German and French on One Dish

PAGE UPDATED JAN 2022:

With the introduction of new encryption, the French channels are no longer FTA, so the following are the 2 options currently possible:

1. Using a French TNT box
2. Using a Receiver with Fransat Cam

The first option is ok, if you are after just a few of the German channels, but retuning and sorting is quite difficult on most TNT french boxes. Plus with every update, it is possible that your ‘extra’ channels ( ie the German ones ) will be wiped out. There is no way to ‘Save’ and restore the channel list. The Cahors brand have an option, but in practice this simply does not work, pity as otherwise it’s a good receiver

The BEST option is the Receiver + Fransat cam

• The tuning and sorting is much easier, you can choose your own favourites to be at the top of the list
• One big disadvantage is the signal from Eutelsat 5w (Fransat) is quite weak (see launch report  here)
• Since the software updates in 2021, TNT boxes will not display non TNT channels if ANY chan on the same frequency is encrypted – so Fransat really is the ONLY option if you want Italian and French
• I use custom software to make the job simple with each country’s most popular at the top of the lists
• The favourite lists and tuning can be ‘saved’ and restored in seconds  should anything happen
• The system is expandable, any of the following or combination of the following channels can be achieved, with different dishes
• German * only a few channels affected by the TNT updates.
• English
• French
• Spanish ( free and paid )
• Italian ** affected badly by the TNT software changes, RAI 1,2,3 no longer work on TNT boxes
• Russian
• Polish ( both free and paid )
• Hungarian ( free )
• Thai/ Korean / Chinese / Japanese

2013 post….

I’ve frequently been asked if its possible to have both French and German free channels.

The Answer is yes!

With a suitable location, I can install a dish with  multiple LNBs to receive all the satellites having French and German channels

This is the 78cm triax being set up, with LNBs for:

• Eutelsat 5w ( French channels France2, 3,5 )
• Eutelsat 9a ( Main French channels W9,  M6
• Hotbird ( Arte, ( also Italian ) )
• Astra1 ( German and regional French )

For those wanting the UK channels as well, I do the special wide  angle dishes

force frontier dish

This incredible toroidal double reflector dish will do English , French, German, Italian and Spanish…… all in one dish !

These dishes are not usually available in the UK and over several years I’ve found the perfect equipment to work with it, the lnbs and the 5 way switches, to route the signals to the receiver are all specially purchased.