Hi Val
Just a few lines to close the matter:
So there it is, you’ve either got it or you haven’t, BBC and ITV that is!
Over the past few months there has been much speculation over whether or not viewers in Spain and France (and elsewhere in the European Conundrum) would be able to receive their daily dose of Corrie or Eastenders. However this all came to fruition at the end of last week when horrors, viewers woke up to find that all BBC channels had gone and even worse this morning, that ITV had gone the same way. You could hear the groans all the way from the Costa Blanca.
Heavens above what’s going on, is there some sort of vendetta against expats? Winter fuel allowance gone, no more free NHS treatment for early retirees, extortionate fees to replace a UK passport.
Well none of these, rather the fact that like all of us mortal souls, the older satellite had come to the end of its working life and is now destined to spend the next zillion years floating around the universe until of course Sandra Bullock should embark on another interstellar adventure.
So to keep all the Brits happy, a new satellite was designed by the French (Astrium) and launched by those Ruskies last year, however, due to arguments about who exactly could use it, it didn’t become operational until this year. For those out there of a technical nature, the new satellite weighs 6 tonnes and has a 40m wingspan and is based on the (apparently) highly reliable Eurostar E3000 platform. It carries 60 Ku-band transponders, including 12 incremental transponders as well as 4 Ka-band transponders, incroyable as they say!
The long awaited day finally arrived resulting in a large scale loss of reception in southern France, particularly below a line eastwards and westwards of Toulouse and total mayhem in Spain where it was reported that people were “running about like headless chickens”. Some say that a re-tune will help or perhaps a bigger dish might be the answer to all their prayers. Now whilst the sight of giant dishes can be somewhat awe inspiring, the thought of the local countryside resembling Jodrell Bank doesn’t bear thinking and anyway, in true French tradition, planning permission is required for any dishes over 1metre in diameter requiring the submission of 15 pages of information in quintruplet.
So there you have it, for the lucky few that currently enjoy frackle free reception, you can rest in comfort that at the very least, you can rely on watching the next 15 new series of Top Gear as Astra 2E is not due for replacement until 2028!
Yours from the Dog Bed
Tony
Val says - intrigued , are you in the dog house? Surely not.
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