Watching LM 24hr at Le Mans?!?

[Algie]

Hey folks,

Been a long time lurker but seldom posted on PH.

I've been an LM regular now for the last 9 years but last year was an all time low. We couldn't find a sat feed for the TV for love not money.

We have a fairly basic Sat TV set up thats done us proud in previous years but last year no matter which satellite we locked onto we couldn't find a feed for the whole race.

Does anyone have a decent source for the race while we're there? We're not worried about which language it's in (we'll be listening to the excellent radio coverage) but the TV coverage really adds to the experience while we're not at the track.

[vincegail]

German Eurosport is the one to go for if I remembered well. I don't have a satellite myself, but this question comes up once in a while and German Eurosport seems to be free to air IIRC.

[Printertosh]

Here's what I posted a couple of years back incase that's any good for you:

For easier positioning use a Sky Satellite Box, connect it to TV and place TV so you can see the screen while you move the dish about:

With a Sky HD box - press services button on remote, then spanner symbol, then signal, this should show you strength bars and network i.d. / transport stream codes once the dish is fixed correctly. After a while the sky will reset so you'll have to go through the process of getting it back up on screen via services button again!

With an older sky box - press services button, 4 system setup, 6 signal test to show codes and strength of signal. Again after a while the sky will reset so you'll have to go through the process of getting it back up on screen via services button again!

Watch out for these network id's and transport stream codes while adjusting dish, once they lock gently adjust the dish to get best signal strength / quality

Astra 2 at 28.2'E
(sky with british eurosport - you'll need a sky card linked to the box to get any pay sky channels/ uk eurosport,
free ones will appear anyway on a sky box or a freesat box)
Network ID is 0002
Transport Stream is 07d4

Astra 1 at 19.2'E (for german eurosport - once you've positioned the dish you'll need to input: Frequency - 12226 H, FEC - 27500 manually on the freesat box and maybe enable non freesat channels via the menu)
Network id = 0001
Transport Stream = 042c

Hope this helps anyone who's a bit stuck

[Printertosh]

I imagine the German Satellite should be easier to pick up than Sky, as Sky repositioned their beam over the uk and Ireland a couple of years ago as they had copyright issues in mainland Europe. As a result you generally need a bigger dish to pick up the UK programs but I think a few people are still managing to do it with a standard size dish if there's nothing in the way.

[Tyre Smoke]

Never had a problem at LM picking up Sky with the dish on the caravan. Signal quality and strength the same as at home.



This was a couple of years back, but the dish is about the same size as at home.

[Algie]

Thanks for the replies folks, we have previously used German Eurosport for coverage and had become quite competent at finding the satellite and tuning the box.

For some reason last year we just couldn't find it despite hours of trying amongst us. The online consensus seemed to be that it had moved to a pay-per-view channel as the TV rights had been bought out.

I'll dig out the Satellite kit (its sits patiently in a van for 11 months of the year waiting for LM to come back round!) UK side before we go and see if we can find it from here (I'm fairly Southern so may be able to get it) thanks for he guide ;-)

[nutsytvr]

Printertosh said:

I imagine the German Satellite should be easier to pick up than Sky, as Sky repositioned their beam over the uk and Ireland a couple of years ago as they had copyright issues in mainland Europe. As a result you generally need a bigger dish to pick up the UK programs but I think a few people are still managing to do it with a standard size dish if there's nothing in the way.

Sky is easily obtainable throughout France and Spain, it's only BBC, ITV, C4, C5 that have reduced their coverage and even those channels are available until about the Dordogne, and even further south with an 80cm dish.

[Algie]

Thanks again,

I'll report back with my success/failure in a few weeks

[E36GUY]

We use a boggo size Sky dish at our house in Arnage mounted on a pole strapped to a tree and it works well enough. Took a while to find the right satellite the first time but we get British Eurosport via someone's sky box

[DJFish]

Gents,
We’re thinking of dipping a toe into the murky world of satellite feeds, looking at the el cheapo option from ALDI
https://www.aldi.co.uk/p/082985201199900
Is it simply a case of finding the correct satellite, hooking up to a tv and Bob’s your Uncle?

[Algie]

Any basic sat box with a dish attached will do the job. We amanged to get it again last year for the majority of the race. Think there was about 16 hours of free coverage on Eurosport iirc

I think our issue in 2016 was a sat dish problem. We replaced it and found all the usual channels

[ollie2017uk]

We take a sky HD box and a 60cm Zone 2 sky dish. Never fail to receive full SKY in Lemans all sports and movies etc. We did get stuck one year when the dish (tripod mounted) fell over in the wind and broke the arm, however our lovely neighbours hooked us into their dish. After this we took a spare 100mm drum with some F connectors just incase it ever happened again! We also procured ourselves a metal stand which takes 4 450 slabs and a 3m metal pole!! Seems to do the trick!

Edited by ollie2017uk on Sunday 27th May 08:42

[DJFish]

Great campsite engineering!

Do you need a subscription & a card for your sky box?

Excuse the daft questions but I have no idea when it comes to Sky...

[ollie2017uk]

Yeah you do, I take the multiroom box from the bedroom

[JT3K]

Got the dish out yesterday with an Icecrypt decoder on it and after the ceremonial "pointing at Hotbird and swearing for 30 minutes" and the traditional "wind blows the dish over just after it's been aligned to Astra 19.2E" was out of the way I got a channel scan going. Picked up a hundred channels or so with a 94% signal rate and got good video/audio from them. Definitely Astra as I got an unencrypted MTV & Nickelodeon stream and it was a "blind scan".

Eurosport wasn't there. Spent a couple of hours fiddling but no joy (skew, tighter alignment, LNB settings in box, etc). Manually scanning 12226/27500 didn't help either. Anyone offer any insight? I'm at a loss here!

[ollie2017uk]

JT3K said:

Got the dish out yesterday with an Icecrypt decoder on it and after the ceremonial "pointing at Hotbird and swearing for 30 minutes" and the traditional "wind blows the dish over just after it's been aligned to Astra 19.2E" was out of the way I got a channel scan going. Picked up a hundred channels or so with a 94% signal rate and got good video/audio from them. Definitely Astra as I got an unencrypted MTV & Nickelodeon stream and it was a "blind scan".

Eurosport wasn't there. Spent a couple of hours fiddling but no joy (skew, tighter alignment, LNB settings in box, etc). Manually scanning 12226/27500 didn't help either. Anyone offer any insight? I'm at a loss here!

Hi,

Not sure where you got 12226/27500 from?

EuroSport 1HD on 19.2e is: 12382 H 27500
EuroSport 2HD on 19.2e is: 12090 V 29700

EuroSport 1HD on 13e is: 109011 V 27500
EuroSport 2HD on 13e is 12284 H 27500

Source: https://en.kingofsat.net/pos-13E.php & https://en.kingofsat.net/pos-19.2E.php

Neither are free to view on either satellite. Neither is France 1,2,3,4,5 on 19.2e or 5w!

Best bet is Motorsport TV (assuming you don't have a subscription on your receiver) on 28.2e 11307 H 27500

MTV & Nickelodeon are Free to view on 19.2e so at least you locked that in. However they come from a very strong transponder on 19.2e. You need to aim for a weaker transponder on 19.2e after locking a strong one in. Try loading in the setting above for 19.2e then adjusting your dish until you lock a eurosport 1 or 2

[DJFish]

This would suggest there is a free to air Eurosport channel available:

[ollie2017uk]

DJFish said:

This would suggest there is a free to air Eurosport channel available:

My apologies, I did not see the FTA eurosport on 19.2e. I would be interested to see the coverage of the 24hrs on this channel.

[Algie]

That sounds like the channel we used last year and we got about 16 hours of coverage on it if I recall correctly (I was in a bit of a beer addled fog by the time the race started)

I’ll pay more attention this year!

[ollie2017uk]

Strange you couldn't receive it in the UK though. Looks like a good shout too me. Thanks to OP who pointed it out. (Even though I have a SKY UK box! it never hurts to have a backup!)