English channels other than at 28.2E?

[DippytheDish]

I have a sky digibox and have recently bought a 2nd 60 cm dish. I have my first dish directed to pick up free channels from Sky but can anyone suggest what satellite would be best for me to direct my 2nd dish at to get maximum free English or Dutch speaking channels please and what additional equipment would I need to connect both dishes to one receiver?

 

[Analoguesat]

There isnt much free English stuff around. Hotbird has Arirang (Korea), & Caspionet (Kazahkstan). Some of the output from Arte is in English with subtitiles. Lots of the Arabic channels have English news broadcasts in the evening.

On Astra 1 there is Deutsche Welle TV, and Bayern Alpha has occasional English stuff. (Bob Ross Joy of Painting every evening in English)

Virtually no Dutch channels free - apart from BVN on Astra 1 & Hotbird. All the others are scrambled in an encryption the Digibox cant handle.

You need a manual LNB switch box from somewhere like Maplins so you can switch between dishes.

Please note - the digibox is horrible to use away from 28E, although its ok for experimenting with. You might want to think about a dedicated fta box at some point.

 

[DippytheDish]

Thanks very much for information. I may have to invest in a dedicated fta box if I can find one at a reasonable price. I used to be an anologue viewer but then I moved a few times and went without satellite TV for several years. Recently I picked up a digibox for £5 at a car boot sale and then found a dish for sale just around the corner. The box works fine so now I am hooked again.

 

[Analoguesat]

There are many web sites that will give you information about exactly what is available.

http://www.lyngsat.com/europe.html

is good, but very detailed, and takes a bit of learing.

Some folks like http://www.satcodx.com

although I have never really got to grips with their layout, and the pages can take bloody ages to d/l on dialup.....

For free channels only, I have a website http://www.digitalsat.co.uk which is the result of hours of experimenting with a scruffy old 80cm dish, and lists the channels which can be received with minimal problems across the UK.

And if you want to see what is still around in analogue, then my other site http://www.analoguesat.co.uk is packed full of stuff about analogue channels, screen grabs, info about the satellites etc.

 

[DippytheDish]

Thanks for all those links. I am interested in analogue as well. I have one of my dishes pointed at 19.2E and connected to a Pace Prima box. Sometimes I will unscrew the cable and connect it to my digibox and watch the digital channels also available from the same location. I have also looked at 16E and 13E for analogue but not for digital so far :-)

 

[Channel Hopper]

Once you have advanced onto something able to get the rest of the free channels from satellite, you wil find a useful function called 'audio PID'which if the broadcastallows, gives you a choice of more than one language

For now there are some with subtitling in the final destination language but in original audio - HRT1, SLO 1, Euronews for starters

 

[Analoguesat]

16E digital really isnt too interesting. I dont think you will find much that a Sky digibox can receive anyway, as most (if not all) of the channels use symbol rates that a digibox cant get.

13E is fantastic in digital - around 250 channels from all over the world.

 

[DippytheDish]

Thanks very much for that. I will see if I can locate the satellite at 13E. I recently bought a satellite meter so hopefully I will find it easier than I did when I tried using analogue. Thanks also to Channel Hopper for advice.

 

[Analoguesat]

Tune the analogue box into the DW signal and use that to align onto 13E - you cant miss it as its a powerhouse signal. Then swap the boxes over. Its the easiest way to find 13E. I can get a perfect signal off DW with a 43cm dish here in south Scotland

 

[DippytheDish]

I have located Hotbird at 13E but so far picture a bit sparkly. I have a 60cm dish so I would have thought if you are receiving it on a 43cm dish in S.Scotland that I should get a good picture in E Anglia.

 

[Analoguesat]

Only the strongest analogue transponders are successfully received on the 43cm dish. DW is fine, most of the rest are either poor or rubbish.

Several of the analogue 13E channels are transmitted on transponders that have a shared use, and are quite noticably lower power - TV4 Poland is a good example of a much lower power transmission.

Managed to get 3 of the Turksat west beam digital transponders on the 43cm dish over the weekend

 

[DippytheDish]

I have now located Hotbird on my 2nd dish further down the garden and signal is strong on analogue. Even BBC World and the Polish and Turkish channels are good but when I try to manually tune into the digital channels on the sky digibox I can't seem to find much. Any idea why this is please?

 

[DippytheDish]

I have found some digital channels on Hotbird now. It would seem that the first few coloumns of listing in "What Satellite & Digital TV" magazine can't be picked up on a digibox but now I am able to watch TV from Iran and Afghanistan :-)

 

[Analoguesat]

Try this page:

http://www.geocities.com/digitalsatuk/hotbird_13e.html

which has just the fta stuff on it & I updated it last night. If you are using a digibox, then only the channels using SR 27500 & 22000 are accessible.

Doubt you are watching any Afghanistan broadcasts - as far as I know they are only just getting their terrestrial programming sorted out and they dont have any satellite broadcasts..

 

[DippytheDish]

Thanks for that excellent list of fta channels. I had a look at my F connectors on the cable and now I am getting the full range of channels. There are so many interesting channels on Hotbird that it is a pity my digibox will only store 50 of them. I think you are right about Afghanistan TV. I think I must have been watching a channel showing a clip from Afghanistan TV as that was the name at corner of the screen but I can't find it now.

 

[ag10]

Another good site for channel lists is www.kingofsat.net/satellites.php
You can choose to show just FTA channels for each satellite, which simplifies the lists a lot!