Wise after the event

As you already know; Guardia Civil officers dismantled Telmicro's huge transmitter and satellite dishes in Los Montesinos. Then a day later, the company itself began dismantling another transmitter in La Siesta, claiming it was for “final checks and preparations.”

So, as I've said previously, it doesn't look as though Telmicro will be back on air in the near future. In fact many are now speculating that they may never return. The company haven't helped the situation for their customers by making announcements promising a return to service in the near future.

It seems that the only way to get UK TV legally here in Spain is to install a large dish and an LNB pointing to either Astra2D or the Eurobird satellite. Installing readily available consumer products and equipment designed to receive these satellite transmissions along with a free to air ‘digi’ box means that you are not infringing any copyright laws or licenses.

Advice from the Astra 2D site is:-

Use the biggest dish you can, bigger really is better, this will dramatically increase gain better than any other link in the chain.
Use a good LNB, a Blueline MTI or Invacom if possible, don't be fooled by fancy low noise claims or expensive "top of the range" LNB's.
Use a good quality cable, change this every few years, as this can become damaged by hot, cold or wet weather.
Choose a good receiver, one with the lowest signal "Threshold", this is the level at which the receiver will give you a watch able picture.

The problem comes when you try to site the large dish that is required (2.4m is suggested for this area). It has to be in the right place. A solarium is usually the best bet but only if you have one and want to give that up for other use.

One group here at Villas Andrea have solved that problem. Rather than each have an expensive dish filling their solariums, they share the signal from an oversize dish between several houses. The households involved shared the cost of the installation of the dish and cabling. Each home has its own free to air box so they can choose which channels to watch. The person who houses the dish then charges rent to the others for use of his solarium. Hopefully the dish is well secured because we do get strong winds here from time to time.

Actually, it's a pity the builders didn't anticipate this problem. They could have sited a huge dish on one of the unused parcels of land and cabled a feed to each house just as they did with the supply of propane gas. It wouldn't have suited those who wanted Sky but would have been legal. It would also have saved those who subsequently subscribed to Telmicro in terms of both money and frustration.