Picking up F1 from RTX next year

[Mark Gillespie]

there is no way on this planet I will be paying Sky for F1 next season, I would rather not watch it, however much of an F1 nut I am.

I have heard it's possible to pickup the Free RTL feed (and listen to R5 Live for the commentary), however it requires some kit.. Some someone help me out on what's needed...

I currently have a

[Mark Gillespie]

there is no way on this planet I will be paying Sky for F1 next season, I would rather not watch it, however much of an F1 nut I am.

I have heard it's possible to pickup the Free RTL feed (and listen to R5 Live for the commentary), however it requires some kit.. Some someone help me out on what's needed...

I currently have a Samsung SMT-S7800 Freesat box (which I am very happy with). As this will be the only thing I watch on "non-astra", I don't mind manually switching LNB or stuff once every couple of weeks (can it be done with a switch box?). Will I need a bigger dish and some "cranked" LNB arm? Does the Samsung SMT-S7800 allow manual tuning to non-Astra frequencies?

Any help in screwing over Muchdoch/Ecclestone and saving my bank balance at the same time much appreciated.

[Mark Gillespie]

Hmm, not sure where the X came from, it's not even close to the L button :-)

[Andy Burns]

If you already have a dish, that will almost crtianly be pointing as

28.2E for the cluster of satellites used by FreeSat, Sky and other FTA channels.

You could out up a 2nd dish pointing at 19.2E which RTL and many other channels use, but planning restrictions probably disallow that, depends how likely you think enforcement is.

Alternatively you can put a 2nd LNB (the feed horn + gubbins at the end of the arm) onto the same dish, this assumes the dish is large enough (a sky mini dish may not be) and the bracketry is available to support the extra LNB (again unlikley for a non-standard sky dish unless you go the DIY meccano route)

Standard eliptical dishes (taller than wide) use circular LNBs, sky mini dishes (wider than tall) use eliptical LNBs.

You can either run a separate cable from each LNB to separate receivers, or fit a diseqc switch at the dish end to allow either (not both) LNB to be selected, again a sky receiver won't allow this, probably not a FreeSat one either, but an FTA one will (perhaps a FreeSat one put into FTA mode too).

Depends what kit your've got and how much more you can get away with ... the elusive half finished sentence ...

[Michael Chare]

You are not the only one!

See:

?t=1510300I you don't like Niki Lauda you can get the race itself from TF1 Suisse on 9E. It is FTA DVB-S2

[The Natural Philosopher]

will there be any internet video feeds?

I can cope with R5LSX as a commentary.

A satellite dish is..probably a step too far.

[Michael Chare]

Where I live with 30 miles of London, internet TV is just a dream.

I think that the French are quite keen on that sort of thing so it might be worth seeing if you can stream TF1.

[The Natural Philosopher]

really? it only takes about 1.5Mbps for stock and about 3.5M for HD...

TF1 eh?

I'll ask next year for details..

[Michael Chare]

I think I am doing quite well if I can get my IP profile up to 1250kbps.

with patience I can watch some of a programme on my PC with the iPlayer, but trying to use my so called Internet TV is a waste of time.

[The Natural Philosopher]

gosh yes. Out here in the sticks its sometimes BETTER where habitation tends to cluster into villages, than the outer london suburban sprawl..