To all the UK members....

[Snow]

Thanks Mark, we were thinking about doing this.

However, with the switchover from Astra 1N to Astra 2F (which afaik is a lot better focused onto the UK than 1N), do you think a dish that size would still be enough? I have found websites recommending 85-90cm at least... which is quite a fucker to get onto a balcony. We are not allowed to have a dish in plain view here, as we get full cable TV.

When you say Sky+ HD box, would we definitely need one of these or would any German HD sat receiver do?

Cheers,
Kat

Due to the switch from 1N to 2F the beam or footprint of the signal is now larger than before, meaning you could possibly get away with a 60cm dish but I would recommend an 80cm to be sure, obviously I'm not sure of your exact location and what planning issues you have but you could always paint the dish to look like the building if you can get signal from where you are.

The reason for getting a Sky+HD box is because it is already set up to pick up UK channels and has a number of HD channels for free, although I guess any HD recorder will pick up the signal as long as the dish is correctly aligned.

The only other way I know of to receive MOTD would be to mask your IP address and go onto BBC iPlayer, I'm not sure how you would do that exactly but I know it can be done as I get live premiership through Apple TV via my phone (ADSports) but the guy that set it up uses a Norwegian IP set up, I'm guessing that it could work the other way too, I will ask about for you.

[LeperMessiah26]

Thanks Mark, that makes sense... where would be the best place to get a Sky+HD box other than ebay? Obviously a proper English shop is out of the questions, even Argos asks for TV licence details...

I have checked the direction the dish needs to be aligned to, and it looks as if the signal comes in more or less parallel to our building. Fortunately our landlord is doing up our block of flats this summer, so we will get a new balcony that is jutting out quite a bit... I suppose we might be fine to receive the signal.

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Here in Germany it is quite difficult to get away with a dish if cable TV is available. The only way really would be if you cannot get information in your native language any other way - so with both German and some shitty English language news channels, we are out of luck. The previous tenants had their dish, pointing to some satellite or other that broadcasts Russian TV, on the balcony floor using a stand and a concrete slab which worked fine for them.