Satellite dishes - do I need one?

We also use satilite  to pick up radio stations in Europe.  we can keep up to date with our local news

We wouldn’t be without a satellite system 👍we enjoy watching the tv in the evenings with a glass or three of wine 😊for us it gives us what we need and help to make our hobby all the more enjoyable.

Brian & Jo

That's what I do but its the wife! 

Thanks for all of your responses - they have been very helpful. Personally I would just take a selection of DVD's - I get most of my "news" from the internet anyway. But my wife does like her TV.

not in those shirts, I hope....

Staff  Uniform  in  the  larger  branches of  Wilco I  believe,  BB  --  and  you  should  see  what  the  Management  has  to  wear  .

{ With  apologies  to  the  OP,  Its  just  a  joke,  &  before  anybody  else  gets  in  I  know  its  Only  Just  A  joke  } 

We've not found that, rather the opposite the further South you go into France,Spain and Portugal the bigger the dish needs to be. An 85cm will take you to the bottom of France and even a bit into Spain with as Sky box, after that you will need a 1mtr down to Valencia and 1.4 mtr for Murcia and yes some folk do carry dishes that big. Some sites in Spain and Portugal will rent you a dish or you can on some sites have access to satellite on your pitch as they have it wired in to the bollard.

You are kidding us?

Here we are dealing with a focused beam and unfortunately one they quite recently narrowed down a lot tighter onto their target viewers.

The size dish needed depends on how close your location is to the beam's centre point, though a bit asymmetrically. Did I read somewhere it is Leicester?

as above, Astra 2 sends a UK Spot Beam onto the UK mainland and in fact, viewers in northern Scotland need a slightly larger dish to pick up the signal than those in the south...

moving further south into Europe requires an ever larger dish...as described by TG above...

OTOH, Sky sends out its Premium Sports/Movie channels (still from Astra 2) via a different beam (Pan European) which makes it easy to receive them, even in Spain, with a normal sized dish....compared to the huge ones required to pick up the UK Spot Beam.

hence the difficulty in ex pats watching their soaps...

other European countries send out their own programs from groups of satellites in similar 'space' locations.....but, because they are directed 'all over' Europe, they can be viewed with quite small dishes...

its only that the UK beam has such tight constraints over the UK that it makes it hard to receive it when not 'at home'....

So much for all EU citizens being treated equally. Our continental neighbours can get their TV virtually anywhere but we can only get it in Blighty.