Just a(nother) "what size dish" question

[nomadros]

Hi,,, I'm in north east Spain (41 degrees) and need to know what dish size to use to receive UK TV channels. I'm not interested in anything fancy just enough to get FTA BBC, ITV etc for my GF. Trying to find this stuff out on the web is pretty hard as most info appears to be from around 2013 and therefore out of date.

From what I've read I need a 140cm dish (but if I can get smaller, it's a help), only want a single LNB and need some form of decoder that'll do for FTA UK and EU channels.

I'll be doing 2 installs. One in our town house which is in a culturally sensitive area, so much paperwork will be involved and a smaller dish size is important, and the second is in the sticks in a nature reserve (no TV signal to speak of even with a booster) and the decoder needs to run light on power as everything is solar. I've got Starlink and can stream, but it's power hungry at night and I like to shut it off.


Apologies if this info is already on the forum and I've missed it.

 

[Terryl]

Try dishpointer dot com, all you do is enter your address and select a satellite, then zoom into the location the dish will be located, move the marker to that location and click on it, this will give you an idea on dish size, it will also give you pointing info for setting it up.

https://www.dishpointer.com/

 

[woborny]

Hi,,, I'm in north east Spain (41 degrees) and need to know what dish size to use to receive UK TV channels.

As signal levels for the three UK TV satellites can vary so much across a short distance, you will need to be a bit more specific with the location.
Your location of "Catalunya" in your profile recommended dish sizes for the province go from 1.4m in the south, to over 2.4m in the north for reception of the main FTA channels like BBC ITV C4 Fives..
Most of the information from 2013-2014 is still relevant as nothing much has changed re the three satellites. However, with the changes with BBC going HD only (and presumably others afterwards once the BBC have taken all the flack!), then yes the information you have found may be bit outdated, and data on required dish sizes are understated

 

[nomadros]

Hi all and thanks for your help...

I looked through satbeams.com, dishpointer and a host of other sites.

Looks like I'd need a 1.8m dish, so regarding the town house, I'll just get 500mbps fibre at around 30 euros a month and stream via a VPN or whatever.

Anyway, English TV in Spain thing was all getting a bit "Del Boy" (BBC Satback + codes for example), so for the sticks, I'll just get a normal 50-60cm set up from Amazon and watch DMAX Spain in English + the normal Catalan and Spanish channels + maybe a bit of French and Italian stuff.

I might revisit this in 2025 as I read someplace there might be changes and this subject makes for a really nice "off-grid" hobby.