World wide satelite tv

[jdelannoy]

Im leaving soon on a world wide sailing cruise. I dont want to buy a stabalized antenae but prefer to mount a dish on a dock or tripod. I understand the concept of subscribing to whatever vender services the area for reception but what i cant figure out is there one dish and one reciever that can be used for the various venders for recpetion in north and south america, europe, caribean, and new zealand. anybody have any ideas?

 

[thetech2009]

idealy this would work with both direct and dish as long as you have the az/el for each location

 

[HDinCincy]

Im leaving soon on a world wide sailing cruise. I dont want to buy a stabalized antenae but prefer to mount a dish on a dock or tripod. I understand the concept of subscribing to whatever vender services the area for reception but what i cant figure out is there one dish and one reciever that can be used for the various venders for recpetion in north and south america, europe, caribean, and new zealand. anybody have any ideas?

I think SKY may have a service that will work but i can tell you that both D* and E* are optimized for reception in N. American. Even in Cabo it's hard if not impossible to get D*. Good luck. Amazing to me that you will have time for TV

 

[texasbrit]

I think SKY may have a service that will work but i can tell you that both D* and E* are optimized for reception in N. American. Even in Cabo it's hard if not impossible to get D*. Good luck. Amazing to me that you will have time for TV

The short answer is NO, the longer answer is maybe!! Everyone uses different standards for transmission and encryption, and of course each satellite only illuminates a small part of the earth's surface. If you have a globe you can see that. Each satellite is at a fixed location 26000 miles above the earth, at the equator. You can see that even if the satellite had infinite power, the earth itself would block the signal from reaching most of the earths surface. Not only do the satellites not have infinite power (!) but the transmit antennas are designed to deliver an even signal across just the part of the world where that sat provider is licensed. So for example DirecTV and Dish have sat antennas that are designed to cover the USA. There's some "spillover" so in parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada the signal level is good enough for reception. Similarly Bell satellite in Canada has antennas designed to cover Canada. Even though the satellites are on the equator, south of the US, the signal is too low for good reception in most of the Southern USA.
That said, there are receivers that will receive FreeToAir signals from multiple sat providers who use the same technology, and even have smartcard slots - these have been widely used in Europe.

 

[MLBurks]

Well, if I were you, I would get as far away from the Boob Tube as possible and enjoy the cruise!

 

[Van]

idealy this would work with both direct and dish as long as you have the az/el for each location

Actually no it wouldnt, a satellite has a foot print that only goes so far and within the main footprint there can be smaller ones called spot beams that are primarily utilized for local stations. Dish and Direct both cover all of the US and parts of
Canada and Mexico and the caribbean but only on a fringe basis and at that point the reception drops off dramaticly to where you would have to go from a standard 18 inch dish to something increasingly larger such as a meter or larger in diameter which wouldnt be productive for someone on a sailing boat.

What would work out for the OP is a Free To Air set up with something no larger than a meter in size for the dish to gain access to free programming though if he wants the pay services he wont be able to get those using an FTA setup legaly. Also the OP could check for cable service at the ports of call before he leaves which should be available in the better marinea's in his ports of call.

 

[boba]

And what hasn't been mentioned is the different broadcast formats used by different countries. A TV built for the US receives NTSC/ATSC broadcasts but one for France would need to receive SECAM and England would be PAL standards and many variations on the individual broadcast standards.

Yes there are TVs designed for multi formats and satellite receivers that can handle receiving them. If you truly feel the boob tube is important to your life you can do it but you will need to learn a lot about aiming for many different satellites with many different requirements. Very little is broadcast in Ku band that DISH/Directv use. You would need at least a half dozen different LNBs to fit your dish and a dish big enough to fit the worst case scenario for reception.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Consider Netflick and order where you will hit land. You will not be able to purchase the goods and services advertised in the commercial interruptions..........try for local cable in various ports of call...some docks have it. Depart if they ask why you wanna get TV from Amerika, gringo?

Take a mast and dish with you and clamp it to pilings in CONUS. Play with the setup in MENU so you can get long & lat points...again in CONUS.

Have a good good trip..............report back as it goes.

Joe