Copyright D.Sullivan 2001 Satellite for Caravans
(Satellite TV at home and abroad)
Don't let anyone tell you it's complicated or needs an expensive satellite finder. It isn't and it doesn't!
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© Copyright David Sullivan, 2001 - 2009.
Except where specified, the text and images supplied here are the intellectual property of the author. The article may be printed out for your own personal use but may not be copied into other websites or distributed in any other form either whole or in part.
All trademarks acknowledged.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!
Do NOT buy Sky viewing cards from eBay. The current dark blue cards will be switched off within the next few months and you will have wasted your money. Buy from Sky for £20 which will ensure that you get one of the new white viewing cards. Further details here.

NOTICE
One thing I need to make clear right at the outset is that this is an amateur website and I am not connected with the satellite industry, either as a technician or as an equipment supplier. If you want a supplier, try my Links page or the adverts in satellite TV magazines.
Secondly, if you come across a site called www.satelliteforcaravans.com, (as distinct from co.uk) please note it's not mine and it's not associated with this site in any way. The domain name was grabbed by a cyber-squatter; I didn't want it and he's welcome to it!

Request for information!
Can anyone give me any feedback about picking up Freeview in a caravan or motorhome in areas which have now completed the switch to digital? In particular I want to hear from people who have an omnidirectional aerial such as the Status 315, but feedback about steerable aerials is also welcome. If you can say whereabouts you were (name of site for example) and how successful you were, that would be very useful. It will only be used to assess the local geography vis-a-vis the nearest transmitter, and your name and any personal information will not be published. Any information will be posted on my switchover page, http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/freeview.htm.
Please contact me via my emailing page.

Links to other pages (all links open in a new window)

Recent updates to this website
(13 November 2009)

1. Introduction
Welcome to my website. It's been running since December 2001 and in that time has had getting on for three-quarters of a million visitors. So if you've only just found me, I hope you'll find the information useful (if not, do please get in touch and say why!). If you've been here before and are returning, welcome back - always glad to greet old friends!

I am occasionally recognised on campsites. It sometimes takes the form of the rather enigmatic question "Aren't you the guy off that website?". And in 2008 on a campsite in France, someone arrived at Reception brandishing a printout from this website and told the owner he'd got their site from it. Did she know me? Yes, she said, he's next door in the laundry room!

Anyway, to business. Some people use their caravan to get away from the television; others can't live without it. Love it or loathe it however, one fact remains - cross the English Channel and it's useless. No more Eastenders, no more Coronation Street, not even any news or weather reports. Even in the UK there are plenty of caravan sites in areas where it is difficult to get a decent signal through an aerial, so what can one do about it? Get satellite, that's what! You can get all 5 UK terrestrial channels (including your own local BBC and ITV1 variations) with a crystal-sharp picture and CD-quality sound. Unfortunately many people are put off because they think it will be too expensive or too difficult to set up. (I also suspect there are people who think a satellite dish is too tasteless to have on a caravan roof but I'll bet most of them have one of those flying saucer aerial things on theirs!)

This website sets out to dispel some of the mystique surrounding satellite broadcasting (including the widely-held but mistaken belief that Sky runs the whole system - more of that a few paragraphs down) and will, I hope, show that it isn't difficult to make use of it on the move.

There is much confusion about the cost of satellite TV. A lot of people are discouraged because they think they'll be tied to a monthly subscription. Not so - there are many free channels for which no subscription is required, and which only need a dish and receiver to get them. You simply have to buy the equipment, just as you had to buy a television and an aerial in the first place. Once you have the equipment there are no further ongoing costs (unless you want the extra pay channels provided by Sky). In addition to various free commercial channels, you'll also get all of the BBC's and ITV's television channels including BBC3 and 4, and ITV2, 3 and 4, (and not forgetting CBeebies for the little ones!) which are included in your licence fee. You'll also get the BBC's national radio stations. And for an extra one-off £20 for a viewing card, you'll also get Five's digital offshoots, Five USA and Five Life, now renamed Fiver which some cynics claim is a reference to its programming budget  .

There are several options to choose from when it comes to buying satellite equipment. For something like 10 years, your choice was effectively limited to just Sky, although it's always been the case that you didn't have to take out a Sky subscription - something that Sky has kept fairly quiet about!

With effect from spring 2008, all that has changed. An alternative service, Freesat, is now available using a series of branded receivers available off the shelf at major high street retailers such as John Lewis, Argos, Comet and Currys. Confusingly, Sky has for the last few years had a free option called Freesat using Sky receivers. It should strictly be called Freesatfromsky but the company has been allowed to use the shorter name which is actually a BBC trade name. It's worth noting for caravan use that Freesat receivers are much smaller than Sky boxes, measuring roughly 10" wide by 7" from front to back.

I should also mention that it is and always has been possible to buy generic non-Sky free-to-air receivers. They're becoming more widely available as well, with even the likes of B&Q stocking them. However I personally have no experience of using any of them and therefore can't offer any advice on them. I have included a brief page on the free-to-air options available but apart from that, this website will continue for the moment to concentrate on Sky and Freesat. If anyone is interested in pursuing the alternatives, www.digitalsat.co.uk is a good place to start. Having said that, if anyone wants to fill in that gap in this website's knowledge base, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Paradoxically the introduction of Freesat has made the choice more complex, with many people writing to ask whether they need a new dish for example. So I've added a new page which will help to put the whole caboodle into perspective.
Click here to go to it.

Please note that I can't help you if you've bought a secondhand vehicle fitted with a fully-automatic dish such as a Kathrein or Oyster. If you need advice about them, please contact the relevant companies' websites.

But now let me hark back to the comment I mentioned above about Sky running the whole system. It emphatically does not. The satellites serving the UK are owned and operated by a Luxembourg-based company called SES-Astra. Broadcasters wishing to transmit via satellite (and they include Sky, the BBC, ITV and a host of other companies) merely rent space on the satellites. This point is crucial to understanding the various choices available to viewers.

One question that is now cropping up in emails and which I'll take the opportunity of answering here is whether modern digital (Freeview) TVs can be used for satellite with just a dish (in other words, will the TV's digital tuner work with satellite signals?) The answer is no. Modern TVs are designed to pick up terrestrial signals, not satellite, so a separate satellite receiver will still be needed. It can be any of the following 3 types and will connect to the TV via a scart lead, (or an HDMI cable if both the receiver and the TV are HD-enabled).

Click here if you are using a Sky digibox
Click here if you are using a Freesat receiver
Click here if you are using a generic free-to-air receiver

Contact me.
Contact me.
Any queries or comments? Drop me a line.
(But please have a quick look through the rest of the website first - most of the queries I get on a daily basis are already covered! If you can't see what you're looking for, just write anyway!)

Links to other pages in this website:
Satellite viewing without a subscription (Freesat etc)
Recent updates to this website
(13 November 2009)
FAQs
Database of dish sizes for BBC/ITV reception around Europe
Where's the satellite? Compass bearings from various towns in the UK and Europe.
Links to other sites (Equipment suppliers and technical info.)
What equipment will I need?
Jargon buster!
How to use a signal meter correctly (what the suppliers don't tell you!)
How to fit a cable connector or check for a faulty connection
The big analogue switch-off
What's it all about?
And latest news on the digital switchover
How to tune in other ITV1 regions
Email in your caravan using a mobile phone
Visit my blog for the latest satellite news or gossip
(last update 19 October 2009)
Who am I? This is me and my boss!

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My article on which this web page is based was first published
in the Caravan Club Magazine in December 2001.

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© Copyright David Sullivan 2001-2009