Satellite dish

Until we had a dome put on this van, which has been a total waste of money. ☹️ But that's another story.

We used a Sky type dish, same as on the house, mounted to a tripod. Dish about £25, tripod £30 or so. To start with I bought the small 30 cm dish. This works fine in England. However, when we went to the far north of Scotland I bought the larger one they use up there. The fact that the dishes are full of holes means they are not as affected by wind as the solid dishes. A few pegs to hold the tripod and it rarely moves off station.

pretty well all dish sizes 'will work' but bigger is better for distance coverage....

perversely, large dishes are harder to 'tune in' than smaller ones.

a 60cm dish will pull a good signal anywhere in the UK, but if venturing abroad, this will lose bbc/itv etc in the north of France.

you will need an 85 cm dish to see these channels down to the south of france.

we have a dish on a tripod but one windy day we returned from a trip and found the whole thing fallen over despite being well pinned down. I now use the same clamps that come with the dish but attach it to the shaft of my jockey wheel instead, depending on proximity of trees etc. it works a treat and never blows away!

By the way - has anyone out there tried one of those Fox indoor antennas? They look too good to be true, which usually means they are!

If all you want is Freesat in the UK, I’d recommend the following:

https://www.digitalisdirect.com/product/satellite-tripodsatfinder-and-sky-dish-full-diy-kit-for-caravan-10m-cable/

I have looked around and don’t think you’ll get a better deal (I’m not on commission). The 43cm dish will work fine in most of the UK, and as far up as Fort William if you do venture up into Scotland.

The arm which holds the LNB doesn’t fold in, but the whole thing isn’t that big and will easily fit under a bed or sofa locker.

The tripod, which doesn’t weigh a lot, is pretty stable, as you can put tent pegs through it. I haven’t had any problem with it being blown over, or moving – but obviously there is always some risk in very windy conditions.

I have actually used this kit on my patio for the last three years (as well as out and about in the caravan) and it’s as good as new.

You don’t really need the quad LNB, or the dual cable, if you are only using it for Freesat (this only needs one LNB input). But, who knows, you might decide one day to take a SKY box and subscription card with you, and then you will need two inputs.

The description on the website site does say the connectors are fitted, so this is even better than having to fiddle around with wire strippers and pliers.

One thing I would highly recommend is buying two push in connectors, as they save wear and tear on the cable ends, with all the setting up and dismantling you will do, as you tour:

https://www.digitalisdirect.com/product/quick-fit-f-connectors/

You can buy them individually elsewhere, but for the price, you might just as well take the packet.

You will also get a Sat Signal Finder in this kit, and it does help you identify that you are getting a signal and that your LNB, dish and cable are all working. I did once have a situation where the Signal Finder confirmed all this and I still wasn’t getting programmes. I discovered that I had to retune my TV via the Satellite Setup menu on the TV itself. But this is rare.

Most of the time we are up and running without the Signal Finder, just by using an app on my smartphone called Dish Pointer. There are two versions, one at £9.99 and the Pro version at £19.99. I have the former and it is fantastic. I can scope a pitch before setting up, and know I will get a clear view to the satellite. Check out video on

http://www.dishpointer.com/2009/augmented-reality-satellite-finder/

This will give you three necessary figures: the elevation of the dish, the degrees reading for your compass (also on your smartphone) and the setting for the skew of the LNB.  Don’t get wound up about any of this, there is a good guide on the Digital Direct website. I generally find in the UK the LNB works if set between 25 and 20 to, as on a clock face, looking towards the dish.

Hope this helps.

Happy viewing. We’ve just spent 12 weeks away from SW Scotland, through Wales, Northern France, and Dordogne, all whilst keeping up with news, sport and usual rubbish Summer telly.

Prior to having one installed on the roof of our m/h we always used a free standing dish on a tripod, nothing expensive.

The first one we had was from Aldi and cost £49 it came in a briefcase type box included a dish, a tuner and everything you needed to be able to start, we bought a tripod at a later date when we moved to a bigger dish (for abroad) we still have the Aldi one.

Have a look on line, you can buy a dish and LNB + tripod quite reasonable. Once you know where to turn it to tune in its really quite easy. The best thing about a free standing dish is you can avoid trees 

We took our Aldi one away with us last year on a canal boat trip, just sat the case on the bank and we had perfect picture.

Thank you all very much, so much useful,detailed information and plenty to think about before I commit to buying something,

I understand a lot more now and have watched a few you tube videos on dish alignment and signal tuning.

Again thank you all for taking the time to reply 

I cobbled together some kit like C Williams has detailed but added a "Easyfind LMB" like this one:

Easy Find LNB

Only works if you have a suitable TV like Avtex (which has easy-find built in) or a seperate tuner that does.

Using an app, such as "Dishpointer" (which I use) you point in the general direction and tweak until you get a steady green light.

Finer details on setting up a sat system here:

setting-up-a-satellite-dish

With practice no more than a 10-15 minute job

I also use the 'Easyfind' system with our Avtex DRS TV.  It's a flat, rectangular, dish with, presumably, the LNB enclosed somewhere inside it.  It's very neat and packs away with its tripod into a medium-sized suitcase.  So easy to set up - point roughly south-east - elevate the dish until maximum read-out on the two digit LEDs and then move left and right until maximum number of the other LEDs are lit - green light comes on and it beeps and you're there. Takes about five minutes if that, and really works.  Only downside, at almost £200, it was expensive.

I've found this a very useful thread and having just returned from a week away at the time of reading and finding that we had poor TV reception in some areas, I decided that now was the time to invest in a satellite system.

Thank you for the great tips C. Williams which I have followed and purchased the recommended dish and downloaded the dish finder app.

Sadly, I purchased a cheap receiver from Ebay (Revez HDTS850) and the instructions received with it are next to useless! I've tried a Googhle search for an operating manual but nothing found. I've worked out how to scan the satellites but the question I have is which satellite do I have to scan to get Freesat? the receiver was pre-loaded with 'Eutelsat 28A' but having scanned this a number of times I'm unable to receive anything.I have also tried 'Astra 1KR' & 'Astra 3B' with the same results. Also, the scan screen has FTA Only (which I have set to no) and Network search(which I have set to yes) 

Any help would be appreciated

For the UK channels, you want  Astra 2 (28.2E) E,F &G

These are free to air FTA

If plugging your new decoder into your own or friends SKY or Freesat already installed satellite dish, then setting up ought to be easier, as you start with a correctly aligned dish.

Once set up for Astra 2 then it ought to retain all these setting from then on.