Advice Needed what size dish will i need to get freesat in Vielha, Catalonia, Spain. In the Pyrnees

[RobertM]

my VPN no longer works so resorted to watching BBC through my UK mobile data and mirror imaging to tv-not ideal, picture and sound quality very poor.
I thinking of Freesat but don't know what size dish i would need.
Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated

 

[rodscha]

just to make it clear,Vielha is a border town in the central Pyrenees 100ks-ish West of Andorra,150 ks-ish south of Toulouse(as birds fly)
AKA Viella

 

[Adam792]

Not sure on dish size for that part of Spain, I know there's apparently a null around Barcelona where it's very difficult to get any signal on the UK channels.

Otherwise you have the option of the Freeview digital terrestrial back-up feeds on Intelsat 905 (27.5W). This is a different satellite than those used by Freesat, but the signal is stronger in south western Europe. 80-90cm should work fine in Catalonia.

For this feed you will need a compatible receiver (the channels are encrypted to stop rights holders kicking up a fuss - we can't go into details on this but there is a long thread on this forum that talks about the system - uk bbc channels normally on 28.2 on intelsat 907 27.5w ? ). There are a few receivers mentioned that work. This feed carries the main five terrestrial UK channels (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, C4, C5) in HD, as well as the BBC digital channels (News, Parliament, BBC4, CBeebies, CBBC) and BBC radio.

There's no guarantee for how long this service will remain available, but it's been on there for around 10 years now. It might be your only viable option if the Freesat signal is too weak and you can't use the internet.

Your other option would depend on the speed of your internet connection in Spain. If your speed is fairly decent, and if you have family/friends in the UK who also have decent internet and some tech knowledge, you could get them to set up a small TV server for you. A tiny cheap PC like a Raspberry Pi works fine, with a TV tuner connected to a TV aerial. You'd then stream the Freeview channels over the internet from that. Essentially your own private VPN-style IPTV.

 

[4wd]

My recipe for a "middle of nowhere and no knowledge of the situation" initial investigation. Presuming one has a receiver with channels\frequencies preset, test with some old, secondhand, rusty, giveaway (but straight!) dish of some size that may be a realistic startingpoint for the location, maybe 120-130 in this case. Finely tune the lot to get the europe beams at 100% or so quality, then look for signs of any uk beams, at different times of day.

Also some local sat installer may know things. And take some car trips looking for interesting dishes seemingly pointing in the right direction, invite yourself in for a friendly sat-chat :O)

 

[RobertM]

just to make it clear,Vielha is a border town in the central Pyrenees 100ks-ish West of Andorra,150 ks-ish south of Toulouse(as birds fly)
AKA Viella

Hi
Yes that is correct.
VPN no longer workes and useing UK mobile data loses too much picture Quality

 

[PaulR]

I know it sounds obvious but why is the VPN no longer working? Have you tried a different VPN in case their IP addresses haven't been blacklisted?

 

[RobertM]

Not sure on dish size for that part of Spain, I know there's apparently a null around Barcelona where it's very difficult to get any signal on the UK channels.

Otherwise you have the option of the Freeview digital terrestrial back-up feeds on Intelsat 905 (27.5W). This is a different satellite than those used by Freesat, but the signal is stronger in south western Europe. 80-90cm should work fine in Catalonia.

For this feed you will need a compatible receiver (the channels are encrypted to stop rights holders kicking up a fuss - we can't go into details on this but there is a long thread on this forum that talks about the system - uk bbc channels normally on 28.2 on intelsat 907 27.5w ? ). There are a few receivers mentioned that work. This feed carries the main five terrestrial UK channels (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, C4, C5) in HD, as well as the BBC digital channels (News, Parliament, BBC4, CBeebies, CBBC) and BBC radio.

There's no guarantee for how long this service will remain available, but it's been on there for around 10 years now. It might be your only viable option if the Freesat signal is too weak and you can't use the internet.

Your other option would depend on the speed of your internet connection in Spain. If your speed is fairly decent, and if you have family/friends in the UK who also have decent internet and some tech knowledge, you could get them to set up a small TV server for you. A tiny cheap PC like a Raspberry Pi works fine, with a TV tuner connected to a TV aerial. You'd then stream the Freeview channels over the internet from that. Essentially your own private VPN-style IPTV.

Hi Adam
Many thanks for the info.
The research I have done on dishes makes me skeptical it would work.
Very interested in setting up a private vpn with UK. If you could give me some "simple speek" information I would be very grateful. This is NOT my area of expertise.
We have fiber in Spain so very good speed, I also have a house in UK with very good digital signal but relatively slow Internet, it's the fastest for the area and does play netflix/prime without any problems.
Many Thanks

 

[woborny]

Plenty of vpns still work fine, but one or two have had issues these past few weeks, so just try another one, one with a free trial if available...or even a smartdnsservice, like smartdnsproxy, who have a 14 days free trial, and tends to be a lot faster than a vpn

 

[Pepeyeb]

Good evening
There is a thread in a Spanish forum that may be useful to you.
It seems to me that even if you have an antenna from 150 cms it will be difficult to receive the freesat signal in Viella.

sintonización triple lnb, 7e 10e y 28,2 e con antena fte 150 cm

Buenas. Definitivamente me he lanzado a comprar el triple soporte del patro para captar los 3 satélites con la citada antena fte 150 cm. Imagino que sera posible captar los 3, aunque el 28,2 e me da miedo que se salga del plato o quede desenfocado. Con un soporte doble he conseguido el 7 y 10...

openspa.info

 

[RobertM]

My recipe for a "middle of nowhere and no knowledge of the situation" initial investigation. Presuming one has a receiver with channels\frequencies preset, test with some old, secondhand, rusty, giveaway (but straight!) dish of some size that may be a realistic startingpoint for the location, maybe 120-130 in this case. Finely tune the lot to get the europe beams at 100% or so quality, then look for signs of any uk beams, at different times of day.

Also some local sat installer may know things. And take some car trips looking for interesting dishes seemingly pointing in the right direction, invite yourself in for a friendly sat-chat :O)

I have no sat system at the moment, been useing VPN for the last 18 months with no problems. As I have Freesat at my UK home it seemed like a good idea but the internet research i have done has left me confused so I thought ask some experts.
Other than fitting my own sky dish in the uk I have no knowledge of sat receivers, just thought buy a big dish, install and use freesat box. Little did i know!

 

[Pepeyeb]

No tengo un sistema de satélite en este momento, he estado usando VPN durante los últimos 18 meses sin problemas. Como tengo Freesat en mi casa del Reino Unido, me pareció una buena idea, pero la investigación en Internet que hice me dejó confundido, así que pensé en preguntarle a algunos expertos.
Aparte de instalar mi propia antena parabólica en el Reino Unido, no tengo ningún conocimiento de receptores sat, solo pensé en comprar una antena grande, instalar y usar la caja freesat. ¡Yo no sabía!

Yes, but to receive freesat by astra 28ºE in Viella, you will need at least a 1.5 m antenna. If it is that you receive the signal.
Or as they say in this forum for the Intelsat 905 satellite, with smaller antennas of course.

 

[Adam792]

Hi Adam
Many thanks for the info.
The research I have done on dishes makes me skeptical it would work.
Very interested in setting up a private vpn with UK. If you could give me some "simple speek" information I would be very grateful. This is NOT my area of expertise.
We have fiber in Spain so very good speed, I also have a house in UK with very good digital signal but relatively slow Internet, it's the fastest for the area and does play netflix/prime without any problems.
Many Thanks

No problem, it might be a bit of a learning curve project, but I've had a quick look and there's plenty of stuff online regarding setting up the stuff that would be needed - I will pull some information together and write something up when I get some time at the weekend

The most important thing will be your internet speed in the UK to be able to stream the TV channels to your connection in Spain. Is your connection in the UK just "standard" ADSL phone-line broadband, or the newer fibre (but still via the phoneline) broadband with the 40Mbps or 76Mbps speed? The latter fibre ones should work fine with this idea, but the upload speed on the older style ADSL broadband is too low unfortunately.

The main thing you need otherwise is a computer with a TV tuner to connect to the TV aerial and router in the UK. You can use pretty much any old PC if you have one kicking around for this, with a cheap USB TV tuner (Freeview) dongle. However, as it only needs a very low powered little machine, the tidiest and cheapest in terms of power usage would be to get one of the Raspberry Pi boards which are designed for this type of low power server project. These are around £35, and they have a plug-in TV tuner module available (called the TV Hat), and a case that fits all the stuff in.

The alternative is the Intelsat 905 27.5W satellite with an 80cm dish in northern Spain for channels 1-5 plus extra BBCs, with a compatible receiver.

 

[PaulR]

You could also use a Raspberry Pi to set up your own private VPN in your UK house. You could then use the VPN if you find yourself geolocked out of something UK specific.

There were details on setting one up a couple of years ago in the late lamented Computer Shopper. I'm sure a quick Google would also provide details.

 

[RobertM]

No problem, it might be a bit of a learning curve project, but I've had a quick look and there's plenty of stuff online regarding setting up the stuff that would be needed - I will pull some information together and write something up when I get some time at the weekend

The most important thing will be your internet speed in the UK to be able to stream the TV channels to your connection in Spain. Is your connection in the UK just "standard" ADSL phone-line broadband, or the newer fibre (but still via the phoneline) broadband with the 40Mbps or 76Mbps speed? The latter fibre ones should work fine with this idea, but the upload speed on the older style ADSL broadband is too low unfortunately.

The main thing you need otherwise is a computer with a TV tuner to connect to the TV aerial and router in the UK. You can use pretty much any old PC if you have one kicking around for this, with a cheap USB TV tuner (Freeview) dongle. However, as it only needs a very low powered little machine, the tidiest and cheapest in terms of power usage would be to get one of the Raspberry Pi boards which are designed for this type of low power server project. These are around £35, and they have a plug-in TV tuner module available (called the TV Hat), and a case that fits all the stuff in.

The alternative is the Intelsat 905 27.5W satellite with an 80cm dish in northern Spain for channels 1-5 plus extra BBCs, with a compatible receiver.

looking forward to receiving the info.
In the UK i have old computers ect.
There is fiber into the village (which i'm paying BT to use) but then travels aprox 1/4 mile through the phone lines into my house. Hopefully this will be good enough, as said before i don't have problems streaming in the UK but understand the upload speed may not be fast enough

 

[RobertM]

You could also use a Raspberry Pi to set up your own private VPN in your UK house. You could then use the VPN if you find yourself geolocked out of something UK specific.

There were details on setting one up a couple of years ago in the late lamented Computer Shopper. I'm sure a quick Google would also provide details.

Many thanks for your input, i think setting up a private VPN is the way i'm going. I bought a 3 year subscription to Cyberghost, less than 1/2 way through and not getting anywhere. As I have TV license in UK i find it very irritating, I don't want to pay lots to other VPN and as I have fiber, but not to the house!!, internet in UK and fiber in Spain it seems the answer, I just need to learn how to do it!

 

[RobertM]

Yes, but to receive freesat by astra 28ºE in Viella, you will need at least a 1.5 m antenna. If it is that you receive the signal.
Or as they say in this forum for the Intelsat 905 satellite, with smaller antennas of course.

Many thanks for your input, looking into having a private VPN with my UK house

 

[RobertM]

just to make it clear,Vielha is a border town in the central Pyrenees 100ks-ish West of Andorra,150 ks-ish south of Toulouse(as birds fly)
AKA Viella

Yes thats correct, right in the middle of the dead zone that has come up on Sat. maps

 

[RobertM]

Not sure on dish size for that part of Spain, I know there's apparently a null around Barcelona where it's very difficult to get any signal on the UK channels.

Otherwise you have the option of the Freeview digital terrestrial back-up feeds on Intelsat 905 (27.5W). This is a different satellite than those used by Freesat, but the signal is stronger in south western Europe. 80-90cm should work fine in Catalonia.

For this feed you will need a compatible receiver (the channels are encrypted to stop rights holders kicking up a fuss - we can't go into details on this but there is a long thread on this forum that talks about the system - uk bbc channels normally on 28.2 on intelsat 907 27.5w ? ). There are a few receivers mentioned that work. This feed carries the main five terrestrial UK channels (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, C4, C5) in HD, as well as the BBC digital channels (News, Parliament, BBC4, CBeebies, CBBC) and BBC radio.

There's no guarantee for how long this service will remain available, but it's been on there for around 10 years now. It might be your only viable option if the Freesat signal is too weak and you can't use the internet.

Your other option would depend on the speed of your internet connection in Spain. If your speed is fairly decent, and if you have family/friends in the UK who also have decent internet and some tech knowledge, you could get them to set up a small TV server for you. A tiny cheap PC like a Raspberry Pi works fine, with a TV tuner connected to a TV aerial. You'd then stream the Freeview channels over the internet from that. Essentially your own private VPN-style IPTV.

Many thanks for the input, as i have no sat. system ATM and i have fiber internet in Spain and also have fast?? internet in my UK home im looking into a private VPN
If you can give me any pointers on setting up a private VPN please do, but in layman speak please

 

[RobertM]

My recipe for a "middle of nowhere and no knowledge of the situation" initial investigation. Presuming one has a receiver with channels\frequencies preset, test with some old, secondhand, rusty, giveaway (but straight!) dish of some size that may be a realistic startingpoint for the location, maybe 120-130 in this case. Finely tune the lot to get the europe beams at 100% or so quality, then look for signs of any uk beams, at different times of day.

Also some local sat installer may know things. And take some car trips looking for interesting dishes seemingly pointing in the right direction, invite yourself in for a friendly sat-chat :O)

Thanks for the input, I have no sat system at the moment and hardly any Brits in the area who i could ask. I looking into a private VPN with my UK home

 

[Adam792]

looking forward to receiving the info.
In the UK i have old computers ect.
There is fiber into the village (which i'm paying BT to use) but then travels aprox 1/4 mile through the phone lines into my house. Hopefully this will be good enough, as said before i don't have problems streaming in the UK but understand the upload speed may not be fast enough

You could also use a Raspberry Pi to set up your own private VPN in your UK house. You could then use the VPN if you find yourself geolocked out of something UK specific.

There were details on setting one up a couple of years ago in the late lamented Computer Shopper. I'm sure a quick Google would also provide details.

The VPN using a Raspberry Pi is a nice idea and should work fine for you for BBC iPlayer etc. These services get blocked on the commercially available VPN services every now and again if the IP address of the VPN service gets flagged as being a VPN - this is usually obvious to the BBC etc. if they're getting a lot of traffic from that specific IP! Your own personal VPN solves this as it's just as if you're using your connection at home, and is specific to you.

There's a really nice guide here - How to Create a VPN Server With Raspberry Pi

It also includes links to how you get started with setting the Pi up in the first place.

I'd recommend a Raspberry Pi 3 B (or the newest v4) for this. The Spanish distributor of them has a kit available with all the bits - Raspberry Pi 4 España - Distribuidor Autorizado (the UK distributor is thepihut.com)

Once you had the VPN set up in the UK so you can access it from Spain, you could then choose to add the Freeview TV tuner to it if you wanted as a bonus. You'd then access this through the VPN and be able to stream the TV channels as received in the UK via it.

You could of course do the same thing with an old PC but that would be more involved (installation instructions specific to the PC to get things set-up).