TV Update - Condado de Alhama

I took my spare Sky box out a few days ago and connected it all up.  I didn't expect it to work at this stage, 'No Satellite signal is being received' was the inevitable message on screen. But at least it's over there for if and when something happens.

I called into the portacabin yesterday. Whilst last time I went (October) they were saying 'November' for English TV and telephone, now they are not willing to make any predictions at all !

Chris

Last week I was talking to Mark who is resident , in Jardin 10 I think, he and his family had just been watching Strictly Come Dancing.........yes BBC1 !

He had had a sky dish installed for cost 500 (euros/£?) not sure if this was 1 off payment or installation + contract etc.     Seemed expensive but if you live there permanantly and need to keep the kids happy...

Sorry I don't know any other details I'm afraid. 

 We bought a digital with TDT which has loads of tv & radio channels but only Disney and 1 other in English (it's years since I last watched Flipper , )  we're using it for DVD's and practicing Spanish for now.

Hi Kazzy,

If I lived on Condado perminently I would want SKY, the only way to get that is using a satellite, so I have three options.

1.  Buy the PW box at 400E.   ( If/when they decide what they are offering and if/when they connect the apartments up )

2. Pay PW 30E to connect me to the satallite feed ( see same conditions above )

3. Install my own dish.

At the moment there is nothing in the PW rules that would stop you putting you own dish up.  yes I know that at other resorts they are trying to get residents to take them down, but at the moment there is nothing to stop you.  If you are in the upstairs apartment it could go on the roof and no one could see it, unless they looked over the wall from next door

You can get a box, second hand off ebay for £30 or new for about £100, to get a good signal in Spain you would need a fair sized dish > 1.2M so that's about £200 plus a length of cable ( add £10 ).  so to put up your own system is around 240 to 300.   As Mark has found there are a large number of places in Spain that will install a system for you for a small fee, E500 is probably not bad if that included a new box and a good dish.

So the other options.   If PW do allow you to connect you own box, that has got to be the cheapest option, ok you might not get all the channels you want but it's only going to cost you 30E.  Comparing the cost of buying your own system 400E for the PW box isn't that bad, but again it's down to what channels are available and which ones you can't live without.

So.  For me I'm going to wait until PW get around to publishing a concrete service description of what TV services they are going to provide and at what cost.  Is I'm not out there full time I'll go you the cheapest option.   If I were there full time, I guess its down to now long PW take to get the system up and running and how long I could stand watching the sony station every night for. 

Phil

Latest update from Customer services.

Dear Mr Seex,

It´s clear that there has been an important delay in the start of the service. We apologise for the inconveniences.

All the technical material is already ordered to the provider as the General Direction of Polaris World has approved the estimation of the project a few weeks ago. But we are still waiting for the material, it seems to be a problem of the company in charge of the manufacture of the telecom material. The latest news I have from our Telecom Dept is to wait about 2 months to get all the material, then we´ll start to install and fit all the infrastructure in the resort, that should take us about 1 or 2 months more. In the mean time we have to deal with Telefonica to get the service out of the resort, which is not easy and not as quick as we want.

We made some tests 3 weeks ago in order to give a temporary service of Internet wifi in all the area of Jardines but we found some errors of connection in many areas of the resort. The solution would be to install a big data digital repeater, but it´s a very expensive project and we can´t afford it having approved the main Telecom project for Condado. All we can do at the moment is to set a public internet area in the snack bar and two public telephone cabins which are already installed.

The project of Satellite TV is on time and our technicians are in the last stage fitting the communal antennes in a plot near to the Sales Office. The service should be running in the following weeks with a wide offer of international channels.

We apologise for the delay and we want to transmit  the total guarantee on the execution of the Telecom infrastructure work.

Hopping this explanation will be helpful.

Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

With kind regards and

Wishing you Happy Christmas.

The only way to watch UK TV Legally in Spain is to get your own dish(will have to be a minimum of 1.8mtrs  to get all channels all day) and it will be freeview. Watching UKTV via any company that re broadcasts is illegal! so PW TV,and all the other TV companies showing UKTV are doing so without permission and could be switched off at anytime.

Sky TV is Illegal to watch outside the UK and ROI full stop! if you bring over your card or install in Spain your could be cut off immediately should they send a signal to your box/card and the reply comes from outside the UK. I know somebody who installed multiroom Sky in their parents house and moved to Spain with the spare box, they both got cut off and now the parents are not allowed Sky again!!

Surely the free view is enough for most people?

Hi Oldman40.

Yes and No.

It is not illegal to recieve sky tramittted FTA channels outside of the UK, with a freesat card you can also receive FTV channels.  It is illegal to use a UK subscription card to receive subscription channels outside the UK, that's one of the conditions in the contract, so that is down to the individual.

PW are not re broadcasting, they are providing a direct satellite feed, so there is nothing illigal about that.  You can use any astra capable reciever, either your own or the PW one.

Phil

BskyB has already stated that it is illegal to receive its programmes in Spain.
They authorise the reception of Sky TV in the UK and Ireland only.Although,BBC Prime have said customers can use their own equipment to view English programmes - more information available at www.bbcprime.com
It is an encrypted channel and customers need to buy a subscription to receive a smart card which enables them to receive up to 50 channels with BBC Prime being just one of them.

For those interested, the Guardia Civil  investigation into Costa Blanca rebroadcasting company Telmicro Levante SL remains ongoing. Everyone was cut of a little while ago from Orihuela Costa, Torrevieca and Camposol


It's all down to licences. The British TV companies only have permission to broadcast in the UK, and although they cannot stop you receiving their broadcasts via satellite, they can't be seen to allow it. For the same reason Sky don't really care if you take their equipment abroad, as they can simply say they didn't know. That's why you must never contact Sky from abroad- they would be obliged to cut your system off.

Free-to-air is a bit different in that there are no contracts involved, no money is changing hands and therefore no-one is losing out. However any company charging money to re-broadcast such material is surely going to get their collar felt at some point, as has already happened with Telmicro.  BUT...at the end of the day most of us out here have  our own big dish
and continue to view.  You could I suppose watch TV via the internet but you would need to find a UK proxy server to log on to otherwise they know your in Spain.
 

I do believe though that the expats site is trying to force freedom to broadcast accross EU frontiers, they scored a hit with the payment of DLA so lets hope they score with this.

Just going to watch true movies :)

Gents,

Does this mean that taking my spare digi-box out to Spain is a waste of time or not?   

I thought I could pick up the none-pay channels including BBC & ITV.......which is enough for me.   By-the-way, if it is illeagal to pick up sky in Spain, why is every golf club & many bar's allowed to do it.  I have been in hudreds across Spain that all have sky broadcasts on?

It seems a tad confusing

Skell

Can someone who has already purchased a TV for their apartment tell me how they have connected it  and exactly what you can receive at this moment in time.

My understanding is:

 That if you bought across a spare satalite box and used an adapter cable (from the screw thread "F" connector on the rear of the box to the standard aerial connector on the apartment wall) and paid PW 30 euro connection fee, you could receive all of the non-encrypted freesat channels.

That this is perfectly legal as PW are not re-broadcasting the signal, just providing a feed from it.

The companies shut down recently were receiving the sky signal, de-encryping it, then encrypting it for themselves and transmitting it to their customers which is totally illegal.

Hiya

I bought one last thursday (11th Dec) from Media Mart in Cartegena,  a Samsung 32" LCD. Not cheap 440 euros but well worth it I think.

I took over a 2m coax cable (normal cable for UK tvs) which I bought in Asda for a couple of quid. Plugged it in the wall and and in the TV. Pressed ok to auto tune and got approx 9 standard chancels and 40 digital chanels. Sony TV was the only English but I enjoyed it all the same watching Heroes etc

Graham

Skell,

You`ve got nothing to loose, I think  a pace  or Grundig work OK but some may have  limiters fitted. Depending on the size of the dish you should get all the freebies plus BBC/ITV  l.4 dish should be big enough.  I have l.4 at mo and pick up all the free to air.

Just had an telephone call from customer services regarding a query we made about when the tv/internet will be available. The advice was that they wont be for a while yet -they are still working on it and best she could offer is that we email customer services in a months time and they may have an estimate for when in 2009 it will all be available.  Apparently deliveries havent yet arrived and as Condado is so remote the whole process is proving quite challenging for the technicians.

Hi all,

I think we all have enough to keep us occupied for a while yet before we are able to rest our little buts on any sofa to watch t.v. don't you think? Shower screens, shelfs, mirrors, curtain poles, pictures all have to go up before buts can rest in peace.

Ali

just got back myself, doing 4 days of diy you know what i mean, then i bought a 32" lcd from macro in murcia for 299, plugged it in put in the coaxial and only got 11 standard spanish channels, you need a special coaxial for dtv as there are 2 connectors on the wall, will take a 1 over next time as with an old sky box and hope to get the digital channels like the carlisles,

cheers ant, noranjos 7

Reply re Internet phone TV e mail  from senior person at Polaris

It´s clear that there has been an important delay in the start of the service. My sincere apologies about it.

All the technical material is already ordered to the provider as the General Direction of Polaris World has approved the estimation of the project a few weeks ago. But we are still waiting for the material, it seems to be a problem of the company in charge of the manufacture of the telecom material. The latest news I have from our Telecom Dept is to wait about 2 months to get all the material, then we´ll start to install and fit all the infrastructure in the resort, that should take us about 1 or 2 months more. In the mean time we have to deal with Telefonica to get the service out of the resort, which is not easy and not as quick as we want.

We made some tests 3 weeks ago in order to give a temporary service of Internet wifi in all the area of Jardines but we found some errors of connection in many areas of the resort. The solution would be to install a big data digital repeater, but it´s a very expensive project and we can´t afford it having approved the main Telecom project for Condado. All we can do at the moment is to set a public internet area in the snack bar and two public telephone cabins which are already installed.

The project of Satellite TV is on time and our technicians are in the last stage fitting the communal antennes in a plot near to the Sales Office. The service should be running in the following weeks with a wide offer of international channels.

Please, give my apologies to all the neighbours you meet and transmit them the total guarantee on the execution of the Telecom infrastructure work.

Should you need further information or you want to discuss this or other matters, please feel free to contact me anytime.

Kind regards,

Are you sure ant noranjos 7?

Thats what  I thought until I played with the remote. Initially I have around 9 until I pressed the DTV button on the remote and discovered 40 or digital channels. I only used 1 of the plugs on the wall with 1 coax.

Graham

Unfortunately I continue to feel confused about the tv situation.

In October we bought and installed a tv. We got an array of Spanish channels and Disney (I think) and another in English (Murder She Wrote etc)  and some English football although the commentators were Spanish. When Dringmans email talks about:'   

"The project of Satellite TV is on time and our technicians are in the last stage fitting the communal antennes in a plot near to the Sales Office. The service should be running in the following weeks with a wide offer of international channels."

does this mean that just with the 30 euro PW connector we'd have SKY or is that part of the 400euro package plus 30euro SKY connection arrangement? Can anyone shed light on this?.

We have a spare SKY box we could bring over but if we bring our card it leaves a household staring bleakly at  blank screens around the house and apparently all life as known thus far will have ceased!

My understanding is that for 30 euro it allows you to connect your own receiver to the PW system and this will give you all the
Freestat channels available, except for the encrypted ones which are Channel 4 & 5 Fivelive and sky 3, to get these you need a sky viewing card which costs about £25.

The 400 Euro cost is to receive more of the dedicated  sky channels.

Thank you Phil.

graham,

yes quite sure mate, however not the best person with TVs, also tried dtv but no channels, will try again when i return, what jardin you in?

cheers ant