Well June will be half the year gone – from the 21st days will be getting shorter! For a third of that time we have been in lockdown – a very strange time for us all. Writing this in mid-May to meet print deadlines, Murcia has just entered phase 1, giving us a little bit of freedom, but the Murcian President has just announced that he is considering putting Murcia back to phase “0” as the numbers infected and dying of the virus are increasing. Where we will all be during the first week of June when you read this no-one can predict! I just hope its phase “2” or even “3”.
Many of you will know that Rainbow Satellites work very closely with Friends of Mazarrón Animals (FMA) and during the lockdown we have continued our animal support. Things have got tougher as animals are abandoned with many families’ finances are in difficult times. We have not been able to fundraise by our usual community events, but some reserves and generous donations have kept us going to date. We are looking at having to stop as money dwindles and commitments rise.
Every Euro counts and any help you can give would be appreciated.
Rainbow Satellites are running the FMA 100 Club – €2 per week will give you the chance to win €100 with better odds than any other lottery. There is a maximum of 100 members – few numbers left at time of writing – contact us please.
TV News
During lockdown we were not allowed to travel to clients’ houses to maintain TV services. It was not considered an essential service although we would suggest TV in lockdown is! We maintained a telephone maintenance service and we think managed to get all clients at least some TV back. We don’t think anyone who contacted us was left with nothing.
Now on phase “1” we can travel and have caught up with all ‘emergency’ jobs – masks, gloves and distancing insisted on. Hopefully soon we can start ‘regular’ jobs. The big issue has been the transition into summer satellite signals when they significantly reduce in strength – this only affects viewers using a satellite system. People with 1.80m dishes should not have seen any great difference as the dish has enough spare capacity to cope with the summer signals, but anything smaller will have seen some channels lost or breaking up. One of the big problems is the FREESAT box control signal that has gone extremely weak and is only just readable on a 1.80m now – smaller dishes cannot see it at all. On dedicated FREESAT boxes (Humax, Manhattan, Echostar plus others) this will affect TV listings and more importantly the ability to record future programmes. Most people think that setting a programme to record simply sets a clock in the box to switch on at the set time and record the programme – it is not like that. Let’s say you set Coronation Street to record at 7.30 tonight – the box will continually monitor the FREESAT control frequency for the signal that Coronation Street is about to start and then start recording. This system allows for any late running or complete programme shifts. If the box cannot see the FREESAT control frequency because it is just too weak, it will never see Coronation Street starting and never record it. The big problem is often the box sees a weak signal that ‘comes and goes’ and gets corrupted, so it records ‘odd’ things, or it sees Coronation Street start and switches on, but misses the programme finishing and records for hours. If you see ‘Recording Failed’ or odd recordings, this is the reason. The only solutions are a bigger dish, wait until the signals are stronger in the winter months or internet TV! This has catch up and does not need you to record.
Ask us to install a free no-obligation IPTV demonstration and 7 day trial if your recording schedule is not working. It can be cheaper than a bigger dish.
If you are ‘puzzled’ by internet TV or have had bad experiences in the past, try Rainbow Satellites for the free week – things have come a long way since the original ‘android’ boxes and it will not be many years before the only way to watch TV will be by the internet.
That’s it for June!
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
Tel (0034) 686 358 475
www.rainbowsats.org
You can also find us (and like us!) on Facebook.
More TV news in July 2020.