I'm about to get Sky Digital in Germany...

BigWhopper

Hi All,

I'm an Irish guy with permanent Irish address and bank account but I just have a few questions:

I currently have an analog system installed. The dish has only got an analog LNB. Will it be possible to use the LNB from the dish I get from Sky on my current dish? Will it work?

The position of the dish. Will this have to be adjusted? It's setup at the moment to receive german satellite. I don't know the co-ordinates but I presume that they will be different to receive the Sky signal. I used to be able to pick up Sky News (analog) until it was switched off. This would involve me buying a new dish because the current one is shared with the neighbours

Is the minidish any use to me outside of Ireland? i.e. will it pick up anything in Germany?


Cabling. Will the current run of coax cable be suitable from the analog satellite to use it on the new digibox? If not what will I need?

OK. That's all for now. I look forward to your answers. Thanks.

The Big Whopper

Stiabhna

Hi,

Whereabouts are u in Germany, and what Sky package are you going to subscribe to (i.e. UK or Irish Sky)?.

I am in Stuttgart and have an Irish Sky subscription and a second box with a UK FTA card.

Friends of mine in Heidelberg and Stuttgart have a mini dish with a UK subscription. They have problems receiving ITV. Since the Irish stations are broadcast on the same satellite as ITV (I think its Astra 2D), and given that it has a smaller footprint, I wouldn't recommend a mini dish if you want to get the Irish stations.

You'll need to realign your disk from Astra 1 (Deutsch) to Astra 2. I have a larger dish with two LNBs on it - one for German stations and one for the UK/Irish ones, and it works a dream.

You'll also need to get a digital LNB (for around EUR 25 at MediaMarkt, I think).

Let me know if you need any more help.

Viele Grüße,

Stephen

BigWhopper

Thanks Stephen. That's useful info for me.
I am living near Bitburg. It's in the extreme West close to Luxembourg. Isn't this where the ASTRA satellites operate from???
I will investigate the twin LNB option. So it will be possible for me to have an Analog and Digital LNB's on the same dish? This way I won't have to go to the trouble of installing a new dish. I will check out MediaMarkt.

Thanks again.

PS What size dish do you have? If a dish is big enough does that mean that it doesn't have to be re-aligned? I will have to see if my girlfriend can survive without German TV. I would feel bad if we didn't have it since we are living here. She's German.

chernobyl

Most of Europes satellite fleet is run from Luxembourg and also America and Asia.
Astra have their fingers in 90% of the market.

As was stated above RTE broadcast via Astra 2D which has a very tight footprint.
A minidish will not give you any performance when in any part of Germany, but a 90cm dish (solid) will certainly do the job.

I dont know why you bother getting sky...with the financial woes of Kirch a sub to Premiere should only be a handful of Euros.

BigWhopper

No Premiere for me. I'll want to be checking out the 6.1 News as well you see on RTE

With regards to cabling and the like, is that all the same as analog? And the LNB on the minidish will do on a bigger dish?

Stiabhna

I have a 90 cm dish (methinks). Had to realign it slightly to be able to get Astra 2, but can still pick up German TV no probs.

Had a Premiere subscription for a while but cancelled it as its a pile of ...

And as for the hardware! Say what you like about the digibox, but wait till you've tried the D-Box. Sure, you could make a cup of tea in the time it takes to switch between channels...

S.

BigWhopper

Hi Steve,

When you are watching the Sky channels and wish to view the German channels, how do you do this? Do you need to change any settings somewhere?

Mossy Monk

you need a dish pointing towards a satellite broadcasting German channels. the satellite in this case is situated at 19.2° East

BigWhopper

Thanks for the infoMossy Monk
But Steve said above that he has two LNB's on a large dish. How is this possible to receive from 2 different satellite i.e. the German one and the Sky one?

sceptre

Not answering your last question but you'll probably need a nice big dish to pick up channels on Astra 2D - 90cm or maybe even 120cm (though if you're next to the Luxembourg border 90cm should be fine). Diagram of Astra footprint attached for reference. Another (slightly better but more confusing) pic, just of 2D footprint:
here

Always the small possibility that BBC will swap with other channels and end up on Astra2D (which might solve some copyright issues for them). under those circumstances if your dish was too small, you might lose all the Irish and UK terrestrial channels, which would soundly defeat the point.

And your dish elevation will need to be higher than here - maybe about 27 degrees (as opposed to between about 19 and 22 degrees here) so watch for that one.
reference

Full list of channels available on Astra satellites at 28.2E and 19.2E (including all the shoddy German ones here

BigWhopper

Great stuff Sceptre
I'll take all that into account. Thanks a lot.

Stiabhna

Top o' the morning to yiz all!

Basically, I have a lead coming out each LNB. One is connected to the German box and one is split so I can feed it into the Irish Sky box and UK Sky box.

I think my dish is 95 cm. The reception is crystal clear.

S.

Tony

Excellent Info, nice one

Tony

Originally posted by sceptre
Not answering your last question but you'll probably need a nice big dish to pick up channels on Astra 2D - 90cm or maybe even 120cm (though if you're next to the Luxembourg border 90cm should be fine). Diagram of Astra footprint attached for reference. Another (slightly better but more confusing) pic, just of 2D footprint:
here

Always the small possibility that BBC will swap with other channels and end up on Astra2D (which might solve some copyright issues for them). under those circumstances if your dish was too small, you might lose all the Irish and UK terrestrial channels, which would soundly defeat the point.

And your dish elevation will need to be higher than here - maybe about 27 degrees (as opposed to between about 19 and 22 degrees here) so watch for that one.
reference

Full list of channels available on Astra satellites at 28.2E and 19.2E (including all the shoddy German ones here

lbruton

Hi lads

i live in Frankfurt am Main and i can receive astra 2D(UTV on the sky digital platform) with a 60cm triax dish(perforated type which i bought in ireland) with a grundig LMB. According to Astra i should be using a 90cm dish here in Frankfurt.

Liam