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        also size of dish is important .

   http://www.dastv.co.uk/shop/Satellite_Dishes_LNB.php?&gclid=CMOMxNH3xZcCFUoa3god3XTzRg                                    

hi

It probably depends on where you want to travel.I had a camos dome fitted this year very expensive works fine in uk and france as long as i have good line of sight to the satellite a lot of campsites are under trees behind buildings or on the wrong side of the hill.I am talking bbc, itv etc.

We could usually pick up a signal from other satellites showing 100,s of channels in foreign language and only sky news and bbc world news in english.In summer this is probably not a problem but in spain  portugal it gets dark very early ,From other long term motorhomers it was only possible to get terrestial tv with a 1.3 min size dish and is probably cheaper to go this route over there as there are plenty of installers near the campsites

i realise you can go other routes but this was my experience this year

palaceboy

Hi steelers.

               Do you mean a TV with built in satellite receiver, if so I am not aware of any portable say 10"/15" models, I only now of Panasonic doing a 32" FreeSat model, if it is just the Satellite system you are looking for, have a look at the B&Q Skyline (28212R) FTA system comes with 60cm Dish, Universal Lnb, Digital receiver and even a satellite finding meter, all you need to add is a Tripod or similiar to mount the Dish on, it even comes with cable and connectors, all for £39.98 Bargain!. although that was mid November, at the Bolton store. 

hi there steelers

                      pinch next door neighbour's dont come much cheaper than that  !!!!!!!

Hi Geoffshumba.

                         Yes the B&Q kit is a bargain, although that price point indicates end of line or clearance item, I have seen the same kit in PC World selling for £150!.

Aldi were selling a travel dish complete with freeview decoder a few months back for about £40. The quality of it was not too bad. They might still be selling them.

Depends on what you are wanting to do with it in The UK and France a small travel one will pull in 28.2e, 19e and 13e but if you are a sat hobbiest you will not get the harder to pull in satellites like 1w, 30w, 7e etc. You can just use a few tent pegs and the locator that comes with it and 10 mins later you will be watching freeview channels. If the line of sight allows (no trees in the way)!

I am a bit of a Satellite hobbiest as I have been involved in a specialised side of it for the last 20 years and heavily involved in various satellite forums.  If you need specilist advice don't hesitate to e-mail me for advice.

When I tour in my Motorhome I normally take the Dish I bought from Aldi and my Dreambox and can pull in about 3000 channels.

Regards

Garz

Hi garz.

          I installed a DreamBox for a chap in Bolton around 5 years ago, although I had some ten years before installed his Motorised 1.2M Dish, the dish was a Technisat PFA superb piece of Polar Mount engineering, driven by a 12" Actuator, none of this pesky DiSEque stuff, anyway getting the DreamBox to drive the Dish via a V-Box was quite easy, getting the DreamBox to do it's stuff via his computer was something of a learning curve, but in the end we got it all going, great not having to use pirate cards and programmers, just the good old internet to get all the channels he wanted. my camping dish is a Attisat FL500 a flatt panel dish with embeddded Lnb, packs flat as a pancake, great for portable use.

Francais, I found when I bought my first Dreambox that I had started all over again!! Out went all the knowledge I needed from the days of D2mac and then Irdeto etc to a whole new experience. Like you say the standard set up is easy but the network side was a whole new learning curve.

The Satellite side has now moved to most boxes having a Lan connection and being Linux based like the Dreambox as an internet connection and a few friends as you will know opens many doors .

Hi garz.

           I moved away from installations a few years ago, although I still have all the kit, including a very nice Unaohm Spectrum analyser and BSkyB, RO.VE.R. SDM-1s meter, you would not believe the amount of work I ended up doing, the last time I went to site near Antibes in Southern France, the DreamBox I thought was a great idea, is it still possible to share one Sky card betwwen ten owners?, my main work was setting up Polar Mounts, and doing the none Sky stuff for Pub's and Club's, got quite good at that, biggest dish I worked on was a 2.4m Channel Master fiberglass monster, no matter how much setting up we did, it never performed any better than a 1.5m!, we eventualy found out that it was designed for C-Band use, and not KU-Band, as it had a C-Band mesh under the fiberglass layers and not a KU-Band mesh, there was quite a lot of C-Band digital stuff going on, but it was a jip, having a 2.4m only working as good as a 1.5M. I was not happy when all the Disequ motors arrived on the scene, I much preffered to work with receivers that could control a 36Volt actuator, all this using the Lnb cable for motor power was two much like toy town for me, although good for repeat business, unlike my 1.8m Actuator driven Dish, that has been in service now for 20 years, without a glitch, although upgrading the Mechanical Polarotor/Polariser to a Universal Lnb was a bit of modernisation that I aproved of!.  

 t

Ah a man after my own heart. I used to install and repair when I had my own business many years back. That was in the day when the pace analogue decoders used to pop their switch mode power supply annually. Or more frequently if kept in a video cabinet.

Yeah the Dreambox can be used to CS as this is the way things have gone. Long gone are the days sitting with a pic card and a programmer to watch filmnet or tv1000. Its now about pulling in thousands of channels and a bit too easy now. The fun of learning how to use say a season interface card to log etc are out the window. Its now a line in a bit of code to connect to card servers.

Yeah I have moved onto DISEQ with Usals now. I miss the old actuators as they drove a lot faster and were steadier in the wind. Up here in the north of Scotland many a winter can see a few teeth being broken and a new motor on order.

C band those were the days nothing really on that now bar a few feeds here and there. Even the feeds now are getting harder to get hold of on the KU side. As I say its becoming a hobby for the man that wants to CS and watch live premier league every Saturday with minimum effort or cost.

Hi garz.

           As you mention CS still works, I don't suppose Sky are too worried about that, it is not in the volumes as the Analogue Season blag was running at I guess, no wonder they went to Digital so soon, and now that they have got almost 10 million paying subscribers, you guys don't even registar as lost revenue, these days I am quite happy with my little Comag box, it does a nice blind search, and I get all the FTA stuff I need, my Dish is currently parked up at 5West or there abouts picking up all the French stuff from Atlantic Bird, formerly known as Telcom 2C, about 20 Digital channels and 5 Analogue, hope this will help me with the lingo for this years hols.