Television reception

Dual Channel Shows

http://www.tvtv.ch

After you log in you can click on Profisuche on the bottom left and then move to the right hand side and scroll down a little and click on the symbol for dual language (2 open circles side by side)and then press search in the bottom right corner and everything that will be shown in 2 languages will appear.

If you click on the show itself, it will indicate the real name of the show on the bottom in a gray box.

British Telly. You know you want it.

There are a bunch of useful links towards the bottom – contributions are welcome to that.

WHAT:

Prerequisits:

You will need an unobstructed view SOUTH.
Imagine looking towards the Alps (assuming you can see through your Concrete Jungle)….it’s that way. It [the signal] does not bounce off the Uetliberg or anything else – you must have an unblocked view of the southern skies or it won’t work.

You’ll also likely need to put the dish on a balcony – most landlords will not allow a dish to be bolted on the outside of the building (as this does truly damage the cladding) or on the outside of the balcony structure. It’s down to you to check – you might be lucky.

Pre-Installation Disclaimer:

This guide is simply a rule-of-thumb.
I accept no responsibility for injury (should you want to Spiderman your installation) or damage to kit (because you will read the manual before doing anything, won’t you?) and do recommend that you seek assistance should you not feel comfortable performing a “Self-Install”.

INSTALLATION:

Call the typical Expat seeking to install a satellite dish what you want (tight-arse, adventurous) – many have installed their own dish.
Your Mileage May Vary – I know the first time I lined Sky Digital up, it was a nightmare. Sky Analogue could be done by Stevie Wonder [no offence meant, Big Guy!], to be honest – but the Digital beam is much tighter and less-forgiving.

If you’re going to do it on your own, I do recommend a proper balcony stand for the dish. I bought mine from Radio Hess for around 100 francs.
Also consider getting a compass – but do take into account that the metal substructure on a balcony can cause issues!

The single and most important thing to remember is that you should take your time. I can recant my first installation assisted by FIVE people all calling out “Oh yes, signal’s up!” and other such helpful remarks.

I can tell you that two hours on a cold November night on your balcony is a long time and that, at 7am next morning, it took me FOUR minutes to do on my own.

Directions:

Right, let’s get to specifics. You seek 28 degrees east – that’s east of south.

South on the compass is the opposite direction to North – the compass needle will point North (with a nice colour to help you recognise it). So, if you stand staring down at the compass, get the pretty colour pointing towards you (clue: you’ll have to move) and ensure North is pointing at ZERO.

Good – you’re now facing due (magnetic, actually) South. That’s 180 on the compass...now the maths. 180–28=152. Correct? 152 on your compass is ahead and left – remember that direction! That’s the way your dish should point.

Now I am assuming you do have a proper stand because it does help. You’ve assembled the mounting for the dish and put the LNB (which is where the signal is “sent” after reflecting off the pretty dish) on the arm.
Before you put it on the stand, look at the mounting – on one side it has numbers which correspond to elevation – you seek something around 32 degrees (in Zurich). Tighten the mount at this elevation with your thumbs – you don’t want to do it bionically – yet – as you might have to carefully adjust it.

If you’ve remembered the direction and got the elevation right, you might be lucky soon – put the dish on the stand and tighten the fittings (but not too much). Now you have the cable to connect to the LNB and to your receiver (WITH THE POWER OFF). I’ll assume you’ve connected the receiver to the TV and I frankly don’t care how you cable your setup (but there are some hints later to avoid drilling holes) – at this point you can power up the receiver and hopefully you have a picture (you might have to READ THE MANUAL and TELL THE RECEIVER which bird it is pointing at – unless it’s a DUMB SKY DIGIBOX).

If the receiver has a signal meter (most do, again – READ THE MANUAL) then get that to display on the screen. This will help tune (or if you’re lucky, fine-tune) the dish to get the best reception. SMALL ADJUSTMENTS (and I do mean SMALL ADJUSTMENTS) are the key to getting the reception spot-on. Take your time, don’t hesitate to re-check the compass and re-check the elevation.

If you’re having problems at this point, I am not going to reinvent the wheel – see the information section below for the Dave Sullivan link. I do believe it’s worth looking at anyway…..so what’re you waiting for?

THE “WHAT ABOUT SKY” SECTION:

Sky...lovely. These instructions do apply for Sky boxes too, of course. But what about the people who want a Sky subscription?

Well...there are options out there. For Expat Brits, perhaps the simplest solution is to get a subscription at home and then bring it out with you, card and box paired together and subscription active.

For others, there are many companies offering “services” and these vary in price – consider that you’ll have to pay the cost of the monthly Sky subscription PLUS a handling fee every year. Links are in the table below.

What works?

Sky works. Sky+ works. If you buy the box full-price, you don’t need a phone connection.

If you're smart enough, you could get a VoIP adaptor and a UK number and connect the box to the phoneline but this is UNTESTED as yet. You go first, I dare you!

What doesn’t work?

Sky Multiroom doesn’t work. Phone line...same phone line for all boxes on the contract…..see the problem here? NB: If you have the guts to try the VoIP route, you might be able to have two boxes. This again is untested and do bear in mind that they have to dial from the same number

Phoning Sky. Ill-advised but some have suppressed their own number (#31# before the desired number does this, I believe).

Sky MiniDish doesn’t work. Too small – you may believe it works (especially Zone 2 dishes) but wait until there’s a cloud in the sky and a drop of rain). You want something 80cm+. West-siders will have more joy with zone 2 dishes (Basel) but Zurich will need more

THE INFORMATION SECTION:

What? Where? Eh? Any recommendations?