TV aerial v satellite?

It depends to an extent on where you want to use it. The small dish suitcase type, often available from the likes of Aldi at very reasonable prices, are adequate throughout England / Wales. However, for the far north of Scotland, or the northern part of France a larger dish is required. Much larger if you want to use freesat further south. In this respect a tripod is good as it enables you to mount various dishes on it depending where you are going. Tripod about £50, small Sky dish £25 for England / Wales, larger Sky dish for northern Scotland and northern France £30. Personally now you need an even larger dish further south, I would not be bothered, although you could buy an 85cm, which should work in the Provence. Obviously only take the one dish, which ever is required for your furthest point. On top of this if your TV does not have built in freesat, you need a freesat decoder about £40 / £50. Plus of couse a length of coaxial to cable it up and possibly a sat finder to help tune it in. However, as long as you set the box up before leaving home, this is not essential.

On our current van we have a dome, cost over £1000, auto tunes to the satellite and will work from northern Scotland to northern France. However, it has been more trouble than it is worth, keeps breaking down requiring a visit to get it fixed. Of the 3 years we have had it we have only had it working 50% of the time. The other disadvantage is that if you end up under a tree you can't move it like the tripod version. You pays your money and makes your choice but I will have to think long and hard about what option we go for when we switch to a MH.

We have this Maplins portable set.....  https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/hd-camping-and-caravanning-satellite-system-n74ej

We also bought a satellite signal meter about £10 and a tripod also about £10.... As a novice, it took me most of a day ( at home ) to get it aimed at the correct astra satellite and tuned in etc to get all the required freesat channels.

On site we can set it up in about 15 mins as it doesn't need retuning again, you just have to find the right satellite, and we have used it from John O Groats to Dorset without problem... trees permitting.

As I posted earlier we have a very old version of the small suitcase type which for almost ten years has given us good service and I can lock onto the satellite 90% of the time. Twice this year we have been on sites at York and Chester where we managed to get good reception when others with expensive Avtex and Dome systems could not. I tried to help but no matter what we did could not get the signal to l lock even though they had "easyfind" type systems. One even went out and bought some new components to try to solve the problem without success. I think it was all about location and proximity to buildings or trees which are problematic no matter how expensive the system. I do agree that the small dishes only work in UK and you need infinite patience at first until you get used to positioning and aligning the dish.

When we are on the continent I love watching the Dutch set up their satellite dishes -  very long cables with a dish mounted on a pole pointed at a gap in the trees. I am sure the man of the house does this before fetching water etc. Much more fun to watch the self-seeking dish on a Motorhome or van roof scan the horizon back and forth for 10 minutes before flopping back down in disgust.

Once set up the Dutch TV stays on all day so they can watch soaps and some obscure football match at all times of the day or night. This is why they all speak English in case anybody was wondering (American films etc.). So I suppose it is educational.

The fact is, the digital terrestrial signals vary so much depending on the location of the transmitter, elevations, surrounding trees and buildings. Satellite seems to offer more consistency but not guaranteed and is difficult overseas the further South you go so it depends how important you consider it to be.

I guess I'm old fashioned but in 30 years I have never felt the need for TV, especially as I can record stuff on the Sky box for when I get home.

agree with Steve and Hitch, it really depends on where you are going, what you want to watch and how much you are prepared to pay.

add in 'are you already a Sky subscriber' and things take on a different light.

so, briefly, any freestanding dish of 60 cm or so should pick up an Astra 2 signal all over the UK and a fair bit into northern france. you need to add a free to air (can interpret programs from any satellite) or free to view, Free Sat box (which only decodes Astra 2 AFAIK) box and away you go.

if you want to extend this range and be able to pick up BBC/ITV etc deeper into europe (Souther France) youll need a bigger dish, say 85cm.

now, back to Sky....as Sky isnt Freesat it has its own tuner box but also only gets its material from Astra 2, pointing a dish at any other satellite and the tuner wont lock in even if bang in the money.

...but, as Sky sources its material from the Pan Euro Beam as well as the UK Spot Beam you can pick up loads of Sky Premium channels (sports/movies) well into Spain on a very small dish.....but you wont get BBC etc for which you'll need 85cm dish or larger...

We have the stick aerial and it borders on useless!

We couldnt pick up a signal when in Cheddar (Cheddar Bridge site) a couple of weeks ago. Had some success using a Moonraker DTV  aerial stuck on the van roof but nowhere near as good in terms of number of stations & signal/quality strength.

As other say we have a cable to hook up where on sites it is available not sure tho how good aerials on a mast are and we have found sat dishes frustrating to try and use.

Pays your money ... as they say

We manage adequately with our directional status aerial in the UK and have never bothered with TV abroad.  Signal is OK but does vary somewhat from place to place.  We always take a small selection of DVD's in the UK just in case we hit a blank spot.

Not sure if I really want to be bothered with a satellite - I always worry that we take too much stuff with us anyway.  Perhaps one day we might consider it.

David 

We just use eye tv on iPad never had a problem, all fits in to a match box, Scotland to Cornwall picked signal every time.😎

This may help

http://www.aerialsandtv.com

We have a Status 530 aerial which has been replaced by the 580. Works well enough, only having problems on sites that warn signals are weak in which case we wire up to the bollard. Signal not the best in forests!