23/12/2012 00:00
TW
0

Readers in the North and North East of Majorca and all of Minorca have already experienced almost complete loss of Channel 5, however local rumors were unfounded in regard to Majorca losing BBC and ITV on the 16th of December, this predication was possibly caused by a satellite technician working in the South of Spain, interviewed on local radio with little working satellite knowledge of the Balearic islands.

Ocean Satellites predicated the loss of Channel 5 on Twitter and other social media before Majorca actually started to have any problems with this group of channels.

So we were glad to hear that Sean Connolly from Ocean says we will not have any problems with losing BBC and ITV until after the summer 2013.
However he goes on to say we are very close to a catastrophic loss of Channel 4 and a large number of Sky channels including most of Sky sports as early as January or February.

Connolly predicates loss in Alaro, Inca, Pollensa, Alcudia, Arta , Cala Millor and all of Minorca on dishes smaller than 1.6M on the following channels.

January/ February signal to drop on: l Sky Sports 1'3, F1, Sky Sports HD 3'4, F1HD, Eurosports 2HD. l Channel 4, 4+1, More4, E4, E4+1, More4 l Entertainment channels like UK Gold, Commended Central, Dave, Sky One HD, Sky Atlantic HD. l Most of the documentary group of channels . l Some of the music channels including MTV and VH1 · More than 5 of the Sky movie HD channels. He says that Calvia, Palma and even Cala D'or will not be affected by these changes in January and February even on smaller 1.35M dishes provided the dish is well aligned.

However he goes on to say there is a new Arab satellite which will be transmitting very powerful signals close to Sky which will cause further interference problems from April 2013.

The reason for this is that the Arab signals are strong and the Sky signal is weak so it causes cross interference to the weaker Sky signal in fringe areas of the signals such as Majorca and further South.

There is further bad news, it is predicated that BBC and ITV are under threat, when they migrate from their current strong signal location which currently works in Majorca and Minorca on a 1.1M dish to a weaker new satellite due to be launched in August 2013.

This new satellite is designed around a similar tight focus signal as the current Channel 5, the strength of the exact signal level is not certain, but it is should be somewhere between 15 % stronger or 15% weaker than the new Channel 5 satellite, if its stronger then all of Majorca will be able to receive BBC & ITV on a 1.35M dish.

If it was the same as the new Channel 5 then it would work in the South West on current satellite dishes and on 1.6M dishes in the North and the North East and Minorca.

If on the other hand it was 15% weaker, then the South West would only need 1.6M dish and the rest of Majorca and Minorca would need 1.8 or 2M dishes.

The cost of a 1.6M aluminium dish is in the region of 500E to 650 euros, and can be easily installed on a building wall, a well worth investment considering it's a one off investment compared to paying monthly to watch the BBC on the internet .

However if one needs a jumbo 1.8 or 2M dish they become too heavy to be mounted on a wall and costs more than 1'000 euros. At that point internet options are more viable provided your internet speed is more than 2.6Mbps such as Freeview IPTV set top box which costs around 200 euros for the box and 30 euros per month for the subscription.