Lost satellite channels

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08/14/2012 - 15:08

Hi. Very grateful for some help with out satellite TV issue. After 5 years with no problems using a satellite dish and GESER decoder to get free to air channels in our part of Umbria (where normal TV reception was poor), when we arrived this summer (we only holiday here) our selection of some 400 channels had reduced to 4 (all German or Swiss)!. Is this something to do with Italy's digital switch-over?. Could it be due to blocking Olympics coverage? Any other ideas? It seems very strange. The German channels seem perfectly fine. Thanks for your help.

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Thanks We figured out how to retune eventually. But it has not solved the problem. Did it for Astra NI and Hotbird. But most channels came up "locked", "failed" or "End". Final result - no more channels. I'm starting to wonder now whether we should have a bigger dish and it should be aiming for the Astra 2 satellite.... But none of that explains why so many channels that were fine before have just vanished. Might have to get someone out I guess...

I don't use satellite, but many friends do, and they are now finding that any old Sky box (or FTA UK decoder) is bringing in all the BBC and ITV stuff (including red button) without any Sky subscription or card inserted. (This is in Umbria, on 80cm dishes - somebody in Abruzzo is doing this on a much bigger dish, though he could probaby do it on a smaller one. It seems the signal from Astra 1N is much less tightly footprinted for the FTA channels than it was when it was on some other Astra satellites.) This is probably not a permanent situation - it's something to do with Astra 1N (I think) and the coordinates which Sprostoni has mentioned sound good to me. 

Thanks to everyone for your help so far. This is a bit of a struggle for us because the chap who installed our dish also tuned in the decoder and we don't have instructions, PIN codes etc! Also, what satellite should we actually be aiming for now?. At the moment it shows some channels as Astra and some others as Hotbird. Is there a better decoder than GESER?. Might invest in a new one if necessary. As you can tell, we are not very expert in any of this so all help is very welcome. Thanks again

I have a home in France and can get everything as UK but you should not be able to get it even in North Italy with anything under a 100cm dish. I can't imagine it will last very long. I have an ordinary, non Sky receiver with an 80cm dish and find that I get the normal chennels from 28E but also quite a number of programmes from hotbird also. Very strange.