Satellite TV question? Getting UK TV abroad?

Question

My mother lives in Bulgaria, and she has a satellite dish, however, she hardly gets any English channels - just BBC world, a couple of film channels, and 1 or 2 music channels.

We were wondering, if I take her over a UK Sky digi box, whether she would receive more UK channels - i.e. the free channels. I know that she won't get the whole Sky package unless she pays for it.

I just wondered, as our Sky box, has very few foreign channels, and it's probably the same over there - i.e. most of the channels are Bulgarian, with very few English channels.

Answer 1

Extract from this informative technical website, concerning dish size (http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/ar...  - "You will need something quite a bit bigger than 2.4m for most of Bulgaria. Start thinking 3m or even 3.5m on the Black Sea coast". Just about possible! You would have difficulty aligning the dish yourself. You would need a local installer.  The Sky satellite is the only one with a decent English channel selection.  

Answer 2

bulgaria is out of footprint for most of sky's channels, but some have sugested a dish of 4.5m diameter with amplifier could do the  job, but this would be extremely expensive and would require a lot of space. you might still pick up some channels with a 2m dish but its best to check with local engineers, just ask them to fit and align the dish and run the wiring as you will be supplying the box+card, Another way is if you have high speed broadband at both ends, you can connect a sky box in the uk to a Slingbox (dixons, currys) which then connects to the broadband line. At the other end in bulgaria you could just connect a laptop or pc to the broadband line and have full control and remote viewing of the sky box. the pc/laptop could then connect to a tv using a video card.

Answer 3

I cant say for certain but I doubt it as the dish needs to be lined up with the sky satellite to be able to receive it and you need an expert to know how to line it up also her tv may not and i stress may not again not certain to receive the frequency for sky