Yesterday Wednesday 21st November astro arrived at the dorm (astro being Asia’s Sky TV). It’s an early Christmas present for the girls, who received the news with screams of joy. It means that we have a little more connection with England through BBC World Service and the girls have the enjoyment and education of western TV; CSI is a dorm favourite already!
The Installation Process
In the UK you contact sky who give you a day they’ll come to install your dish and receiver. They arrive in a van with the Simpsons smeared across one side and David Beckham scoring a goal on the other. They have ladders strapped to the roof, a health and safety book on the dash board that tells them they can’t climb up the tall ladders on the roof, (they’re there to look good, but have no real function) then proceed to install the dish expecting to be offered a cup of tea within the first 5 minutes of work. They only drink half the cup because they have two dozen dishes to install that day and therefore time only to do the bare essentials; leaving you to figure out what they’ve done to your TV once they’ve gone and spent 30 minutes pushing buttons to take you from one sky operator to the other on the phone.
In Indonesia things are a little different
Two men arrived to install the dish, on time as arranged at 10 o clock. They didn’t have a van with pictures either side because they didn’t have a van, they arrived on motor cycles! Yes carrying a big dish, (not the neat little black ones you find in the UK, one of the big white ones everyone had 10 years ago) the other had a rucksack full of the tools needed for the job. The Indonesians obviously understand that in the UK the sky installer doesn’t use his ladders (they’re for show on the roof remember) so they didn’t bring any with them; I guess there’s no room for roof bars on a motor cycle.
Positioning the dish
Satellite dishes have to point towards their relevant satellite in space, back in my home town all the dishes pointed southward up into the sky. All you need to get this right is a compass; they didn’t have a compass so a lot of guess work got under way. They used our short ladder to climb onto the roof bare foot to start with, but the roof tiles were rather hot in the tropical sun so the sandals were thrown up from above. They connected the dish to the TV and pointed the dish around till the signal was found, it took a while. Once found they spent a good hour drilling three holes and fix the dish to the house
Finally we had Astro TV
Once the man from Astro cleaned his sim card a couple of times he was able to contact the Astro centre and the receiver picked up all the channels. He then proceeded to give me instructions on using the receiver in Indonesian, (my Indonesian is not that good yet) thankfully my language teacher came over to help for that part.
So all installed and demonstrated (it took 4 hours) I paid the money, thanked them and watched them ride away on their motor cycles, still pondering on how they managed to ride with a satellite dish between their legs.
So until next time; stay tuned for the next episode of The Nobles in Indonesia, coming up after these commercials.
Once the man from Astro cleaned his sim card a couple of times he was able to contact the Astro centre and the receiver picked up all the channels. He then proceeded to give me instructions on using the receiver in Indonesian, (my Indonesian is not that good yet) thankfully my language teacher came over to help for that part.
So all installed and demonstrated (it took 4 hours) I paid the money, thanked them and watched them ride away on their motor cycles, still pondering on how they managed to ride with a satellite dish between their legs.
So until next time; stay tuned for the next episode of The Nobles in Indonesia, coming up after these commercials.
Paul.
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