Satellite TV in Austria

[pgph]

Hi,

I live in Austria and have two questions I'm hoping someone can answer:

1) Is it possible to receive two satellite positions with one dish? I currently receive Astra 19.2E and have checked my equipment - I have a Kathrein UAS 484 Universal Quattro LNBF on a 120cm dish. Now, I saw that Eutelsat has a lot of channels on 13E (HOTBIRD), so I am wondering if I can tune into those as well as my Astra channels. Given the equipment I have, is this possible, or would I have to invest in something new?

2) Given that I can somehow work it so I can tune in to two orbital positions, this brings me to my second question: What I am really looking for is English channels. Austrian pay-tv (Premiere) offers hardly any original language programming, so I really want to find some English ones. OK, I read that you can somehow arrange to get a under-the-table subscription to SKY, but this is exorbitantly expensive. The other thing I found was Freesat from Sky which would get me 120 free channels for 20 GBP. But I also read that the free channels like BBC are only broadcast over the UK and would not be available here. Can anyone tell me what options I have to get some English channels???

I am not too bad with technology in general, but all this satellite tech jargon is absolutely new to me, so please try to keep the answers simple so I will understand!

Many many thanks in advance!
Philip

[BGonaSTICK]

Hi Philip, welcome to the forum :welc1:

Do you know what your 120cm dish is - i.e. make and model? If not, any chance you could upload a picture of it to the forum?

Depending on what type of dish it is, it may be possible to receive more than one satellite, but probably not the 'Sky' satellites at 28.2 degrees east.

Hotbird is a popular orbital location to pair with Astra1, and carries loads of channels, but only a limited number in English.

Your research detailed under point 2 is faultless, so there is no magic bullet. Let's get a bit more info on your dish, and we'll take it from there. I suspect it might be what we would call a 'prime focus' arrangement.

I'm sure we can get you some English programming without too much trouble, even if it isn't quite everything you hoped for.

STICK