New to Satellite - going to Albania - help needed

mick-w

Hi, please bear with me as I know nothing about satellite TV but my girlfriend is working in Selite (Tirana) in Albania. She has a sky box but no card and can get some basic channels. I took a satellite receiver out there but it transpires we need a 9 foot dish to get any English channels. Other than subscribing to Sky which is about £60 per month is there any way she can get some decent English channels.
Many thanks

Robbo

I don't know the dish size needed for 28E in that area, but there are quite a few films and stuff on DigitalB 16E with English soundtrack.

Analoguesat

2.5 to 3 m would be about right for Astra 2D there - possibly bigger.

There should be plenty of the Astra 2 south beam & Eurobird 1 channels available even with a modest dish.

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!

mick-w

Guys, Thanks for your help, I know I sound really stupid but I know NOTHING about satellite TV, she has a dish (the previous house occupier left it there) that is about 3 foot in diameter and was I believed used to receive SKY. Can she use this and just get it pointed to Astra 2 & Eurobird, also what receiver should I get.

Many Thanks

Analoguesat

There are 4 satellites transmitting TV services to the UK, which use 8 different coverage footprints.

The BBC ITV & C4 channels (the most wanted ones for most folk) transmit on a satellite called Astra 2D. This sat has the most restricted coverage area - keeping things simple its basically the UK and the immediately surrounding area (northern France, the Benelux countries, western Germany etc)[*]

Having said that if you use a big enough dish you can get coverage further afield, although Albania is likely to fall into the "very big dish required" scenario (over 3m)

Before we can answer which receiver you want we need to know if you want the pay channels, or just the free channels.

[*] Before anyone says anything - Im keeping things simple.

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!

mick-w

Thanks for your help with this, basically all is required is coronation street and eastenders (I know..I'd go to Albania to NOT get them) so the basic BBC / ITV channels if possible, she has a sky setup but no card and gets about 3 english channels which seem to show American "B" movies most of the time. Could we use this dish for another satellite? I did try a receiver I took out there and with a lot of dish moving we manged to get about 1 channel so gave up.