Freesat In Southern Spain
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Due to the changes with the Astra satellites, all of us in southern spain will be shortly losing most of our UK TV channels, (ie) BBC C4 ITV.
We have already lost the all the Five channels and a few others.
This will happen this summer. My question is what in the opinion of the users of this forum will be left on the pan european beam on freesat.
If its just QVC and the religious channels then Ill will be taking a hammer to my machine with great sadness
there are millions of us expats who have paid into into the uk system for years and to the BBC who are now going to be left high a dry.
Im not paying for free freeview channels via the internet as its not a practical option for me and millions like me in our golden years.
Ive got a feeling that the only semi decent uk channels on the euro beam will be the subscription channels via sky, so in the end Murdoch will get us in the end.
for all still in the UK dont forget about with all the new "britons" in the uk from eastern europe equal amounts of Brits are in spain etc and use Freesat as a life line.
charlie
We have already lost the all the Five channels and a few others.
This will happen this summer. My question is what in the opinion of the users of this forum will be left on the pan european beam on freesat.
If its just QVC and the religious channels then Ill will be taking a hammer to my machine with great sadness
there are millions of us expats who have paid into into the uk system for years and to the BBC who are now going to be left high a dry.
Im not paying for free freeview channels via the internet as its not a practical option for me and millions like me in our golden years.
Ive got a feeling that the only semi decent uk channels on the euro beam will be the subscription channels via sky, so in the end Murdoch will get us in the end.
for all still in the UK dont forget about with all the new "britons" in the uk from eastern europe equal amounts of Brits are in spain etc and use Freesat as a life line.
charlie
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They could move up the coast to Valencia, where the winter ciimate is better and all the channels are still available.
I have some sympathy with you, particularly as where we go in France the 2F signal is every bit as strong as 1N (not far from Limoges). But I'm afraid that you're going to be up against the argument - every time - that the BBC is a "British" broadcaster, funded by the licence fee, and if the signal fails to spill as far as Spain that's not really its problem. Which is no comfort to you.
What is a pity is that there isn't some legitimate method to receive BBC programmes abroad. Swiss TV operate such a system for Swiss people abroad (a sort of Solus card) and of course that's what the BBC effectively did from 1999 - 2003, although of course it wasn't really aimed at people like you....
All you can do is curse the invention of spot beams...
In our case we pay the BBC licence fee at our British address so - before anyone says - we're not getting something for nothing when we're in France....
I suspect some on here are going to give your situation very little sympathy if past experience on the debate over receiving TV signals abroad is anything to go by. Let's hope the debate doesn't degenerate too quickly.
We received a service when we paid for it, and now that we don't pay for it we can't expect to receive it. The fact that we can is simply down to the "Freedom to Receive" agreements. A light-hearted comparison would be to say that I used to pay a barman lots of money in UK for his beer, now that I don't pay him any more, I'm not getting any of his product.
Nevertheless, you have my sympathy.
I know sky have a lot of there channels on a wide beam at the moment, and yes I expect they will put even more of there channels on wide beam, I know they say, they will not permit people outside the uk to recieve sky, but we all know thousands and thousands of people do get sky abroad, so I can see why sky and some poster's who are connected with sky, do not like the idea of FREESAT being available in Europe, so for those people abroad who may lose FREESAT I am sorry for, I live in a part of France that should still get FREESAT, but if the UK satalite beam get's so tight we lose the signal, then I like those in southern spain will just have to accept it,
Life here will still be better for me than life in the UK , and I think it is the same for most expats
You may well have paid into the system (and possibly still do in some cases) but the broadcasters are not paying the providers to transmit outside the UK. Sorry you choose to live outside the UK and have to accept that many UK facilities and services are not available to you.
I was under the impression that it is more to do with the possibility (and desirability) of frequency re-use from a single point on the Clarke belt than any pressure from the broadcasters, or indeed those oh-so-precious rights holders.
But I hesitate to disagree with as such as you are - I know - remarkably well informed and respected "in this place"!
Very good point, maybe someone could give a honest answer, ie how many broadcaster's have demanded a tighter beam than we already have?
Not just more bull that we get from a few poster's who have interest's in sky, Who we know do not like FTA channel or the FREESAT PLATFORM
Can you explain what you mean by this, please.
That does not answer the question?
There are thousand of series, dramas and films show FTA, a slight overspill on a tight UK beam seems not to matter, however on a wide beam I can see the problem
As far as the BBC, Channel 4 etc. are concerned, why would they wish to deprive English speakers outside the UK of home grown programmes? It is really such a big deal to them that The One Show, Coronation Street, Panorama etc. can be picked up across Europe? Surely, this would be to the advantage of the commercial channels as they could get more for advertising?
I pay the TV licence, don't have a place abroad but am quite happy for Brit TV to be available across Europe for ex-pats & foreigners. Indeed, I have heard that many foreigners watch British television in order to learn & perfect their English. Surely, that can't be such a bad thing?
It is also a pity that European channels are not available here on the same satellite position 28E. By making it awkward for people, bigger dishes are required (if within the fringe footprint) and this is going to make buildings/towns look ugly.
is n't there european legislations that states that we all can have any channel with the euro zone albeit by paying the appropriate subcriptions.
Coincidently Gibraltar ignore all copywrite laws and allow multlple pay channels to be fed directly to flats, these channels include sky movies sky sports Digital + and and the arab sports channels.
Whilst on the subject what is the point of the BBC world service?? why is an english language radio station being picked up in africa more important than the millions on brits who have left the UK for say health reasons.
I do understand that people who still pay the licence fee will be bothered that people are receiving these channels without contributing, but less not forget you can see Match of the day just as easy in Amsterdam, Calais or Dublin than you can in London.
Freesat is a great product and a real and only possible thorn in sky's side. It will be greatly missed by all of us down here.
I hope you weren't offended by my taking you to task over what I called "your basic premise", its a consequence of many thoughts having to be condensed into relatively few words. Reading the post above, I think that were we to have a blether over a glass or two, we'd probably get on very well.
There are more than a few people in different fora who think that we shouldn't be allowed to watch UK programmes since we don't pay the UK TVL. Against those I rail. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights covers the freedom to receive broadcasts. It is sometimes used in The Netherlands to overturn landlord's rules concerning mounting of satellite dishes.
Also, there is a EU initiative "Television without Frontiers", this is a most excellent idea and is slowly progressing. The reception of programmes in areas due to the "bleeding" round the edges of a satellite footprint is an unwished for but nevertheless totally legal aberration safeguarded by these initiatives.
On the subject of the BBC World Service, I used it in the far east and in several other areas before the satellite services became available. It was designed as an adjunct to the UK broadcast services under Lord Reith's motto that "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation".
All in all, I think we're on roughly the same wavelength.
What's so nice is that this thread is remaining very civilised! It's nice to know it's possible.
What the OP needs is a very long bit of coax from his house to ours and I'd happily send him the 2E signals along it. I'm sure 1000 odd kms of cable slung along existing telephone poles wouldn't be too much of a problem.....
Is there *any* sized dish that would work at your location for 2F? I know some friends in the south of Spain had a 2.4 m dish (which they shared) in the days of Astra 2D but realise that already 2.4 m is pretty big. Presumably we're taking 3.5 m or something like that....?
All that is known is that the BBC negotiated a deal with the rights holders that signals from Astra 2D were narrow enough to be allowed to broadcast FTA as it's supposedly 'UK only'. We all know how completely wrong that is, but that's the deal they made.
Since that negotiation other channels have taken advantage of the same narrow beam transponders, which only happened to be there by complete accident anyway (2D was originally built for a different broadcaster to Astra/SES, and it was them who specified the narrow beam. not Astra/SES).
But because 28.2E is considered a UK specific slot, and presumably because of further demand for narrow UK beams?, Astra/SES have ordered later satellites to have narrow UK beams, even more so than 2D.
For the UK it can only be good - higher signal strength, no need for region 2 dishes even at the top of Scotland, and plenty more space for channels to go FTA (and on Freesat) IF they want to, and if it's viable to do so.
Bit of a bummer for the ex-pats, but they have had a good run for many years so far.
Can you or someone else say if all sky channels will be going on the narrow beam or will they continue to use a wide beam for some or all of there channels as that may give hope or not to those that cannot get the tight beam signals?
There's no advantage for any encrypted channels to move beams - but most of the wide beams are on old satellites, so are likely to move to narrow ones when the satellites are retired.
I would imagine the way of the future is going to be all narrow beams?.
I bet they would never consider tighting the beam so to exclude the republic of Ireland.
Nothing to do with Murdoch (or even BSkyB - who would be a LOT more relevant than Murdoch).
The "Television without frontiers" isn't at all what you're imaging it to be, like many EU related posts here it's entirely different to what people who mention it think it is.
The only regulations are that member states do not interfere with the rights of its citizens to receive FTA transmissions from other member states and has provisions within it for restricting reception areas by use of restrictions on where subs are sold. The recent ECJ judgement has merely confirmed that it is not illegal to purchase viewing cards and use them outside their territory BUT has not forced broadcasters to do so or prevented them from turning off viewing cards if so (the viewer has breached the terms and conditions of their contract).
I personally am not against the use by private individuals of "foreign viewing cards" and used my first such card nearly 20 years ago. However the present situation where foreign subs sold to individuals are being fraudulently used in commercial premises (pubs, clubs etc) has escalated the reactions from the content providers to such an extent that the EPL have refused to sell future rights to an Albanian broadcaster because of the widespread highly advertised sale of their cards in this country.
How do channels get received in Gibraltar with the arrival of 2F? As I understood it, each block of flats has a large satellite dishes on its roof - but wouldn't those dishes now have to be 3m+?
Ironically enough BBC iplayer works perfectly in Gib and is not restricted in any away.
as standard you can watch the champions league in Gib in perfect HD via at least three different providers. The tennants pay a monimal communal charge a year for the maintainance.
BBC Radio and other UK commercial radio stations are freely available to listen to live. TVcatchup http://www.tvcatchup.com/channels.html just requires free registration but you'll have to make your own virtual private network arrangements for a very modest monthly fee and I can't say any more in an open forum.
anyone any idea why the above wont work with the iportal vpn ?