Best FTA satellite for Latin/Spanish content from South America and Mexico

[avirex]

Hello.

I'm in the San Diego area and looking for the best satellite(s) to get the most free-to-air content. I'm mostly interested in Guatemala but other countries will be good too. Thanks for any help you can offer.

-Avi

 

[jmc98]

78w cband and maybe the satmex satellites at 113w and 116.8w

 

[DJdish]

Hello.

I'm in the San Diego area and looking for the best satellite(s) to get the most free-to-air content. I'm mostly interested in Guatemala but other countries will be good too. Thanks for any help you can offer.

-Avi

An option in C band would be Satmex 8 @116.8W in Ku band it has a couple of spanish language channels.

 

[northgeorgia]

The absolute best would be both Satmex 6 and Satmex 5, but on C-band (big dish). For Ku-band, 30W is best, but unfortunately too far East for California; it is mostly South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Uruguay, Colombia). If you can only do Ku-band, then Telemundo is on 87W, Azteca is usually on 95W plus some other feeds; 97W has Telesur news from Venezuela and several Spanish-speaking Christian stations; 114.9W sometimes has some feeds as does 116.8 in Ku-band; finally try V-me on 125W -- it is U.S. based but lots of good stuff (better than Telemundo or Univision in my opinion).

 

[DJdish]

Canal 27 Guatemala (family and religious programming) is on Ku band @53w, and the footprint covers your area.

Sadly, Hispasat @30w is below your horizon, as mentioned above.

 

[avirex]

The absolute best would be both Satmex 6 and Satmex 5, but on C-band (big dish). For Ku-band, 30W is best, but unfortunately too far East for California; it is mostly South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Uruguay, Colombia). If you can only do Ku-band, then Telemundo is on 87W, Azteca is usually on 95W plus some other feeds; 97W has Telesur news from Venezuela and several Spanish-speaking Christian stations; 114.9W sometimes has some feeds as does 116.8 in Ku-band; finally try V-me on 125W -- it is U.S. based but lots of good stuff (better than Telemundo or Univision in my opinion).

Ok thanks for this info. I think it would be best to find 1 satellite with the most channels, and then eventually move to more dishes if needed.

When I look at Satmex 6 on satbeams it shows "Ku Band Comus beam" has a foot print in San Diego - what does that mean?
satbeams.c0m/footprints?position=247

And then Satmex 8 has "Ku Band Nafta beam" which also seems to have foot print in San Diego
satbeams.c0m/footprints?position=243

Is 30W available in Georgia (I notice your nick is "northgeorgia") - this is interesting because my parents are there. How many FTA channels are available on that one?

Thanks for all the help.
-Avi

 

[carlospr43]

Everything will depend on your setup. Dish size, Ku or C-band , fixed or motorized. From 30W to 58W there are several sats which mostly channels are in spanish but on the C band side and a big dish is required. There are also on the other side as everybody mentioned the Satmex 6 and 8. There are a few on Ku such as 30W, 45W, 78W that you can reach with a smaler dish

 

[avirex]

Everything will depend on your setup. Dish size, Ku or C-band , fixed or motorized. From 30W to 58W there are several sats which mostly channels are in spanish but on the C band side and a big dish is required. There are also on the other side as everybody mentioned the Satmex 6 and 8. There are a few on Ku such as 30W, 45W, 78W that you can reach with a smaler dish

Thank you. When you say a big dish is required, how big are we talking to get Satmex 6 and 8?

At my parents house in Atlanta, Georgia can we get the most popular ones 30W, 45W and 78W easily? On Satbeams I don't see where 78W will be easy, looks like the dish will be large even for Ku.

 

[DJdish]

Ok thanks for this info. I think it would be best to find 1 satellite with the most channels, and then eventually move to more dishes if needed.

When I look at Satmex 6 on satbeams it shows "Ku Band Comus beam" has a foot print in San Diego - what does that mean?
satbeams.c0m/footprints?position=247

And then Satmex 8 has "Ku Band Nafta beam" which also seems to have foot print in San Diego
satbeams.c0m/footprints?position=243

Is 30W available in Georgia (I notice your nick is "northgeorgia") - this is interesting because my parents are there. How many FTA channels are available on that one?

Thanks for all the help.
-Avi

To the risk of repeting info provided by others, I would put it like this

C band, you need a BUD (big ugly dish)
Ku band - small dish

Footprint maps will show you if your location is covered by a specifc sat

You may check on Lyngsat Hispasat 1C/1D for a list of channels but check on the right hand column for Americas beam, as it also beams it´s signal to Europe.
I´d recommend that channel, but the cuban channels have a lot of american shows and movies in english but with spanish sub-titles.

 

[Martyn]

Satmex 8 at 116W in C-band has these channels from Guatemala:

Canal Antigua
Canal Vea
Guatevision

You'll need a 6-8 foot dish for reliable reception. The same satellite also brings in many channels from other Latin American nations.

Scroll down to Satmex 8 on this list and take a look: http://www.global-cm.net/MPEGlistCBandUS.html

Satmex 6, next door at 113W, also has a lot of Mexican channels in C-band.

The ku-band (smaller dish) possibilities are more limited.

If you can't manage a big dish and want Satmex in C-band, some people have had luck using a 1-meter dish. Your mileage may vary.

 

[northgeorgia]

Thank you. When you say a big dish is required, how big are we talking to get Satmex 6 and 8?

At my parents house in Atlanta, Georgia can we get the most popular ones 30W, 45W and 78W easily? On Satbeams I don't see where 78W will be easy, looks like the dish will be large even for Ku.

You're right: On Ku-band they won't get 78, it's too far north. But I wouldn't worry about that since there are just a few Venezuelan channels on that one and you can get Telesur from Venezuela on 97W. 45W is easy, but the only thing on 45W is a channel from Chad, Africa and the Western Sahara liberation station (usually in Arabic, only time to time in Spanish), also from Africa. From time to time some feeds out of Bolivia are on there, usually events that the president or vice president attends, but no full-time Spanish TV stations.

30W is easy to get here IF you have a pretty good view of the Eastern sky with no or very low obstructions. I had to move my dish further out to pick up the signal. There are about 40 to 50 stations there. FTA, as you probably know, can vary with which channels are up (they come and go), but at the moment here are the Spanish language stations on 30W:

1. TV Universitaria, Bolivia
2. TV Marti, USA
3. ACN, Cuba
4. Cubavision Internacional
5. Cubavision
6. Tele Rebelde, Cuba
7. Educativo, Cuba
8. Educativo 2, Cuba (but often rebroadcasting Telesur)
9. Contribucion (Telesur feeds, Venezuela)
10. Telemovil 5, Argentina
11. Solo Tango, Argentina
12. RBC, Peru
13. Bethel TV, Peru
14. Cordoba Internacional TV, Spain
15. Canal Luz HD, Argentina
16. Telecaribe, Colombia
17. TV 101, Argentina
18. Canal 11, Argentina
19. Canal 9, Argentina
20. TV Galicia, Spain
21. Canal Vasco, Spain
[plus lots of Radio stations and some occasional TV feeds, especially out of Argentina and Uruguay]

The best thing for C-band is to get at least a 6-footer, but if you are stuck with a Ku-band 1 meter dish, then a conical scalar and C-band lnbf for a mini-BUD setup also can yield some results off C-band on Satmex 6 (but I have never got anything off Satmex 5). When I try the experiment, I usually get TV Puebla, Canal Trece (Merida), Telemax (Hermosillo), Hidalgo TV (Pachuca) plus some other channels that come and go (because of lack of signal stability on such a small dish).

 

[toucan-man]

TV Galicia is not in Spanish.

 

[northgeorgia]

Sorry for the oversight. As Canal Vasco is bilingual, I assumed Galicia was also. If you know Spanish and can also understand Portuguese more or less, then the programming in Galician (Gallego) shouldn't be a problem to enjoy.

TV Galicia is not in Spanish.

 

[DJdish]

TV Galicia is not in Spanish.

Good point, it´s in Galician, right now I was watching a show there, it´s sounds to me like something in between spanish and portuguese, pretty much understandable if you speak spanish.

 

[Vondertrenk]

I may be missing something but I have not seen anyone yet talking about SES-6 @ 40W. It has more than 100 easy to catcvh channels. The footprint seems to cover the full western hemisphere.