Best satellite dish for Costa Blanca…? You may be surprised…
What is the best satellite dish for reception of UK TV in the Costa Blanca and Valencia areas of Spain?
If you believe what you read and hear then you will have thought it was the Famaval 1.4m “hi gain” satellite dish.
Nor is it the Tecatel 125x135cm satellite dish which is out own preferred satellite dish to install.
We were called to a clients to install a satellite dish that they had been given by a friend.
It is a Channel Master 1.2m offset satellite dish.
The Channel Master 1.2m measures 120cm horizontally and 130cm vertically across the face of the dish.
This makes it smaller than the Famaval 1.4m “hi gain” satellite dish, that measures 125x137cm across the face of the satellite dish, and smaller than the Tecatel dish which measures 125x135cm across the face of the dish. These two satellite dishes perform equally as well as each other, but the Tecatel dish has the edge
However, during installation, we found that the signal levels on this Channel Master 1.2m dish are far better than the larger Famaval and Tecatel satellite dishes.
In fact the signal levels were excellent.
As an example, I tested the reception of Challenge TV, which is currently transmitted on a “north beam” frequency, making it tricky to receive mid afternoon. At the time of the comparison, the Famaval 1.4m satellite dish was not receiving “Challenge TV”, yet the Channel Master dish was receiving Challenge TV.
Although the performance of this Channel Master dish is quite something, outperforming satellite dishes that are slightly larger, the cost of the dish is reflects this, being about twice the price. These Channel Master dishes are not as readily available as the Tecatel 125×135 satellite dishes.
A very nice and well performing satellite dish. Just a shame the cost and availability make it less desirable than other satellite dishes which are cheaper and more readily available.
Is there a difference in the metal used in the dish?
I have never understood why two dishes of same size but of different makes can be so different in performance.The results of the Channel Master would confirm that size isn’t everything!
There is not much, if any, difference in performance between the two dishes (tecatel 125×135 and famaval “1.4m”) that are used here on the Costa Blanca.
But yes, metal used can be a factor, as is what covering /coating is used, but then the CM is a “thermoset-molded glass fiber reinforced polyester” dish.
Hiya, just been reading your dish comparisons… With great interest as I have been researching replacement dishes for our aunts home here in Spain (la Font/El campello). There is currently an very old what looks to be an 80 or 90cm dish at the rear of the property mounted at gutter level, amazingly enough I hung my trusty Humax 1000s on the end of the cable and fired it up, to my amazement we had maltitude of channels with the most obvious BBC 1 and 2 plus ITV 1 missing due to lack of signal. I popped into the settingsenu and got the signal strength guide up, with the aid of my wife and a long handled brush I decided to push and flex the dish to see the effect on the signal… to my amazement after a few prods mainly in the upward direction of the lnb arm the signal level reached sufficient to receive theissing channels, admittedly very pixelated but after a search of the other channels I found I was able to receive a watchable PIC on virtually all channels. Having spoken and emailed a few local installers in the area they all seem to recommend the Famaval 1.4m dish. So back to your arrival which was an interesting read… I guess we’ll see how things pan out when I have the upgrade carried out. Thanks for an interesting read.
To be honest, I personally find the Tecatel 125x135cm dish performs much better than the Famaval 1.4m dish in my service area.
I think most installers recommend the Famaval 1.4m dish as it is slightly cheaper for them to buy from their supplier than the Tecatel dish. And they fall for the propaganda that says it is the best performing dish!
The Famaval does have one advantage, it is less weight than the Tecatel dish.