Writing this newsletter in mid-July, the weatherman has turned the heat up to gas mark 9 and we are all melting. We much prefer this to the cold winters of UK, but it is exhausting – just achieving what would be half a ‘normal’ day tires me out. We should learn from the Spanish (who funnily enough have dealt with summer heat for centuries) – only work mornings, siesta in the afternoon and make the evenings after dark the ‘fun’ time, or even better, just don’t work in July and August!
Telephone call in July – “Hello Rainbow Satellites, my TV is not working!”
Reply – “Ok we will be round on September 5th!”
This just probably doesn’t work!
I am sure you have heard the word ‘Covid’ enough times, but we hope you all survived without too much inconvenience – I am just not sure where half a year went. I so hope the possible ‘second wave’ just does not materialise. Spain seems to be progressing out of the situation, but many other countries are still deep into infections.
The Rainbow Household is all well, including our foster dogs here for a while, but our ‘pond’ had a major setback with all the fish dying over a couple of days. We are trying a water treatment and aeration, but think it may be time for an empty, scrub and refill – but that’s an Autumn job.
TV NEWS
Over the last months we have reported on the demise of all FREESAT boxes as all the manufacturers have lost their licence from FREESAT to make the boxes. Then we reported that FREESAT were making their own boxes and would be the sole supplier in the future. They are marketing a standard TV viewing box and a recording box and we have purchased and tested both here in Southern Spain. The non-recorder should work on any sized dish, but the recording one will only be successful on a 1.80/1.90 dish as the FREESAT control frequency is now so weak in Spain that only the big dishes will pick up the signal to select and start/stop a recording.
This is not ‘clock’ based as most viewers think, but is based on a satellite signal actually saying the programme selected to record is now starting/stopping. This overcomes any time-changes to the schedules (news overruns etc) and any ‘extra’ programmes added to a series when ‘series link’ is selected.
For all you FREESAT fans, we can now provide a FREESAT replacement box – standard or recording if your existing box does fail, although we have to say that FREESAT, now being the exclusive supplier of boxes, prices seem to have taken a jump!
Just to clarify, this does not apply to SKY recording boxes. They are still available from SKY, who incidentally did the same as FREESAT and started making their own boxes with no other manufacturers being allowed to manufacture them. In any other industry this would be considered a ‘closed shop’ and be illegal under EU law, but the mighty powerful broadcast industry seems to get away with it. (I am now probably looking at a court case and jail term!!)
Internet TV (IPTV) has come on significantly recently, especially with the roll out of fibre-based internet. We have so many calls now saying to us “We now appreciate the problems were not with your TV system, but with our bad internet. Now we have fibre/decent internet supply, the TV is perfect.” We accept that the logic that “Our TV is unwatchable, so call the TV company.”, but IPTV requires two excellent services:
The TV system to be professional and managed.
An excellent internet service capable of running a TV package.
Of course Rainbow, as the TV supplier, have some problems at times, which we always admit to, often with an onscreen message explaining, but 95% of the issues reported to us turn out to be internet-related.
If your IPTV goes bad on you, please initially do a ‘speed test’ on your internet – download speed really must be +10, upload +1, ping below 80 and jitter below 8 – outside these values and it’s a call to internet provider – not TV supplier!
That’s it for August – another edition in September 2020.
Rainbow Satellites SL – the company for all your TV needs in the Murcia region of Spain.
For free friendly advice on any TV issue, email rainbowsats@gmail.com or call (0034) 686 358 475
www.rainbowsats.org
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