Satellite TV Update

[Deanscroft]

Howard - see my post dated 3rd November.

 

[its cd]

Our Confort dish was still working perfectly on 7th to 10th November

As I have said before - go to Confort, they are reliable

 

[howard]

I just went on recommendation with Infinity, a lot of people on this forum recommended them, I would normally of used a guy over in Alcudia but it's my own fault going for the cheapest quote I suppose.

 

[mike_dublin]

Majorca Daily Bulletin
(04/06/15 online)

Satellite television update in Majorca

The long awaited BskyB pay TV satellite is due to arrive in it’s final satellite orbit position on 12/13 of June. It will be followed by 10 to 14 days of testing before Sky moves a large portion or its currently strong signal pay channels bouquet over to a much weaker Astra 2G UK spot beam.

Sean Connolly from Ocean TV is expecting a portion of Sky HD channels to be severely affected on the North and East coast of Majorca in the last week of June or first week in July. He predicts the sky HD channels to be completely wipe on the North coast of Minorca.

The good news is he feels the standard definition Sky pay channels will still work in Ibiza and most of Majorca, however he also predicts even the standard definition sky pay channels may be difficult in pick up in Minorca and most of Majorca between the middle of December until middle of January without upgrading to larger satellite dish.

Sean Connolly also is predicting that a 1,7M satellite dish will work in all of Majorca during the summer, but he feels in the winter to watch HD Sky and Ultra HD BT sports due to be rolled out by Sky in August 2015, in areas north of Inca expats will need even larger 2.0/1.8M satellite dishes . He also adds in the problem Sky signal areas such as all of Minorca and parts of Alcudia and Pollensa during the winter to watch HD channels during bad weather 2.5/2.4M dishes may be required.

The new Astra 2G satellite has a 15 year lifespan. Astra 2G will most probably be the last satellite BskyB will ever launch, as Sky is already investigating broadcasting their sky channels over the internet.

Currently in Palma, Bendinat and Portals areas, they are nearly ready for fiber optic internet at 100Mps with unlimited download quota, by the time this new satellite is being decommissioned in 2027/2030 Connolly feels fiber optic will be laid to most of Majorca together with wireless 4/5G in rural areas so future Sky boxes would work via a UK VPN router without satellite dishes.

 

[Bekki]

Just wanted to report that we'd lost all channels last year on our system. we've juts had an upgrade to ITV, BBC and a new dish installed brilliantly by Infinity of Palma. They've got a special offer on at the moment too.

 

[Capvermell]

I can arrange excellent reliable and prompt service to restore your programmes with the larger dish at 800 euros including fitting. If you want a community dish, for about 8 neighbours, its about 1000 euros. There are still people out there quoting 1500 euros!

Would be interested to discuss this with you. Can I assume you are not the company with part of Buzz Lightyear's strapline in their name? Although they certainly appear technically competent they are actually horrendously inflexible in terms of appointments for anyone only out here in Mallorca a few weeks at a time. Also their charge for a replacement dish is ok but their charges on a complete new install for the LNB and each cable run (for instance they treat a double cable as though it was two separate cables run to separate places) are pretty extortionate. Also they are very pernickety and bureaucratic indeed about having formal permission to do any form of work in an apartment complex. But all the other 20 or so dishes in the development here have just been bunged up with lose verbal permission from then then President at best. I have an email from the President saying we can have a dish as long as it was no bigger than anything existing being used for UK tv viewing. And one of his own committee members replaced his 1.2m dish with a 1.7m dish a year ago and nobody brought it up at the AGM.

Anyway will send you a PM to discuss this further. I am trying to use an Echostar 600RS Freesat box located back in the UK that has a built in slingbox down our communal 12Mbs ConectaBalear wifi connection. This gets a 12Mbps speedtest.net result nearly all the time (unlike when we were with WifiBaleares who are lieing toads and just in total denial of their 12Mbps service speed dropping to 1Mbps at peak evening times) but the Slingbox won't stream anything at more than 1Mbps and keeps buffering and dropping frames. I can't watch anything at all in full screen mode. Only the picture within the screen mode works. I assume that ConectABalear have vicious anti streaming controls in place that are doing all of this as I have streamed the box fine from a connection in the UK that had only a 1Mbps maximum upload speed.

In any event be interested to talk satellite dishes further, especially while the pound to Euro rate is so good. Will tell you where I am by PM in case the company with the rather strict Scottish lady who answers their telephone should be reading this.

 

[El Gordo]

Majorca Daily Bulletin
(04/06/15 online)
Satellite television update in Majorca

The long awaited BskyB pay TV satellite is due to arrive in it’s final satellite orbit position on 12/13 of June. It will be followed by 10 to 14 days of testing before Sky moves a large portion or its currently strong signal pay channels bouquet over to a much weaker Astra 2G UK spot beam.

Sean Connolly from Ocean TV is expecting a portion of Sky HD channels to be severely affected on the North and East coast of Majorca in the last week of June or first week in July. He predicts the sky HD channels to be completely wipe on the North coast of Minorca.

The good news is he feels the standard definition Sky pay channels will still work in Ibiza and most of Majorca, however he also predicts even the standard definition sky pay channels may be difficult in pick up in Minorca and most of Majorca between the middle of December until middle of January without upgrading to larger satellite dish.

Sean Connolly also is predicting that a 1,7M satellite dish will work in all of Majorca during the summer, but he feels in the winter to watch HD Sky and Ultra HD BT sports due to be rolled out by Sky in August 2015, in areas north of Inca expats will need even larger 2.0/1.8M satellite dishes . He also adds in the problem Sky signal areas such as all of Minorca and parts of Alcudia and Pollensa during the winter to watch HD channels during bad weather 2.5/2.4M dishes may be required.

The new Astra 2G satellite has a 15 year lifespan. Astra 2G will most probably be the last satellite BskyB will ever launch, as Sky is already investigating broadcasting their sky channels over the internet.

Currently in Palma, Bendinat and Portals areas, they are nearly ready for fiber optic internet at 100Mps with unlimited download quota, by the time this new satellite is being decommissioned in 2027/2030 Connolly feels fiber optic will be laid to most of Majorca together with wireless 4/5G in rural areas so future Sky boxes would work via a UK VPN router without satellite dishes.

Forgive my ignorance but does this affect current reception of UK Freeview Channels or is it just Sky?

 

[Bekki]

In response to the last message. We used Infinity with no issues at all and price great for us. I'm just a regular person and not connected to any company.

 

[Capvermell]

Forgive my ignorance but does this affect current reception of UK Freeview Channels or is it just Sky?

It doesn't affect reception of Freeview channels at all as you need a roof top aerial and not a satellite dish to receive those and are also highly unlikely to get any of them anywhere much south of the Calais area in France!

I presume you meant to ask about Freesat channels though vs Sky? Point is that the free channels on satellite are the same ones whether they are received by a Sky or a Freesat box. Only the program guide and channel numbers are different between the two platforms.

All the UK satellite channels are becoming harder to receive due to a combination of the march of technology allowing the owner of the satellites (SES/Astra) to focus the beams more narrowly and due to the obscene amount of money charged for certain sports rights, making it very important to those selling them that they can only be received in the places they are getting paid for.

We are just unlucky really because even the south of the UK is a long way from Spain so with more modern satellite technology they can make what beams reach Spain ever weaker and requiring more massive dishes. The Germans are lucky because the bottom of Bavaria is much nearer (even though Hamburg is a long way away) so even Mallorca is near enough that it can't easily be prevented from receiving signals aimed at Germany from satellite at 19 degrees East.

 

[Capvermell]

I just went on recommendation with Infinity, a lot of people on this forum recommended them, I would normally of used a guy over in Alcudia but it's my own fault going for the cheapest quote I suppose.

I think they are good if you live in a house and can choose where you have your own dish and give yourself permission to have it there. In which case Infinity won't refuse to put up a dish because they want an impossible to get bit of paper from someone else (President of the Management Company). Also they are alright if you just want a simple LNB with one or two cables.

However if you want an Octo LNB and want to double cable four different rooms in your house they are going to start working out quite expensive as they don't discount more cable runs within one job (which they should as one of their main costs on each job is travel time and setting up and satellite cable itself costs very little per metre and certainly nowhere near what Infinity charges per cable) and charge double for a double cable run to one point, which isn't really fair or logical.

There is no doubt they are competent but they are also overly pernickety on the dish permission front in an often show stopping way. Also they can't seem to get out to see anyone to give a quote for weeks on end.

 

[El Gordo]

It doesn't affect reception of Freeview channels at all as you need a roof top aerial and not a satellite dish to receive those and are also highly unlikely to get any of them anywhere much south of the Calais area in France!

I presume you meant to ask about Freesat channels though vs Sky? Point is that the free channels on satellite are the same ones whether they are received by a Sky or a Freesat box. Only the program guide and channel numbers are different between the two platforms.

All the UK satellite channels are becoming harder to receive due to a combination of the march of technology allowing the owner of the satellites (SES/Astra) to focus the beams more narrowly and due to the obscene amount of money charged for certain sports rights, making it very important to those selling them that they can only be received in the places they are getting paid for.

We are just unlucky really because even the south of the UK is a long way from Spain so with more modern satellite technology they can make what beams reach Spain ever weaker and requiring more massive dishes. The Germans are lucky because the bottom of Bavaria is much nearer (even though Hamburg is a long way away) so even Mallorca is near enough that it can't easily be prevented from receiving signals aimed at Germany from satellite at 19 degrees East.

Thank you for correcting my silly mistake re Freeview v Freesat!!

I am much wiser now!!??

 

[Capvermell]

I am much wiser now!!??

Sky have been replacing all the old satellites run for them by SES/Astra with three new ones. Astra 2G coming to service in a few weeks time is the last. The other two were Astra 2E and 2F. All of these satellites can restrict their beams to an area more closely focused on the UK.

This issue will be more acute if needing to receive current HD broadcast channels or future 4K broadcast channels where you need a bigger dish still than SD channels to go on receiving them. Sky will start with 4K pay channels next year, I expect the BBC will start a test 4K channel some time and an actual 4K channel further down the road.

So if you are in the far East to North East of Mallorca and want SD channels you need to have a 1.7m dish compared to only 1.2m dish with a better LNB thingie on the end of the prong over near Palma and Magalluf. If you want pay HD channels and are in the North East of Mallorca you are going to need a larger dish still (from 1.9m up to may 2.4m), especially for Sky's new 4K service when they launch it.

What's 4K I hear you asking since your mind clearly closes whenever programs like Click come on air on BBC News. Well I suppose you could Google and no doubt you would find quite a lot of results.

 

[Capvermell]

Sean Connolly also is predicting that a 1,7M satellite dish will work in all of Majorca during the summer, but he feels in the winter to watch HD Sky and Ultra HD BT sports due to be rolled out by Sky in August 2015, in areas north of Inca expats will need even larger 2.0/1.8M satellite dishes.

He also adds in the problem Sky signal areas such as all of Minorca and parts of Alcudia and Pollensa during the winter to watch HD channels during bad weather 2.5/2.4M dishes may be required.

Translation:- Sean Connolly predicts a great new marketing opportunity for his Ocean Tv service to install and fit expensive shiny new dishes on the East and North East of the island and then recycle the old removed ones over to people on Ibiza or the Magalluf/Palma Nova side of the island who don't currently have satellite dishes at all.

He is also grateful for his chum in the editorial department of The Majorca Daily Bulletin for only ever mentioning the existence of his business (Ocean) in their write ups on satellite tv reception issues on Mallorca, even though the same firm's advertising department quite happily also carries adverts from all of his main competitors (eg Infinity, GNTV etc).

 

[Tiggy]

The Germans are lucky because the bottom of Bavaria is much nearer (even though Hamburg is a long way away) so even Mallorca is near enough that it can't easily be prevented from receiving signals aimed at Germany from satellite at 19 degrees East.[/QUOTE]

Oh no they dont - in Munich you need a 1.80mtre dish and a clear day to get British Telly

 

[Capvermell]

Oh no they dont - in Munich you need a 1.80mtre dish and a clear day to get British Telly

No I'm talking about Germans with holiday homes on the East side of Mallorca where we Brits need a 1.70m+ dish.

They still only seem to need a 90cm dish to get loads of German stuff, although I don't know what the position is with the subscription channels broadcast by Sky Germany?

The German satellite tv signal seems absolutely brilliant here in Mallorca considering the distance away from home.

 

[El Gordo]

Thank you Capvermell for your very helpful and informative posts.

However, can I point out that I quoted Mike Dublin regarding the post about the advice from the owner of Ocean TV, in the Majorca Daily Bullitin.

 

[Rosie34]

UK tv channels

As we'll be in PP for a month in Sept/Oct I am wondering what is the situation re receiving UK channels at the moment. There is a tv in the apartment we will be renting and had no problem a couple of years ago but reading posts on the forum it looks as if the situation has changed. (And being there for a month, we would like to watch some tv progs as cant be out gallivanting every night

 

[Sparky]

As we'll be in PP for a month in Sept/Oct I am wondering what is the situation re receiving UK channels at the moment. There is a tv in the apartment we will be renting and had no problem a couple of years ago but reading posts on the forum it looks as if the situation has changed. (And being there for a month, we would like to watch some tv progs as cant be out gallivanting every night

I believe it is still a bit hit and miss for some people especially in bad weather, but others are not having any problems at all. I would suggest that you contact the owner as only they will know what is happening in their apartment .

 

[Rosie34]

Thanks Sparky - will do this

 

[Deanscroft]

A word of warning
Certain satellite / tv engineers are selling a quick fix to the tv reception problem. This fix entails selling a satellite receiver which has been hacked with the security codes needed to access Intelsat 907 which is an emergency back up satellite for UK freesat. This satellite is not meant to provide tv service to the general public. Hacking is illegal. Intelsat 907 is due to be replaced within the next year. The access codes needed to use it are changed regularly.
Before handing over wads of cash for what appears to be a miracle cure make sure you know what you are getting. If you want to know more go to this link.
Intelsat 907 at 27.5 West - BBC SATBACK - The Sat and PC Guy - UK TV in Spain Sky Freesat IPTV