Hummy in France

Fred

New Member
Hi all

I'm new here and so new to the world of Hummys (Hummies?) that I don't yet own one!

Here's my question: my wife and I are contemplating the possibility of a move to France. Jacky's keen that she should be able to access British TV once there and says we'll have to subscribe to Sky.

Being an old hot-metal compositor, it's long been my stance that I'll have nowt to do with anything Murdoch's involved with. I thought I'd found the answer to the TV dilemma in a Humax-shaped box. Doing a bit of reading, however, I see that the initial set-up requires a post code, and French post codes are a very different animal to ours in the UK.

So, my question is - if I buy a Humax Foxsat HDR 500GB to take to France with us, will it work or will I have wasted my money?

Can I humbly ask that any responders bear in mind the fact that my experience of Hummies (Hummys?) is non-existent, so please don't go getting overly teknickle with me!

Thanks in advance - Fred​
 
So, my question is - if I buy a Humax Foxsat HDR 500GB to take to France with us, will it work or will I have wasted my money?​

Can I humbly ask that any responders bear in mind the fact that my experience of Hummies (Hummys?) is non-existent, so please don't go getting overly teknickle with me!​

Thanks in advance - Fred​

Short answer yes. You will also need a satellite dish of a suitable size for where you are in France and a quad lnb (the knobbly bit the coax cables attach to), aligned on the same satellites that Sky use. Plus two coax cables from the lnb to the Foxsat-hdr. The postcode is merely used to tell the box which local regions to store at 1o1 BBC1, 102 BBC2, 103 ITV1 and 119 ITV1-HD - Choice of ITV1-HD London (Buck Palace is a good post code for this :), or ITV1-HD Granada (better picture) Manchester Town Hall works for this. You have all the BBC regions anyway and can move whichever BBC1 channel you want to 101 regardless of postcode. You can't suscribe to Sky without some form of UK address anyway.
 
Graham - thanks for the tuning tips. I'd already sussed that I'd need a dish, but a fair proportion of the houses already viewed have dishes in situ. With luck, if the house we eventually go for has one, the vendor will leave it.

La Fargeotte - good to hear, thanks.

Black Hole - my intention had been to buy it here; Amazon seems pretty keenly priced. Are you intimating it'd be better to leave the purchase until we get to la belle France?

Fred
 
Buy the Humax in the UK and put a UK postcode into it - doesn't have to be your actual postcode, it is just used for which regional programmes you want to receive.

One thing to keep in mind if your new house comes with a dish is that it might not be pointing at the right satellite!

I ran a Humax in the French Alps using a standard Sky 45cm mini dish. Worked fine until the weather turned. Changed the dish to the freesat recommended size of 65cm and all works even when weather is bad (unless it's buried under snow of course!)

Dave
 
I am well south n the Gers (32800) I would say an 80cm is just right now - However if I was installing new I would be looking for 90-100cm to future proof for the next generation of sats.
 
We live in France.
My two pen'orth:-
Bought my Hummy from Amazon UK, no problem as they ship within France.
If buying a house from a French person, the dish will probably be pointing at 19.2 degrees rather than 28.2, so will need a little adjustment.
A Dual or quad LNB will allow for dual recording, watching+recording etc.
Be aware that the larger the dish, the more precise you need to be with the alignment.
 
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