FTA & French TV in France ?

[peterinfrance]

Hello all, and thanks in advance for any help you can give me,
I'm an absolute beginner and need pointers please.

We live in France, in the Alps region. I have the idea of buying a satellite dish and some kind of receiver equipment in order to receive 1. a broad range of UK channels for free (BBC, ITV etc.) and 2. the standard list of French channels too.
Is this possible ?
If so, could you advise me what equipment would be needed ?
I'm hoping to be able to buy a dish and some boxes and then do the setup myself, any guidance would be welcome.
Many thanks,
Peter

[Robbo]

Hi, yes, I should think so. The BBC and ITV etc are on Astra 2D at 28.2E. Not sure of the dish size needed, but a 1m dish should do it I think, with a bit of rain fade margin. For the channels you could use any FTA digital sat box, a Freesat box (Argos etc) or an old Sky digibox.

There are a lot of options for French channels, one of which is the TNT channels on 19.2e, for which you'd need a dedicated Viaccess receiver and card, which you can get locally. With an offset lnb you would be able to use the same dish, or stick up another much smaller one.

[Rick]

dishpointer.com will give you a good idea of what dish size from your location. These are minimum sizes so as Robbo says don't forget to build in abit of margin for the weather i.e if it says min 80cm get a 90cm. Also you will need bigger if you want to pickup several sats without a motor (multi lnb)

lyngsat.com can give you a good idea as to what chanels are on which satellite.

[peterinfrance]

Robbo and Rick, thanks for your replies.

If I've understood : I can buy a standard free satellite decoder, from anywhere, and connect it to a satellite dish (let's say 1m) that can be any sort. I plug this into the TV, read the decoder manual and then setup to receive from the Astra 2D satellite in the 28.2 East direction the list of English channels I saw on the Lyngsat site for this satellite... ?!

Apparently I would need to choose which satellite to use for the French channels ? And then work out how to use 2 satellites at the same time ?
Because Astra 2D doesn't have them.
And another satellite with another set of signals means another decoder box ?

How do you choose ? Wouldn't Altlantic Bird 3 be better ?
What is a viaccess box ?
Does it matter about the direction ?
I guess if the direction is totally different then I would need 2 dishes ? Hence Robbo's remark about the 2nd being small because we should be right below the middle of the French satellite signal ?

What is an lnb ?

Many thanks again for your help,
Peter

[Robbo]

The standard satellite receiver in most European countries is digital, however in France and Germany, there may still be analogue ones on sale, which you don't want, but other than that yes.

Base your choice of satellite on which channlel you want, try flysat.com and lynsat.com

I know about the TNT channels as I put up a dish for a Franch guy here in the UK, and he had a TNT box made by strong. I don't watch French channels,so you'd have to do a bit of research using the sites mentioned.

The LNB is the thingy with a wire coming out, on the end of the dish arm.