Free to Air Satellite -anyone have this

It still does not help me find someone to sell me one and install it cheaply.  Too bad Paul does not live in Devon. :-)

Your best bet is to try and find a local dealer in the area who comes recommended by others.   Installing a system of this nature requires rather more complex alignment and adjustment than a simple fixed dish, and a good dealer should also have a range of suitable receivers for you to see before buying.

Ease of use is something you would want to check on a system of this nature.   You can buy systems where you set the dish manually to the required position and then adjust the receiver for the required channel, or you can get receivers with an integral positioning system.  These require more setting up, but once it's done, you just select the channel you want and don't have to worry about the details.  The system will move the dish automatically to the required satellite.

You might look for some of the satellite magazines in the larger stores -- Many of them have dealers listed in them by county.

Oh, and if you want a big dish, here's one from the satellite station where I worked in the 1980s:



(And no, I can't get you one of those..... )

I have a question you can hopefully answer.
With satellite technology, is there a way (Other than Sky) to get American programming?

There are so many channels such as HBO & Comedy Central I so miss.

Thanks for your help.

Hi,

Unfortunately, the satellites which carry the main programming specifically for the American market are too far west to receive from the U.K.   If you were looking at the DirecTV packages for example, even the eastern-most DirecTV satellite is at 72.5 deg. west (in orbit over Colombia -- due south from Connecticut).      From a purely geometrical point of view, the satellite is just above the horizon from England, but only by a couple of degrees.   Even if you had a perfectly clear view of the western sky, it's still too low to be received properly (at very low elevations the dish will start to pick up a lot of earthbound noise and interference).    Anything farther west is simply below the horizon from the U.K.   

The satellites which are intended for trans-Atlantic communication are in a mid-Atlantic position to make them easily trackable from both the U.S. and Europe.    Some of these carry feeds for the European services of CNN and such, but these are available on domestic packages here anyway.  The only advantage to hooking into the raw feed is that on some you will get the original American commercials and inserts instead of the parts which are cut and replaced for the European version.   
Some have already "Europeanized" the service before it goes onto the satellite uplink though, in which case there would be no benefit. 

Either way, for networks which have no European version and thus no uplink to a trans-Atlantic satellite, you're out of luck I'm afraid, so for example there's simply no way to receive WGN-TV Chicago or TBS out of Atlanta. 

For anyone still struggling to picture what's happening with the satellites, if you go to the Lyngsat website and click on one of the "SatTracker" options for the Americas, Atlnatic, etc. you'll get a list of satellites over that particular region showing their position.  Click on any particular satellite and you'll see a little map of the world which shows the point above which the satellite is positioned with a bar at the side showing the azimuth and elevation from your position.  You'll need to move the cursor and click to set the yellow dot to England.

Paul -
Thanks so much for the details, as I appreciate it so much.
One more question:
Is there an affordable satellite system that is in size to a Sky dish available for raw feed?
I've noticed satellites like Nilesat hosting some really great channels.
Something small I could manually adjust would be perfect.

Thanks again...

Is there an affordable satellite system that is in size to a Sky dish available for raw feed?

I assume you mean similar in size to the Sky dishes, i.e. not a large dish?   Unfortunately, the small 18-inch dishes are really only suitable for direct-broadcast satellites within the intended service area.   

The size of dish you need for reliable reception depends upon the signal strength at the receive site.  The strength at any given location is dependent upon the output power of the transmitter on the satellite, the directional pattern of the antenna it uses, and the quality of the receiver/converter on your dish (there are other factors, but those are the main ones). 

Again, it's very similar to a flashlight.  For a given size bulb, you could have a wide dispersal pattern to give a spread of light across a large area, but no point will be brightly illuminated.  If you focus the beam down, you can light up one particular spot much more intensely, but only at the expense of having less light in the surrounding areas.  Satellite beams work in pretty much the same way, and the power and beam patterns are selected for the intended use.

For example,  the Astra 2D satellite is intended to carry direct-broadcast programming to homes in the U.K. and Ireland which can be received on small household dishes, so it uses a relatively high-power output and very narrowly focused beam centered on the British Isles in order to give suitably high signal strengths. 

Click on the "View footprint" link at the bottom of this page to see the beam effect:

http://www.ses-astra.com/corpSite/siteSections/ASTRAFleet/astra2d/

As you can see from that, although the typical 18" dishes are fine within the U.K., to receive Astra 2D when you're on the edges of the beam in, say, the south of France, you would need a dish of at least 3 feet diameter.   

As you mentioned Nilesat as being of interest, let's take a look at Nilesat 101 at 7 deg. west:

http://www.nilesat.com.eg/nilesat_eirp_Enlarg.htm

The beam pattern is adjusted to give the strongest signal around the intended primary area of reception, the part outlined by the 50.1dBW contour, with weaker coverage across much of the rest of northern Africa, signal levels down to 47.1dBW (by the way, the decibel scale is logarithmic, so the signal on the 47.1 contour is only half the power of that on the 50.1 line).

Given an average modern receiver setup, a dish of around 30" would be sufficient within the 50.1 contour area, but by the time you get out to the 47.1 line in western Africa or the far southern part of Spain, you'd need to go to at least 4 ft.    The further out from the beam you go, the weaker the signal and the bigger the dish needed.  The strength would be so low in the U.K. as to require a rather large dish.

If you look at the various satellites listed on the Lyngsat website, you'll see links in the "Beam" column which take you to the maps for most of the satellites.   

Here's one more to give you an idea:

http://www.hispasat.com/FlotaSat/pop_up_cobH1C-2.htm

I have a little chart somewhere which gives a guide as to the required dish size for a a particular signal strength.  I'll try and post it later.

In general terms though, don't expect the Sky-type 18" dishes to be any good for anything except the direct-to-home broadcasts within the intended service area.  For the more exotic fare, there's no getting away from installing a much larger dish.

Here's the chart for Required Dish Size.

Note that this is an approximation, based on typical receiver/converter characteristics, so there's a little room for maneuver either side in individual circumstances.  It's good enough to give a rough idea of the size of dish needed though. 

Once you have the expected signal strength from one of the coverage maps referred to above, look it up on the EIRP scale on the Y-axis of the chart.   Now follow across until you hit the DTH line, then go down vertically and read-off the size dish required on the X-axis.   Obviously, you can work this in reverse and see the minimum signal needed for a given size dish, then see which satellite "footprints" would be receivable.

The DTH line is drawn to give sufficient signal strength for reliable reception at a given field strength.    If you are prepared to accept marginal reception where it will be fine most of the time, but subject to interference due to bad weather etc., then you can drop to the size shown on the MAR line.  (THR indicates still lower quality:  Sparklies most or all of the time, or on digital bad freezing/blocking.   Don't worry about the lines above DTH -- They're just higher-quality requirements for broadcasters, cable systems, etc.).

If you spend a few minutes with the chart and maps, you'll see that even in the center of the Astra beam for Sky TV the 18-inch dishes commonly used here are only just big enough, and even then not under all conditions.  That's why a lot of people find they get interference on the picture from time to time.

Note too that the chart applies to Ku-band satellites only.  If you want to receive C-band, which is on much lower frequencies, then you need a much bigger dish (plus the appropriate receiver, of course).

Paul,
I'm extremely impressed with your knowledge of this.
I'm sure my Sky TV installer would be clueless on any of this if I were to ask him these questions.   

Thanks again and Have a Fantastic New Year,
- Carson

See this link for more technical information..

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Satellite-Heading-Calculator.htm