french tv chanels (i'm a newbie)

[betty_lo]

hello,
i'm interested in getting french tv channels from my lovely abode in london. not that i miss home (lyon, france) or anything but the little people in my house could benefit from it as it seems english, has taken over despite my very best efforts. so, i would mainly be looking at free to air french channels with cartoons, etc... (which would save me from spending money monthly on french dvd's, etc...) anyway, i understand that i will need a dish other than my sky minidish along with a receiver. could someone kindly suggest a cheap setup and whether there is anything else i should be aware of too. thanks.

[Analoguesat]

Hi betty_lo welcome to the gang.

The easiest and cheapest way would be to install a 60cm dish pointing at the satellite Atlantic Bird 3 at 5W and buy an cheap analogue receiver. As long as your TV supports secam you will get a colour picture

This option would give you all the main channels and will work until the analogue channels are shut down in 2-3 years time.

[big d]

Originally Posted by betty_lo

hello,
i'm interested in getting french tv channels from my lovely abode in london. not that i miss home (lyon, france) or anything but the little people in my house could benefit from it as it seems english, has taken over despite my very best efforts. so, i would mainly be looking at free to air french channels with cartoons, etc... (which would save me from spending money monthly on french dvd's, etc...) anyway, i understand that i will need a dish other than my sky minidish along with a receiver. could someone kindly suggest a cheap setup and whether there is anything else i should be aware of too. thanks.

************************************************** *******
the cheapest way i can think of is to get yourself a 80cm dish
and a technomate 1000 d receiver, fix the dish on hotbird and
patch the receiver [ this is very easy to do] then you will get
yourself the tps/multivision and lots of other french channels
without any further outlay. if you want a little more use a
monoblock lnb then you can get channels from hotbird @ 13e
and astra 1 @19e then you will also get german and spanish chns
from astra if these are of any intrerest to you. as for cost
the tm 1000d receiver is £59 at my dealer, you now need a price
for a dish fitted. are you anywhere near this dealer,
they will give you a price for everything you need
a l s a t SHOP

Address removed - we arent giving them free advertising A/S

[betty_lo]

thank you for the welcome and quick replies. and thanks big d for the dealer's details. i have a couple more questions. i may try and save myself some money by trying to pick up a second hand dish and receiver on ebay. would that be wise? if so, as i am quite hands on, would i save myself even more money by setting this up myself?

[nanochickin]

Theres nothing wrong with buying second hand stuff on ebay, although to be honest for how cheap dishes are you may as well buy a new dish, mount and lnb and then go for a second hand receiver

Fitting is also quite easy as long as you have a bit of commen sense and a ladder

Find what you like and let us know what you have found and we will do our best to advise you on whether to buy it or not

The only advise i would say if you go for the stuff off 5w is to avoid the Sky type dishes as you may not be able to get the lnb skew correct for that satellite due to how the lnbs are mounted.



Nano

p.s :welc4: to the forum

[betty_lo]

thanks for the tips.

so i know what to get when it comes to the receiver. i've done a bit of browsing and this is what i've found so far for the dish and lnb (i don't really understand the different kinds of lnb's)

• triax TD78 80cm Pole Mount Solid Dish for £33 excluding wall mount
or
• 80cm (orbital steel dish) solid dish not sure about brand but includes wall mount for £30
• Monobloc Astra Hotbird Satellite LNB for £39.99
• l-wall mount for £16

would this do the trick, do i need anything else and does this sound reasonable price wise?

thank you

[nanochickin]

If its a Global Orbit 80R dish you will be ok with that. I've had 2 80Rs and i now use an 90R. They are cracking dishes for the money

I've even managed to get a few bits and pieces off Nilesat @ 7w with my 90cm Global Orbit 90R and Nilesat is a bastard to get anything off with any dish below 1.5m in the UK

Just go by a simple rule. The bigger the better

Can you give us ebay item numbers or the url of where you saw the items please, and forget the monoblock thats far too expensive @ £40 you can get them cheaper



Nano

[betty_lo]

hi nano
the items that i have found so far are the results of a google search, so from various suppliers. see below (please remove if this goes against the forum rules):

_http://www.protonelectronics.net/sales.html
_http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?MenuNo=13040&MenuName=Satellite+LNBs&F romMenu=y&doy=14m6
_http://www.spectrum-skytv.co.uk/c2499/Dishes.html

[nanochickin]

No No No No No

That lot is far to expensive. Have a look at this lot and let me know what you think.

This lot is from a company called Systemsat on ebay. I have had loads of stuff from them so they are trustworthy,i wouldn't recommend them otherwise Just put the item number into the search box on ebays front page to view them.

Global Orbit 80R Dish 260127624608 £19.99
0.2db Inverto Monoblock lnb 260113737849 £16.95
Galvanised wall mount 260100954048 £16.95 OR Floor mount 260126237804 £19.95

You will also need some CT100 coax to run to the receiver.

None of these prices are including postage but the guy is pretty good if you buy a load off him in one go.

Next thing you will need is a receiver. Now this all depends on whether you are going to pay for a subscription or go for the FTA stuff.

If you have family back home you should be able to get a Canal+ subscription from €18 a month if i remember correctly.

If this is the case you will just need a receiver with an embedded Viaccess or Seca card reader

The other way round that is by viewing TPS on 13e. Its encryption system is shot to pieces, in short its been open for as long as i can remember. Its open on auto update on most receivers at the moment.

The likes of the Technomate TM 1000D would come in at about £50 + postage. It is a well supported receiver which can currently open up loads of stuff atm. Satsid will be along later to tell you about the Vantage receiver later on in the thread. He has probably the most expereience with this receiver so i'll leave it upto him to tell you about it Cheers Sid

on 13e its just TPS that is open and on 19e D+ from Spain is also open although upto a few weeks ago Premiere from Germany was wide open. Premiere should be back on the Technomate soon i'm guessing as its slowly making its way back onto other receivers every other day

Most foreign providers also broadcast an English soundtrack along with their own language track which is great for us. Hope this helps mate

Heres something to remind you of home below ripped off France 3 during the eurovision song contest

:Cheers:


Nano

[betty_lo]

well, there's me thinking i'd found some real bargains.... ah ah ah but obviously not!!!! i've emailed the ebay seller to find out about combined postage, thanks. and will probably go for the technomate receiver.

i'm happy with free to air channels for now since overall french tv is pretty cr**p anyway. and i don't want to get into watching rubbish, which somehow is always compulsive....

oooohhhhh, I'M SO EXCITED!!!