Newbie Question

Are you on a hill in Reading ?

68E is possible, but it is low on the horizon

You will need to fit something approaching 3.5m to get the satellite frequencies required

An Irdeto receiver and official subscription card

Whether you are looking at Ku band or C band, the dish required will be large and the satellites are very low on the horizon. The highest one on the horizon is Eutelsat W4, but the channels you want are broadcast on the Nigerian spot meam and I would guess practically impossible to receive here.

Be interesting to hear from a couple of the members with big steerable dishes to see if they can pick up any of the channels you require.

Took a while to compose my post Darryn, so in fact the points were answered by CH. He has the big dish experience which I lack, so will be able to help more.

Only the Russian beam (and that was a while ago)

The Middle African beam has a dogleg that appears to hit North Africa (the Nigerian beam is closely concentrated around Nigeria and at Ku band, this will dwindle to nothing away from the centre), and the 38dB contour if extrapolated, will give reception to the middle UK with a 4.5m antenna

But its going to have to be a good dish and install. Ku band with large dishes requires solid reflectors, careful set up of the panels , critical LNB settings, and no sagging of the dish during movement on the polarmount. In all I would go for the first option of Panamsat.

Darryn,

I'm in Wigan in the Uk and the question you posed is the exact one I wanted to ask.

I'm fed up with Sky's coverage of the Super 14 rugby (which is virtually non-existent) and was wondering if I could set up my own dish/receiver or whatever to pick up MNet/Supersport channels over here.

Didn't have a clue whether it was possible or even legal? I'm no technie and know nothing about dishes etc.

For all practical purposes you can forget it. You are looking at a dish getting on towards 12 feet in diameter, and it is secure encoded so you need an official subs. Unless you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere it is unlikely you would get planning permission for a dish that big.