However, with the help of the people mentioned above, this page is currently being developed. So if anyone else would like to email me and give me a potted guide in how to operate these or any other makes of receiver (with or without screenshots), I will be happy to expand this page for the benefit of others. Don't worry about presentation or completeness of content; I can amalgamate any amount of information into a standard format as I receive it. Please note my standard plea to check first before sending any images, but apart from that I'll be delighted with any information you can supply. You can contact me via this page.

Meanwhile, just to reiterate, I am not familiar with any generic free-to-air equipment. So the information about receivers and how to operate them is presented 'as is', and represents the sum total of any knowledge I have!

2. Equipment
So, what equipment do you need? Obviously you need a dish, and a method of fixing it rigidly so that it can't move once it's positioned. You also need a receiver and preferably a signal meter to help aim the dish the right way. Oh, and something on which to watch the programme such as a TV would be good . . .

As for supporting the dish, it is possible to buy a tripod designed for the purpose; it will set you back about £40-50 but there are cheaper alternatives. A rotary clothes line from say Argos makes a good tripod. Take all of the line off, drill a small hole through the plastic bit below the 'tripod' and continue through the metal pole, then secure with a self tapping screw. Tip upside down and you have a tripod....for travelling it folds easily, and you can cut the pole down to a convenient height to mount the dish! Alternatively, head down to Maplin Electronics and buy a heavy-duty music stand for about £20. Discard the top half and the base will then be perfect for supporting the dish. Yet another option: Screwfix (www.screwfix.com) does a lighting stand for under £17 - as with the music stand, just discard the top section.

Whichever option you go for, do make sure you peg it down firmly. However wide the base, your dish will still be top-heavy and I've wrecked 2 by the wind catching the dish and toppling it! You might also notice I use yellow cable. I found through long experience that black cable is almost invisible on grass, especially in poor light, and becomes a hidden hazard for people walking around the van. Satcure sells cable in various colours so I bought a length of their yellow cable.

Now for another tip! Satellite cables are usually connected to the dish and the receiver by means of what's known as an F connector. Why 'F', I have no idea (ideas on a postcard please!) but basically they are screw-on connectors rather than the traditional push-fit connectors. This is fine in a permanent domestic installation but can be a pain in the butt for caravanners having to set up each time (and temporarily connect a signal meter as well). So here's the good news - it's possible to buy push-on adapters. They have a threaded male connector on one side and a female push connector at the other. Simply screw on to the end of the F connector and you can connect to and disconnect from the dish, signal meter and receiver with ease. They are available from various places including Satcure (http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/page7.htm#fconn) where they cost (as at September 2008) 64p each or £10 for 20, (although postage is an additional £2.50 regardless of quantity!). They are also available from other outlets such as Maplins but in fact by the time you've added the cost of your fuel to get there and back, Satcure is probably still the cheapest option.

English-language digital programmes are broadcast by the Astra 2 system which is located roughly to the south east (at longitude 28.2º E above the equator), so the first thing is to find the approximate compass setting. Professional dish installers use a satellite finder that specifically seeks out the Astra 2 signal. They are excellent pieces of equipment, and so they should be at over £200 each. The type of signal meter advertised in caravanning magazines on the other hand is a lot cheaper ... and nowhere near as good.

I used to view most such devices as a waste of money but to be fair I have to say that a number of people didn't agree. In any case, prices have now dropped dramatically (below £10 in some cases) so the economic argument has all but disappeared and there now seems little point in denying yourself that extra level of help. I don't wish to discourage anybody from buying one but if you do decide to buy one remember they vary widely in price and in my view anything over £20 is a rip off - I can see no reason for paying more than the £10 mentioned above but my only recommendation apart from that is to choose one with a rise-and-fall tone, I think you'll find it easier to use. (Some have a clicking noise where the speed of the click increases as you get closer to the satellite but I find that less precise than a variable pitch tone.) A list of suppliers can be found on my Links page.

Despite the fact that signal meters have come down a lot in price, their instructions for use are still rooted firmly in the Dark Ages, with the result that I continue to receive emails along the lines of "My meter shows a very strong signal but there's nothing on the TV. What am I doing wrong?". I have therefore written this separate page that spells out precisely how to use the things. (Now if only the manufacturers would pay me for doing their job for them . . .)

As for dishes, you have a wide choice and it might not be necessary to purchase a large diameter dish - even in southern Europe a standard domestic minidish will enable you to watch some channels such as BBC News. The BBC (apart from BBC News), ITV and Channel 4 will require a larger, more powerful dish in southern Europe and only you can decide whether it would be worth carrying! (See here for more information).

The Astra 2 system consists of 4 satellites close together in space so that your dish will 'see' all of them as if they were a single unit. All 4 transmit signals aimed at Europe but the coverage on the ground varies considerably. Three of the satellites - 2A, 2B and 2C - can be thought of as flood lights, lighting up a huge area of Europe. They each transmit a north and a south beam. The fourth, the 2D, is more like a spot light focused on the British Isles. For the sake of convenience the signals are referred to as the north beam, south beam and narrow beam (or more usually just the 2D beam).

All the beams cover the UK so all channels are viewable. However, as you travel further away from the UK, some channels can only be obtained with a large dish. The terrestrial channels will be the first to be lost - the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, all of which variants transmit on Astra 2D, the narrow beam satellite. Five will also be lost and its digital variants Fiver and Five USA are not available on FTA anyway.

There is also a 5th satellite used to carry a few UK channels. It's Eurobird 1, located at virtually the same point in space as Astra 2. To all intents and purposes, it can be regarded as part of the same system.

The following diagrams show the footprints of the different beams that carry the free-to-air channels. A standard Zone 1 oval minidish (the type you'll see on houses across England and Wales) will be OK in the inner pale blue area, whereas for the outer yellow band a 1.2 metre dish is recommended. However these Astra maps are somewhat pessimistic and although you'd be wise not to stretch them too far, you'll probably get away with a smaller dish than recommended - many people have written in to say they got BBC/ITV on the Côte d'Azur with a Zone 2 domestic minidish (the slightly larger oval dish used in Scotland). I've even had a report from someone who got ITV1 in Gibraltar with a 90cm dish whilst someone else got it in Faro, Portugal, with a 60cm dish but they're exceptional - don't rely on doing the same! This map, published by Martin Pickering of Satcure and reproduced here by kind permission, is a useful alternative to the Astra map of the 2D footprint. It is based not on Astra's official projection of theoretical reception, but on practical experience on the ground.

One point worth making is that not all channels on a given beam transmit at the same power. Some BBC1 and ITV1 regions are stronger than others for example. So in marginal areas you could find that some channels are easier to obtain than others on the same beam.

One of the most popular, especially for caravanners, is the camping kit. It contains virtually everything you need to get set up, all contained within a convenient carrying case, and is available from a number of different suppliers, including Maplin Electronics and some branches of B&Q. It varies quite widely in price from about £100 down to occasional special offers at around £40 so do shop around - I don't intend to keep up to date with the prices on this website! You might find it's badged differently depending on where it's sold but the contents are essentially the same.

The dish comes with various mounting options, from sucker attachments that clamp it to the caravan side, to struts that allow it to sit on the ground using the carry case as a base. The tiny receiver (dual voltage, 12v/240v) is pre-programmed for a number of different satellite systems, one of which is claimed to be Astra 28 (or Astra 2 as it should really be called) but which might not be! If you look for that, you might find yourself looking at the Astra 1 channels, with only Sky News and BBC World in English.

Astra 2 is a little further round to the east so turn the dish a little to the east and you should then acquire another signal. Now put the receiver into Autoscan mode, and Robert's your father's proverbial brother. The autoscan will take about 5 minutes, at the end of which you'll have a channel list containing all the main channels and 200 or so other TV and radio channels.

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You might see it badged as COMAG or SilverCrest, or even as Maxview. In that latter guise as the Maxview MXL020, you'll often see it in caravan accessory shops along with other Maxview equipment such as Omnisat dishes. It's a dual voltage model, making it ideal for caravan use.

The receiver is tiny (it has been described as about the size of a VHS video tape in its box) and therefore ideal for caravan use. It also has a built-in signal meter to help with dish alignment.

Please note that the following instructions are for guidance only. I don't have one of these boxes and my only experience of them, including the following screen shots, was on a holiday when I met someone who does use one. Therefore these instructions, based on rough notes I made at the time, are probably not correct in every respect.

For installation, go to the Installation menu and choose the Antenna Setting sub-menu. Select Satellite (should be set to 28º East). Use CH+ and CH- and V+ and V- to navigate around the menus and confirm selection with OK. Note that these screen shots actually only occupy the centre portion of the screen. The rest of the screen will be black to start with, and a picture will appear when the dish is aligned on to Astra 2.

Select a pre-programmed channel (eg ITV1) from the channel list and then press INFO to pull up the menu screen. Press 1 to switch on the audible satellite meter (through the TV speakers). A stronger higher pitched tone indicates the dish is close to the correct direction. Turn the dish a fraction at a time, pausing for about 3 seconds each time to allow the receiver to react to any signal it finds. When signal quality is about 60%, a picture will appear on the screen. It might not be an English-language channel. The receiver will process signals from a number of different satellite systems and only one of them, Astra 2, carries the UK channels. If the menu screen is displayed, press EXIT to leave it.