Final Summary?

 )

Only a much larger dish at this geographical location will improve the signal. Moving the same dish to another geographical location might offer far greater benefits. I must presume that my dish is lying on, or close to, the null line which passes N-S through mid Denmark.

My own results suggest I am in much the same problem situation as my fellow TV fringe enthusiast. Who lives only a few miles away. He has exactly the same 2.2m dish and enjoys(?) very similar reception only over a limited time of the day. Though again with the same slight  but unreliable variations at odd hours on odd days as I have myself experienced.

Such is the narrowness of the signal acceptance angle on a large dish that it may not be able to receive both 2E and 2F at the same time. The spread between the two transmitting satellites places them either side of optimum axial gain at the focus of the dish. One, or the other, or both satellites become effectively offset. Just as if the dish were poorly aligned.

The Astra 2E/F UK Spot Beam has succeeded in denying an adequate signal even to those fringe TV enthusiasts willing to invest a huge amount of time (and potentially a great deal of money) just to receive the same UK programmes as before. It was once relatively easy to receive UK TV from the previous Astra 2D also at 28E. Often with only slightly oversize dishes and some care in set-up. I myself had perfect reception around the clock in all weathers from a 120cm Gilbertini offset dish.

Many would consider even this a very large dish for many domestic situations. With the recent change in satellites I first tried a 1.8m (6') dish and now the relatively huge Kathrein 2.2m dish at 7'4") Still without more than partial and very time restricted reception around late morning until just after lunch. Exactly when the UK TV channels are full of absolute dross. The evenings being the best chance of any programme quality (at all) are now denied to myself and many others.

The denial of a 'home' TV service to so many British ex-pats has largely succeeded. The TV companies can continue to maximise their income from their license-subsidised production empires. Simply by selling to strictly limited, geographically-organised, commercial cable and retransmission scrambled satellite services. To sell the programmes onto their already jaded viewers sandwiched between their own commercials for further profit. And all, at greatly increased levels of irritation and expense to the end consumer.

Or the film producers can drive yet more potential viewers elsewhere. To obtain their entertainment by other means than satellite TV. The Internet has become the entertainment medium of choice for many. Sadly there is still no fast, universal optical fibre service over much of Europe.  So streaming films in HD is difficult to impossible due to a lack of bandwidth. I have a 50/50Mps service but have never tried to stream a film. Just getting a decent HD video experience from YouTube can often be a struggle!

No doubt the pirates and conmen will profit enormously from the changes in UK satellite TV reception in Europe. Where there is a market somebody will always step forward to supply it. UK TV denial could be looked at as a form of prohibition and we all know what happened then!

DVDs and Bluray disks continue to decline in sales as Hollywood continues their downward decline into totally absurd, drug, money and celeb fuelled, mediocrity. Their products selling at outrageous profit per sales unit. With unduly restrictive legal barriers to the re-use of something already purchased and presumably owned. We truly live in an era of false accounting and virtually total lack of real creativity. Monopolies rule by playing with monopoly money at the expense of the poor consumer.

My own UK TV journey has finally come to an end. There is nothing left other than the huge investment in one, or even two, very much larger dishes. Nothing less will squeeze enough out of the present, deliberately weakened signal to make watching UK satellite TV worthwhile. The cost alone makes this quite impossible. Having even larger dishes in our rural garden would increase the risk from the increasingly vicious storms due to global warming. The loss of visual amenity in housing such vast structures, in what is supposed to be a normal garden, makes it even less desirable! 

(_