Will standard sky dish be enough in Finland?

n-j · 18-10-2009, 11:57 PM

Hi,
I'm just about to move to Finland and have had a good nosey about to see other people's threads on moving abroad. I'm nit sure I fully understand the required spec of the dish though. I've looked here
Watch Sky TV in Finland, Sky Cards for Finland: Insat International.
but I have no idea if my bog standard dish is worth taking with me?
I have a Sky + box so I understand I'll lose the recording and playback functionality and I'll either have to live with FTA, pay for a freesat card (for only 3 or 4 channels, is that right? seems kinda crap) or pay insat an annual fee on top of a sky subscription fee to keep viewing all the good stuff over there.

Any advice?

cheers
Nj

Geofbob · 19-10-2009, 12:03 AM

With respect, why don't you simply put your various queries to the people at the website you've quoted - after all, in order to get Sky in Finland you'll have to use them or some similar firm. As for the dish, I would have thought that one way or another it may cost more - and certainly be more trouble - to ship it, than to buy one there.

PS I don't think you'll be keeping up your own subscription to Sky - the point is that your're not supposed to get Sky UK in Finland, that's why companies like Insat exist.

n-j · 19-10-2009, 12:38 AM

Thanks for your reply. I wanted to ask on here first for an impartial opinion rather than ask a company who will be angling for me to buy equipment off them. I'd be interested to know if my dish would most likely suffice so that I could start off with just FTA channels before even buying anything at all from a company such as Insat.

As for shipping, well i'm already sending 2 very large shipping crates over and although they are well packed I could possibly get the dish in there too if it's worth it.

I didn't intentionally imply that I would be keeping up my current subscription but rather "a" subscription with sky as per Insat's pages here Monthly Packages - Insat International

cheers
nj

MartinPickering · 19-10-2009, 5:53 AM

Depends on what channels you want to watch but an ordinary Sky minidish won't get you any. See the dish-size maps here: fprint

llama · 19-10-2009, 6:50 AM

I believe you need a 120cm dish for Sweden (where I am based now, unless you get a 110cm lined up perfectly, it can break up in heavy rain), and I know of someone that uses a 350cm one in Egypt (although BBC breaks up), so I would imagine your looking at at least 120cm for Finland. I will try and get some more accurate information for you.

n-j · 19-10-2009, 7:46 AM

brilliant, thanks lads. just what I was after. Think i'll leave the mini dish where it is an avoid arsing about taking it with me. I'll bring the sky+ box though.

lovelldr · 19-10-2009, 9:12 AM

OK, looking on this site, it appears that astra 2a and 2b will be receivable with a 60cm dish, but astra 2d will require far in excess of a 120cm dish?! For a look at which channels are on which satellite, look at the links below:

Astra 2A
Astra 2B
Astra 2D

As for Eurobird1, that will probably need a slightly larger dish size (about 75-95cm according to lynsat maps)...

Geofbob · 19-10-2009, 3:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n-j

Thanks for your reply. I wanted to ask on here first for an impartial opinion rather than ask a company who will be angling for me to buy equipment off them. I'd be interested to know if my dish would most likely suffice so that I could start off with just FTA channels before even buying anything at all from a company such as Insat.

As for shipping, well i'm already sending 2 very large shipping crates over and although they are well packed I could possibly get the dish in there too if it's worth it.

I didn't intentionally imply that I would be keeping up my current subscription but rather "a" subscription with sky as per Insat's pages here Monthly Packages - Insat International

cheers
nj

Of course, to get FTA channels, you wouldn't need to deal with Sky or Insat, but could get a local installer to put up the appropriate dish (or put it up yourself) & use your Sky box or any other generic satellite receiver. (A Sky viewing card is needed only for a few Sky-only FTA channels.)

I now understand about the Sky subscription & Insat fee on top. In fact, Insat make the deal between the customer & Sky seem direct & straightforward, but this is possibly not quite the case. You might be interested in this webpage on this aspect - is this legal outside uk ?

As for shipping, I suppose I was thinking of you stuffing the dish in a wheelie-case - but now realise this was foolish of me!

n-j · 24-10-2009, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geofbob

I was thinking of you stuffing the dish in a wheelie-case - but now realise this was foolish of me!

haha. yeah that would have been a trip straight to the oversized baggage queue. Cheers for that link. I reckon i'll be best just speaking to a local who fits satellite and see what's best. Such a same to end up using a sky+ box as a freeview box and not have access to the full functionality.

AdiHH · 25-11-2009, 3:30 PM

I would wait before trying to set a Sky digibox up. Finnish TV broadcasts a lot of shows in English. The trouble you'll have is that Finland is quite a long way East, so is out of range for the normal UK channels (BBC, ITV, 4, 5). You should be able to get the Sky premium channels with a fair-sized dish but you'll also have to contend with more atmospherics affecting signal quality too when it's not summer (snow in the air and on the dish).

n-j · 25-11-2009, 3:56 PM

cheers for the advice. It does seem quite a bit of hassle when a lot of english channels are available through relatively normal routes here. For the meantime the missus seems happy enough to watch her junk via the online players (we've paid for a month's proxy server access so we can get ITV and BBC players. I'm getting Top Gear and she's getting Xfactor. Thank god I can watch Top Gear at the same time with headphones on)