How do i get English Satellite channels in France?

[Gixercam]

My dad lives in Northern France and is a complete technophobe.

He has a skybox and dish and gets some channels of varying quality. I am going over to visit next week and would like to improve this for him but I know nothing bout satellite tv especially in france as I have Eurovox box and cable here.

Does anyone know the best way to receive the most channels in Brittany via sat dish? Should he get freesat or another type of box? Also, was going to take a satellite locator over for him. Any recomendations/tips?

Hope you can help. Cheers in advance.

[Question]

tv abroad

hiya, we live in southern spain and getting english sky over here is a doddle, you will need a big dish though, not the one used back in the uk, i think mine is 1.3m (possibly bigger)diameter, check some english sky installers over in spain and see what they use. Just line up the dish with your finder to the correct sat, all the info will be on the net somewhere, but all i did was look at the neighbours dish and point mine in the same direction and elevation, it HAS to be spot on though and sometimes it takes a lot of tiny adjustments. The other thing you will have to do is chance the transponder code, down here it has to be set at 12.051, no idea what it will be in france tho, sorry. you do this by pressing
Services
0 then 1, then enter
that gives u the engineers screen
Scroll down to transponder frequency and change it to whatever the correct setting is
then scroll down to manual tuning and let it find the channels and just follow the onscreen instructions
try it at home, but dont go as far as changing numbers or searching for channels, the only thing im NOT sure about is the name for the numbers to change, im sure its transponder frequency, but we moved house before xmas and ive just got spanish tv now
hope all this helps

[Gixercam]

Thanks for that. I know he only has a standard dish so may struggle but I will have a play. Cheers for quick reply though. Good luck with the spanish tv!

[dick b]

if he only has a sky dish that may give problems with the astra spot beam.
you should be ok with an 80cm dish 90 at the most to receive the astra north/south and spot beams(the spot beam carries the bbc and itv fta channels and is the most difficult one).
there are a lot boxes to choose from but if you want to keep it simple go the freesat route but make sure the box will operate on the voltage where he lives.and if you enter an english postcode you will get the regional progs that he may want.
the main thing is to get the dish sorted you will need dish/wallmount/universal lnb they are all readily available here but you should also be able to get them locally in france.
check out www.dishpointer.com and buy a cheap sat beeper before going.
you will also need F-plugs and a fly lead.

[Gixercam]

Thanks for that. Just picked up a Sat finder kit from Maplins which has fly lead etc. so hopefully that'll improve what he's got. If I have no luck with the Sky box then freesat was gonna be my next attempt. Thanks again for advice. Flying out on Thursday, snow, Luton airport and Ryanair permitting so will post an update when I'm back. Cheers all.

[satsid]

11591 V 22000 @ 5 west will get you some free 2 air channels.France,2,3 & 5.For france 1 use a old alog receeiver.

[Gixercam]

Dishpointer.com - proper useful. Cheers!

[Gixercam]

Cheers Satsid. New to sat tv so not sure I understand your advice. Not a technophobe like my old man, just never had sat tv myself. Gonna have a play with his dish end of week with a sat finder. Hoping it'll all make sense when I'm there. Most of the info I've seen points to me getting the Sat dish sorted on Astra 19.2E then doing a manual scan on his Sky box. Having looked on dishpointer.com, I can see he's bout 90 degrees out right now. Let you all know how I get on. Thanks all again for advice!

[dick b]

if its the english channels you want you still need to be on 28.2/28.5 East.

[Manic01]

I have 2 sisters who live in France one lives in Orlean and the other lives by Limoges. Both have sky mini dishes working perfect. I know as I fitted both of them. Brittany is nearer so should be ok.