# free to view english tv



## steve brooker (Sep 11, 2012)

Hi all, hope some one can shed some light on this....

i have recently moved from the uk to santa margarita, the standard tv box here only gets about channels, only one if which is possible to watch.

i brought with me an old sky box and english viewing card, as there is a satellite dish on the house. when i plug it all together i get the message that no signals are being received.

could this be due to the viewing card ? or maybe even the dish ?

if anyone can offer advice i would be grateful.


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

steve brooker said:


> Hi all, hope some one can shed some light on this....
> 
> i have recently moved from the uk to santa margarita, the standard tv box here only gets about channels, only one if which is possible to watch.
> 
> ...


If your box and TV are conected up switch it on and onyour Sky remote press services at the top.In the drop down box press number 4 then in the next drop down box press number 6 and that should show you a page where it tells you the quality and strength of your signal and if it's locked in.I am 99% sure on the above but it's been some time since I have done it as I have been using a Dreambox 8000 for some time now.Hope this helps.Also forgot to mention the good Sky signal you need a 1.3mtr dish.You will get away with a smaller dish but when its bad weather you can drop the signal very easily.


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

> i have recently moved from the uk to santa margarita, the standard tv box here only gets about channels, only one if which is possible to watch.


If it is a TDT box (ie spanish tv via a tv aerial), then it should be picking uyp at least 30 channels. This is the Spanish equivilent to the UK Freeview system. 

if not then there is a problem with the system - cabling, aerial direction, no apmplifaction.

But if working, although it will not receive English or UK channels, if the Spanish channels are sohwing a UK or USA imported proigramme, in many cases you do have the option to change from the Spanish dubbed soundtrack to the origianl English soundtrack.



> i brought with me an old sky box and english viewing card, as there is a satellite dish on the house. when i plug it all together i get the message that no signals are being received.


No signal messages can mean many things:
dish too small
dish not aligned proiperly
dish not pointing towards the uk tv satellites
cabling issues
lnb failure



> could this be due to the viewing card ?


no. you can receive around 200 channels for free with no sky card. having a card inserted or not makes no difference in it geting" no signal" messages.



> or maybe even the dish ?


See above.

Sometimes you have to "kick start" the sky box into working.

The sky boxes look for a specific frequency when they start up. o this frequency is all the data for the Sky programme guide. Without this information the box does not boot up. Depending where you are, and what sized dish you ahev will determine if you can receive that frequency. In the Alicante area, even 3.1m dishes can fail to receive that frequency 24/7!

Luckily, all other 100 plus frequencies carry a small ampount of Sky Guide information, enough to help start the box. But you have to tell the sky box to look for that information on a different frequency:

There are slightly different ways for SD and HD boxes:

Sky Standard defintion boxes: Services, 4, 0, 1, select, 2, input frequency, save settings, sky button.

Default Transponder Frequency Settings Sky Freesat TV Costa Blanca Spain. No satellite signal being received message. 12129 12.129 11778 11.778

Sky High defintion boxes: Services, 0, 0, 1, right to txponder, input frequency, save settings, sky button.

Sky TV in Spain. UK TV in Spain. Sky TV Installers. Costa Blanca Satellite TV. British TV Spain. UK TV in Spain. UK TV Costa Blanca. Digital Television in Spain. Sat and PC Guy. Freesat. Frequencies. Internet TV. Online Streaming. TV on PC

you can use a number of frequencies to help start the box up, there is no single best one or exclusive one to use, bt a popular one is 12207 v 27.5 2/3. This carries about 12 Sky channels, and Sky NEws, so we konw it is working!

Once you do the process, the first indication the box is getting a signal is the date and time iwll appear on the screen. A few moments later and the banner at the foot of the screen should show Sky Channel 998 information. Although this channels may show "no signal", as long as the banner information is populated then your other sky channels should be working.

Hope this helps




soulboy said:


> If your box and TV are conected up switch it on and onyour Sky remote press services at the top.In the drop down box press number 4 then in the next drop down box press number 6 and that should show you a page where it tells you the quality and strength of your signal and if it's locked in.I am 99% sure on the above but it's been some time since I have done it as I have been using a Dreambox 8000 for some time now.Hope this helps.Also forgot to mention the good Sky signal you need a 1.3mtr dish.You will get away with a smaller dish but when its bad weather you can drop the signal very easily.


The signal being shown on the sky box signal test screen may not be available 24/7. The main frequency that screen uses, its reception varies during the day.

And although a "1.3m" (is that a 1.20m x 1.30m oval dish - in which case its is not a 1.3m dish, its a 1.2m dish - only installers in Spain use the larger measurement to make it sound like you are getting more dish for your money - the "1.9"s are actually 1.78m") dish may be fine and get some channels today, over the next few months there will be two new UK TV satellites replacing 2 exisitng satellites, and it is expected that reception in spain for some uk tv chanensl will change for the worse....


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Can't remember ever seeing a more comprehensive answer than this one. Good one Sat


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

thrax said:


> Can't remember ever seeing a more comprehensive answer than this one. Good one Sat


Sat knows everything.:clap2:


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

jimenato said:


> Sat knows everything.:clap2:


I absolutely totally agree.One of the best informal posts I have ever seen.It's just a shame some people will think what the hell is he talking about,he's baffled me with science.But,at the end of the day he should know what he is talking about as it is his lliving,and also must congratulate him on his website.Very,very professional but found his info on PC's just common sense.Oh another program you can download is Expat Shield which will get you BBC iPlayer on your rig.


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

Cheers guys. M appreciated..



soulboy said:


> but found his info on PC's just common sense.


The PC side of the site has not been developed as much as the sat side... but it is on the list of things to do.....!!


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

sat said:


> Cheers guys. M appreciated..
> 
> 
> The PC side of the site has not been developed as much as the sat side... but it is on the list of things to do.....!!



Wasn't showing any disrespect on your post as truthfully it was one of the best posts i have ever seen but for some people sometimes it can be too technical.I know with the rigs i build when i talk about putting a dual loop watercooled in they will say what and when i tell them i have got a little devil test bench with asus board on and in i7 extreme edition and i use liquid nitrogen to cool it they just don't believe me and my main rig has three gpu's in sri they will say what.Like satelite is your specialist subject pc's is mine but i dont try to baffle people with science.I was just trying to give the oc basic info but still enjoyed your post.It was very informative.It's a pity you don't do specialist pc stuff as i have to get allmine from the uk which can be a pain at times.


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## Twain (May 24, 2009)

sat said:


> over the next few months there will be two new UK TV satellites replacing 2 exisitng satellites, and it is expected that reception in spain for some uk tv chanensl will change for the worse....


Looking at the footprint of Astra 2F and 2N, it would seem to be very hard to get a signal from them in southern Spain (Malaga area).
Satellite changes at 28.2° East, how will these changes effect viewers overseas?

I would think that antennas under 2meters don't help anymore?
What about 3 meters? Or more? Or just not possible?

Would it be better to stream via web-tv from BBC?


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

Twain said:


> Looking at the footprint of Astra 2F and 2N, it would seem to be very hard to get a signal from them in southern Spain (Malaga area).
> Satellite changes at 28.2° East, how will these changes effect viewers overseas?
> 
> I would think that antennas under 2meters don't help anymore?
> ...


until the new satelites are up and running no one will know for sure.
sometimes the early maps have been a bit more conservative than the actual reception.

but yes, it may mean that for some (not all) channels a much larger dish may be required...just like they have had to use 4m dishes in greece and cyprus for the lasy few years.. but yes it could also mean no signal on certain frequencies also due to the dish sizes required.

i say "for some (not all)" as it all depends whuich channels go on which beams on which satellite. The enw satellite do have "pan european" beams which look to be easily available in Spain on an 80 or 1m dish.... just like many SKy pay channels are alreayd today (eg sky one sky sports...)

you will not be able to stream DIRECT from the BBC or other uk broadcasters due to IP address blocking.
but there are various options for 3rd pary streaming and ip bypassing..


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## Twain (May 24, 2009)

Thank you for the info. I'll just wait and see then. Hoping for the best.
And yes, I know of the IP blocking, hence the VPN route.


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