Satellite Receivers

The Astra 1A satellite was sent into orbit over Europe in December 1988 and created history for satellite television. With help of a 60cm. dish Astra 1A had 16 analog channels which could be received in Europe. With the launch of the satellite many low-cost satellite receivers were available in the market, they were 16-channel receivers, the sound was mono and there was no remote control.

Most of these receivers were manufactured in the Far East; they were of a poor quality and were just good enough to receive Astra. People bought them with a lot of enthusiasm because everyone wanted to join the satellite TV revolution, but in a short period of time they were discarded by the consumers, firstly because the quality and design were so bad, and secondly because technology was rapidly advancing and there were better receivers and better services available.

So Astra launched its second satellite after 3 years, and then 32 channels were made available. Today there are hundreds of channels through the several Astra satellites and the Astra receivers are both analog and digital. Now of course all the English language channels are scrambled and that is why a decoder is a necessity.

Astra Receivers belong to one of the satellite systems in the UK. If you want to base a complete Astra 2 or Astra 1 system, choose the correct dish kit to suit your system and a big motorized dish is required if you want to get all the Astra channels which means Astra 1, 2 and 3.

For watching anime programs (the Japanese form of animation programs) Astra receivers are the best. Any basic Astra receiver outfit is basically the only hardware required to receive anime programs. Even a decoder is not necessary, but it is nevertheless useful to have a teletext and with it a PAL video recorder with SP.

An Astra receiver is one of the cheaper satellite receiving units, and since they are being de-installed by many people, it is possible to pick up one of the analog Astra outfits for a reasonable amount. It may even be possible to get a multi-satellite capable receiver or a free-to-air digital receiver, which can receive digital signals from anywhere.

The size of the dish needed depends on your location, the quality of the receiving equipment and of course the satellites of your interest. For an Astra Receiver a 60 cm. dish is good enough. Let the dish be installed by professionals, because this sort of technical task is risky and if it goes wrong, you end up paying more money than what you have saved by buying a cheap Astra receiver.

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