Advice for French TNT *and* FreeSat from Sky

[LVandervort]

Hi,

We are shortly moving house and currently have CanalSat on Astra with direct subscription with CanalSat, as well as terrestrial digital off the Sandy Heath transmitter in Beds/Cambs.

The area we are moving to is not very well served with terrestrial digital, and we are cancelling our direct CanalSat subscription as we will be closing our french bank accounts... besides we have the 'Passion' package at the moment and rarely view much of anything other than the classic french channels anyway (TF1, F2, F3, F4, TV5, M6).

I am looking for suggestions to continue to receive the full range of free-to-air English channels (using FreeSat or something similar in the absence of adequate freeview reception) and the standard 'free' French channels without ongoing subscription charges and preferably without too much outlay for hardware. Ideally, a solution for a standard decoder box capable of receiving both/any services and either a dual-head/multi-head or motorised dish would have been my first thought, but not sure of the best solution given the myriad of receivers and different satellite constellations.

Could you advise the easiest and lowest-cost solution to achieve this?

Many thanks,

Leland

[NZamali]

2 Simple solutions for your case are linked below. Both free to air and both upgradable to pay TV. Please view links;

http://www.totalsat.co.uk/french-digital-freeview- p-28.html

http://www.totalsat.co.uk/french-terrestrial-freev iew-p-29.html

[LVandervort]

Many thanks for the reply.

We have now moved house and our official CanalSat subscription is still active for the time being.

For now, at least, I have installed an 80cm dish with two LNBs using an offset bracket for 13E (Hotbird) and 19E (Astra1). Unfortunately the "free" digital broadcasts of F2, F3, F4, TV5, M6 are off 5W (Atlantic Bird) so am looking for options to retain Astra and Hotbird, but add Atlantic Bird.

As well as our "official" CanalSat receiver, we have a new Technomate TM-1500 CI+, and the CanalSat card works fine in it anyway -- just prefer to keep it in the CanalSat receiver since the channel numbers are easier to navigate and we're used to it


So far I have narrowed it down to three options:

1. Another smaller (60cm) dish fixed on 5W and a new DiSeqc switch to take the feed from all three LNBs (two on the 80cm and one on the 60cm).

2. Replace the 80cm with a wide-azimuth dish, such as a Force Frontier with multiple LNBs (5W, 13E, and 19E should all fit within the 40 degree limit of the dish) - will also require a new diseqc switch.

3. Revert to a single LNB but install a Diseqc+USALS rotator motor which can be controlled by the Technomate receiver.

I'm thinking that the 3rd option may be the least costly and least hassle, having seen some motors in the £90 ballpark.

Any advice?

Many thanks,

L.

[TotalSatTeam]

your option 1 will be most stable and more efficient