Find your way around satellite land

Relax and watch the news or sports broadcast or your favorite program
your holiday? For many Dutch people, this is as routine as getting a baguette from the camping shop early in the morning. But something has changed with the Astra-I satellite.

Watching television during your holiday is not getting any easier, since all Dutch channels have disappeared from the Astra-1 satellite, even BVN. The broadcasts of the three public broadcasters, but also those of RTL, Net-5 and SBS, have now been moved to the much weaker Astra-III satellite. BVN has now moved to the Hotbird Satellite. This places additional demands on the diameter of your satellite dish, especially for compatriots who winter in southern Spain or Portugal: 85 cm is then necessary.

In addition, your satellite receiver will also have to be suitable for HD, because the TV broadcasts from the Dutch channels will be broadcast in high quality from this year. So even if you stay closer, you will need an HD receiver due to the move from Astra-I to Astra-III. If you are about to purchase a new dish, BM-Sat Rijssen recommends the Oyster 85 Vision Skew. What is special about this satellite system is the oval dish with a diameter of 85 cm and the skew head, which ensures that the LNB (head) of the dish is also automatically rotated. This is necessary in the southernmost countries (including Portugal) if you also want good reception there.

The dish is suitable for the reception of all Dutch and Belgian television and radio channels via the Astra-III satellite and the German-language and other free channels that are broadcast via the Astra-I and BVN TV that is now broadcast via the Hotbird satellite. The satellite dish installation has a low installation height (17 - 22 cm) and can easily be attached to the roof of the camper/caravan.

A useful feature of the Oyster 85 Vision Skew is that the system is receiver-independent: you can connect it to any satellite receiver or television with a built-in satellite receiver, preferably one with a 'fast scan' function so that the TV channels are automatically programmed to the correct channels. . NPO-1 HD on channel 1, NPO-2 HD on channel 2 and so on. The Oyster 85 Vision Skew also has an automatic satellite change when selecting a channel from the receiver. So if you switch from RTL-4 to a German channel or BVN, the satellite antenna will automatically search for the correct satellite.

More information: www.bmsat.nl