Hardware recommendations for noob

willis

Hi - first post so please be gentle - I want to get a basic digital satellite system installed which will give me access to all the free to air French TV channels (France 2, 3, 4, 5 etc). I know that TF1 is not yet available on free to air but it may be soon. I do not want to get any type of subscription card at the moment but I may want / need to get one in future (if TF1 isn't on free to air by the end of the year). I am not interested in any other european channels (the system is for my wife - who is French and about to go on maternity leave - so lots of time to relax watching telly). Also I currently only use a freeview receiver (no sky or ntl and no plans to get). My questions are:

1) What receiver should I get (I have a budget of £100-£150ish)?
2) What size and type of dish would / should go with it?
3) I am getting a local firm to install and have been quoted £140 for installation (including wires / brackets etc, as well as a renewal of my existing TV aerial and wires as they are a bit ropey and prob will fall down any day), is this reasonable?

Any comments / views / recommendations would be very gratefully received.

Thanks.

Topper

Welcome to the forum willis

Do we therefore assume you have clear line of site from your property to Atlantic Bird 3 at 5 Degrees West? (5 degrees West of South)

Have a look here that lists all the channels on that satellite. Presumably you will be wanting to receive the FTA ones on 11591V and 11607V.

A Technomate 1000 or 1500 off Ebay would be more than sufficient and I think the sellers also do package deals with everything including dish. A 90 cm is more than sufficient for you needs as you can see from the footprint here
There are a number of members that have these stb's but I do not, I have not heard anything bad about them

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willis

Hi Topper, Thanks for the help. Yup I do have a clear line of sight five degrees west of south. I have decided to go with your recommendations and will get a 80cm dish from Ebay (not many 90cm ones) - is a 0.6dmb lmb ok as I saw some for 0.2dmb and don't know what this means? Also what's the benefit of having a motorised dish? And do these need to be powered from the mains?

Also some Technomate 1500's on Ebay say they are "patched" and therefore there is no need for "CAMS or cards". What are CAMS? Also would this make any difference to me? What does the "Patch" enable?

Sorry to ask so many questions, I bet some people are he knows nothing but I gotta start somewhere

Thanks again for the help.

rolfw

The figures quoted for LNBs are for noise produced during amplification and conversion if the signal, in theory, the lower this figure the better, but be aware that these figures are not necessarily always given for the same measurement, so can be almost meaningless.

The benefit of a motorised dish, is that you will be able to move the dish to see many different satellites, and hence, see many more channels.

For information on what a patch and or CAM can do, see the CAMs and Decoders section. Also do not take as read that Ebay sellers know what they are selling or talking about, they can make some pretty extravagant claoms on occasions, I would always go for a receiver with a slot for a CAM and a card reader, whether the reciver is patchable or not, as then you always have the option of subscribing to packages should you wish.

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