I am sure you have all heard this question asked before and i apologise for repeating it.

I live in Northern Spain near Bilbao and i was reading on this site how to get English TV here via a dish, i am assuming this covers BBC 1 2 ITV Channel 4 channel 5 and hopefully E4 and the likes however will i be able to receive a signal in Northern Spain as i always hear talk of the Costa Blanca and not about up north?

Also what exactly do i ask for, a dish that can communicate with the Astra 2D satellite?

Thanks in advance. 😊

give me the area your in and will be able two tell what size dish and box you need
Jurdy

They say a 1m and 1.2m receives most of the 2d frequencies in and around Bilbao,
(whether this means all of 2d, or only verticals (BBC1, ITV1,2,3,4) or horizontals (BBC2,3,4) I do not know)

I can receive 2D at Bayonne on a Sky mini-dish. I can receive 2D at Zarautz (W of San Sebastian) on a 60cm dish. However as you progress westwards along the N Spain coast the signal does drop away quite quickly. You may find you need a substantially bigger dish as you move along past Santander.

I’ve found that 60cm is OK for an arc passing through Bilbao and crossing to S Barcelona through Burgos. Even 50km south of Burgos 2D has begun to faded away and has gone by 100km south - on a 60cm dish.

Obviously rain will cause issues with reception.

But always seek someone else in the are who may be able to help more, as reception reports can be a bit “iffy” at the best of times.

give me the area your in and will be able two tell what size dish and box you need
Jurdy

You clown - too much rest and little work has made you miss the part in his post about In Bilbao!.!!!!!

Hmm so i just go and ask for a satellite dish that is 1m - 1.2m and can receive 2D signals?

I live in Durango about 20mins from bilbao.

What is the vertical/horizontal you talk about? Wouldnt the one dish get all the UK channels? 1 to 5??

will take look at john site there http://www.satandpcguy.com/ take a 1/2 two look thought this very good web site , his phone is there aswell if want to chat to him

2D signals are pointed two the UK and Ireland with loacl feeds , IE bbc london to BBC Northern Ireland itv regions ch4 and ch5 regions rte, tv3 tg4 and few sport shannels
this singles are hard two get on main land Euro ie 3 meter dish in Costa Blanca area madrid used 1 meter dish but seen 1.2 meter dish

vertical/horizontal is the antna on the dish

xKillerMonkeyx - 12 December 2009 12:49 AM

What is the vertical/horizontal you talk about? Wouldnt the one dish get all the UK channels? 1 to 5??

The main free to air (BBC an ITV C4 and Five) UK satellite TV is transmited from the Astra 2d satellite.
This satellite has a very “narrow” focused beam, aimed at the UK, to try and stop overspil to countries where the signal is not supposed to be watched…..although it can with big dishes!

However, also on these beam are two polarisations Verticles and Horizontals.
Many BBC1 regions are on the Vs and BBC2,3,4 are on the Hs, for example.
Many reception reports just mention Astra 2d as a whole and not the specifics about reecption of both Vs and Hs.

For example,in my area (Valencia) the reception reports say a 1.8m or 2.4m dish.
These are fine for reception of the Vs, but even with a 2.4 the Hs are not available ALL day!!!!

So if the reception maps say 1m to 1.25, this may be the case for some signals and not the full Vs and Hs. But from all the reports I have seen a 1.25m should be OK…..

BUT

Best to speak to neighbours or other UK people in the area (is there any local english press?) and ask about their rececption and their dish size for ALL channels. Remember in rain and heavy cloud reception will be lost / reduced.

PS. If you do find an installer in that area, please post back, as I get asked a few times about the northern areas, and so far have not heard of a relaible insatller, and this would also help people on here also.

I actually dont know any english in the area, however on Sunday there is some English christmas gathering thing in Bilbao so i will ask around there, lots of people i know actually know english people in the north yet i dont personally. Tomorrow mornign i will go into a shop i know sells tdt and such and will see if they know what i am on about, hopefully they will have something

Just a warning….from experience of people and emails, many spanish satellite installers struggle to align dishes to the maximum for UK TV…may be as they are only used to aligning 60cm dishes, but in many cases they align for good BBC1 but disregard the weaker BBC2 frewquencies. I have also found that they do not align the LNB skew (rotation angle) correctly - very important for UK TV, less critical for spansih tv.

not knocking the spansih installers, but the big dish and weak signals do flummex them abit compared to the smaller dishes required for D+

Hi, we also live in northern spain in palencia province close to the cantabrian border. We have a 1m dish and are able to receive every free channel on the Astra satellite 28.2 degrees east. We set up our own dish using a small satfinder as we were unable to find anyone here who had a spectrum analyser to do it for us. It took us about half a day of fiddling to get the best possible signal. All channels are working perfectly 24 hours a day with no problems except when we have a really bad storm or very heavy rain.
Our internet is a sat system also and we have no problems with that either.