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Yacht Satellite TV in Europe | Sky UK on 28.2E | Sky Italia on 13E | Free to Air TV in the Mediterranean on 13E |The most common choices for English language satellite pay TV in Europe are Sky UK and Sky Italia, although there are other options including some free to air channels.
The obvious choice for English language channels is Sky UK although the coverage footprint is somewhat limited in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. Sky Italia has a much larger footprint including Croatia and Turkey, and has a surprising number of English language channels. Many Sky Italia channels can be watched in the original language, which is often English.
Sky UK and Sky Italia use totally different receivers and subscriptions. You cannot use one brand of receiver on the other satellites. Subscriptions and receivers are not inexpensive, especially when you have many receivers, so it is usually necessary to decide on one or the other. If you plan to go to the Eastern Med, Sky Italia is the way to go. I have provided Sky Italia service to several, English speaking yachts and they have all been more than satisfied with the service and available channel options.
Vessels that opted for Sky UK have often been dissapointed when travelling South or East in the Mediterranean. Problems are usually reported when the yachts sail as far South as Valencia on the Spanish coast, and the same in Naples on the Italian coast.
The obvious choice for English language channels is Sky UK although the coverage footprint is somewhat limited in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. Sky Italia has a much larger footprint including Croatia and Turkey, and has a surprising number of English language channels. Many Sky Italia channels can be watched in the original language, which is often English.
Sky UK and Sky Italia use totally different receivers and subscriptions. You cannot use one brand of receiver on the other satellites. Subscriptions and receivers are not inexpensive, especially when you have many receivers, so it is usually necessary to decide on one or the other. If you plan to go to the Eastern Med, Sky Italia is the way to go. I have provided Sky Italia service to several, English speaking yachts and they have all been more than satisfied with the service and available channel options.
Vessels that opted for Sky UK have often been dissapointed when travelling South or East in the Mediterranean. Problems are usually reported when the yachts sail as far South as Valencia on the Spanish coast, and the same in Naples on the Italian coast.
Yachts begin to lose channels on Sky UK when they travel as far south as Valencia in the Western Med, and Naples on the Eastern side. The signal does fill back in for a while below Naples, as shown by the yellow footprint on the map.
Although Sky UK has a much greater choice of English language channels to choose from, if you plan to cruise the southern or eastern Mediteranean, Sky Italia at 13E is often the better choice, as the footprint covers almost all the Mediterranean with a strong signal.
The footprint maps are approximate, and coverage toward the edge of the footprints could be quite variable with a 1 meter antenna.
European TV uses a Linear LNB with four outputs, Horizontal Low Band, Horizontal Hi Band, Vertical Low Band, Vertical High Band. The required bands are selected by the receiver, and the multiswitch changing the supply voltage to the LNB between 13V and 18Volts for horizontal or vertical, and 22KHz tone on and 22KHz tone off for high and low band.
My brother lives in Palma, Mallorca and purchased a homestyle receiver and dish from the local, large hardware store chain for less than €100. Along with mostly Spanish channels, he gets several English language, basic channels on satellites at 13E an 19E and the occasional movie. This could be an option for the yacht that just requires news channel updates and casual, unsophisticated entertainment. There is no monthly subscription fee for this service.