All is well in the Rainbow house although very hot. The dogs sleep all day while the Englishmen go out to work! The garden is ‘stationary’ as every August all the plants just seem to hang on, fighting the intense heat with growth coming back in the autumn. Gardening is certainly different in Spain. Don’t treat it like your UK garden – you will have failures. There are lots of good books to follow.
We now have a foster dog, Izzy, that has settled in well from being a very nervous girl. She has a home in Jersey lined up – we are just waiting for transport arrangements. We work with Friends of Mazarron Animals. Look on Facebook to see lots of fantastic work with local animals – maybe consider becoming a foster home.
TV NEWS
Most of the calls with problems are from Satellite system users – the UK satellite signals are at their annual low in midsummer. They drop about 20% from the winter levels and as they are very low anyway – hence the huge dishes required – the summer levels often cause channels to drop out. With the BBC and ITV channels you can sometimes change region to get a better signal, but in general there is no magic answer. Options are a bigger dish (not recommended as the system has a limited life), wait until autumn comes along when signals should get stronger, or swap to internet TV which is the long term answer. If you have an official Freesat box, (it will have Freesat on the front panel), we suggest you do not try to rescan it in the hope of improved signals. These boxes are controlled by a satellite signal that is extremely weak in Spain and if you try to rescan then they can ‘freeze’ mid procedure leaving you with no TV. The only option then is to connect them to a huge perfectly aligned dish to scan and then return to your dish where reception will be no better. If you get in this position we can take the box home, rescan and return to you. This note of caution does not apply to SKY boxes that use a different control frequency. That is one of the stronger signals down here, although rescanning any ‘official’ box will not improve any reception problems. It can help universal satellite boxes that do not automatically update – it gets confusing – best call in an expert to advise you on your problem and resolve professionally, if possible.
Within not too many years internet TV will be the only way to watch UK TV in Spain and not many years after that, the only way to watch any TV. This transmission method is really in its infancy and there have been problems during its development. We speak to many who say “We tried that and never again”, but it must be accepted that technology has moved on. Internet TV is now reliable and easy to use. If you have had a bad experience, ask us to give you a demonstration of the new systems and we will let you keep a box for up to a week at no charge so that you can really assess the latest developments. This offer also applies to anyone who has not tried internet TV and is thinking of trying. Nothing to lose – if you don’t like or don’t want it after a week we just take it away.
As well as needing a good TV supplier with a properly managed product you will need very good stable internet of at least 10MBS speed and good routing abilities. Well over 90% of TV viewing issues that come to us turn out to be an internet issue that the provider has to correct. So often we are told “Nothing wrong with our internet as we can send emails and shop on Amazon”, but TV viewing has a new huge demand on the internet that sometimes the ISP cannot handle. If it is a problem from our end it will affect all of our clients including us and we will know and fix the problem, but so often we start to get calls from clients with viewing issues and soon it becomes apparent that all the calls are from clients using the same internet provider! We accept the natural reaction of “TV gone bad – call TV provider”, but often it is not us – however, once we establish an internet issue, we can contact the provider telling them of a general issue.
Finally, if you are new to Spain, or if you are moving house, do not get talked into buying a new satellite system for your UK TV reception. You will need a massive satellite dish and the cost will be around 1000€ plus -and as we have said the system will be ‘dead’ in a few years. Go the internet route. Get us to look at your options before you commit to either a TV system or an internet provider.
Rainbow Satellites SL – the company for all your TV needs in the Murcia region of Spain. Contact us for free friendly advice on any TV issue.
Email rainbowsats@gmail.com
Tel (0034) 686 358 475
www.rainbowsats.org
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