in portugal with smaller dishes....so it might be a question of repositioning the dish rather than splashing out x amount of euros on a nasa style dish.  ..  info here :

cubsur wrote: Copyright issues have never seemed to exercise the Portuguese and Spanish TV companies, otherwise every bar advertising Sky Sports would have been raided long ago.

I would imagine that most bars in the Algarve get their PL games (that they call Sky Sports) from other European broadcasters as I doubt that many of these bars can afford £1,000 a month - the going rate for a pub/bar to show PL games from from Sky. Of course they might be using a "normal household" Sky viewing card but using one of those to show programmes in pubs & bars is illegal.

However, most Algarve bars advertise & show games kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. This is strictly not allowed in the UK so for those games at least bars will not be using Sky broadcasts.

Algarveaddick wrote: us Charlton fans are renown anoraks...

I'm a Norwich City fan - currently watching the Canaries on the internet stuffing Swansea 3-0 at half time