can i lock onto Astra satalite in greece

Is it possible to lock on to Astra or any other satalite that will give me uk tv in Greece south east of Athens. Also will an LCD tv purchased in England receive greek analogue transmissions or will there be PAL v SEPAL issues.

If you have a large enough dish,(aimed at the Astra satellite used by Sky at 28.2/28.5 degrees east), an LNB, and suitable digi box, you can get the free channels. A local installer could do it for you. There is no other satellite that has English TV, other than news channels(Sky News, Euro News, and BBC World). BBC Prime is primarily a subscription channel.

PS

Yeah it's available alright but you need to subscribe . Make some local enquiries or look for a British owned Pub or restaurant and they will put you right. Good luck.

Also try contacting these people - http://www.satcure.co.uk/
The owner lives or has a house in Greece and has installed UK satellite so should be in an excelent position to give some advice.

dames said:

Is it possible to lock on to Astra or any other satalite that will give me uk tv in Greece south east of Athens.

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Yes. You will be looking at a 4m dish to receive a usable signal however. You're basically right on the side-lobes there. You will really be under the influence of the weather, a mere shower and you might have no telly.

An alternative would be to get one of the internet re-broadcasters, although these aren't strictly legitimate I'd be surprised if the Greek authorities were that bothered.

When you're 1500 miles from the intended reception area, as you are, it's difficult to receive a decent signal as the satellites are designed to keep quite a tight beam; the expense and lengths that companies like Arianespace and Astrium go to in keeping tight beams are quite considerable!

Remember that even the North West of England often requires a bigger dish than the South East, and that's a couple of hundred miles distance!

This isn't to say you won't be able to pick it up, but bear in mind that you will be buying a very large, very expensive dish that will not work all of the time. If you are happy with that, you should go ahead and get it.

We get Italian TV in East Central Scotland from the Hotbird satellite. We only have a standard sized dish and picture is great.
There's a lot of channels from other countries on it too but, I'm not sure if there are any Greek ones.

It all depends on the particular transponder the channel is on. In particular for programming license reasons British channels that broadcast unencryted use astra 1D which has a tight footprint. You can pick it up in north france easy enough but go much further than that and it starts to get REALLY weak. Many of the encrypted channels can be picked up further away but using a sky card to decode them ourside the UK is a violation of your agreement with sky.

I live in Cyprus at the far East of the Mediterranean and get a full Sky package on a 2.7m dish... However, a 3m or larger dish is preferable....