Irish Satellite Television Channels Costa Blanca Spain
Irish Satellite Television Channels are transmitted from the same group of UK TV satellite as BBC, ITV and Sky TV channels.
The Irish channels on the UK TV satellites, are spread across the four satellites, Astra 2a, Astra 2B, Astra 2D and Eurobird 1.
All channels currently require a Sky viewing card to view.
Irish TV channels such as RTE One, RTE 2, TG4 and TV3 are on the weaker Astra 2D satellite, and will require a big dish to be able to receive these channels. They are also on the weak Horizontal polarisation, and therefore may not be available all day. In fact in My area of the Costa Blanca, the reception of these Irish TV channels is slightly worse than reception of BBC2 England.
Some of the Irish versions of UK TV channels are also difficult to receive at certain times of the day. This is because they are on the North beam of the Astra 2a and Astra 2B satellite, and so reception will be weaker during the afternoon. This will affect channels such as Sky 1 Ireland, Sky Sport 1 Ireland, of the frequencies on Astra 2D are the ones that require a "big dish".
Other channels such as 3e are available on a smaller satellite dish.
The Irish Sky TV channels are only available to view with Sky viewing cards that are registered at an address in Ireland.
These are the Sky channels that have Irish variations:
RTÉ One
RTÉ Two
TG 4
TV 3
3e
Setanta Sports Ireland
Comedy Central Ireland
Discovery Channel Ireland
MTV Ireland
Sky SPorts 1 Ireland
Sky Sports 2 Ireland
Sky Sports News Ireland
Sky News Ireland
Sky 1 Ireland
More 4 Ireland
Channel 4 Ireland
Channel 4 Ireland +1
E4 Ireland
E4 Ireland +1
Nickelodeon Ireland
Comedy Central Ireland +1
Nick Jr Ireland
Irish TV channels are spread over many frequencies. The main Irish TV channels, like RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TG 4, TV 3 are available on frequency 10744 H 22000 5/6. Irish TV channel 3e is on frequency 11261 H 27500 2/3. These channels are not available on Freesat.
It is possible to programme your Sky receiver to default to the UK TV channels listings. This is particularly useful should you wish to watch the BBCi, BBC Sports Interactive services.
All you need to do is unplug your Sky box from the power, removed your Sky TV viewing card, and reboot the Sky box. The Sky box will boot up with the UK default regions, and you will also have access to BBC News on channel 503, from which, by pressing the Red Interactive button, you can access the BBC Sports multiscreen service.