Is it possible to pick up Thai tv in Australia from a satelitte or through cable, preferably without the requirement for investing in loads of technology. I know of a store in Sydney where you can get tapes of recent Thai tv but am more interested in getting some 'real time' tv. Any ideas/experince?

Check this out: http://www.tv5.co.th/tgn/advertise.html

Is it possible to pick up Thai tv in Australia from a satelitte or through cable, preferably without the requirement for investing in loads of technology. I know of  a store in Sydney where you can get tapes of recent Thai tv but am more interested in getting some 'real time' tv. Any ideas/experince?

Satellite - Yes - at least Thai Global network (basically Thai TV5, with some programs from other channels).

http://www.tv5.co.th/tgn/coverage.html

Ironically, for Thai Global network, it would be a smaller dish in south-east Australia, since you'd be picking up a Ku band signal from the Optus satellite.

Depending on where you are in Australia, you could probably even pick up all the normal Thai TV channels on Thaicom 2 at 78.5E (which I think are on C-band - http://www.lyngsat.com/thai2.html ), as they appear to be broadcast in the clear - although you may be talking a very big dish depending on how far east you are. (The footprint - isn't aimed at Australia, but with a big enough dish you can pick up any satellite in line-of-sight...)

Thanks guys. I'm in Sydney and not much room to swing a cat in my apartment let alone mount a dish on the balcony so was hoping for a simple cable based option. I'll be doing some more research. Cheers.

Also available in Europe on Hotbird sattelite.

Thanks guys. I'm in Sydney and not much room to swing a cat in my apartment let alone mount a dish on the balcony so was hoping for a simple cable based option. I'll be doing some more research. Cheers.

Hmm. - I'd be surprised if the cable companies carry Thai TV, simply because, especially with analogue cable, there's a limit to the number of channels they can send down one wire, and Thai TV probably wouldn't have a mass appeal (to the average Australian anyway).

However, Optus 2B from Sydney would only be a small dish (about 90cm), so would fit on a balcony, so long as it can point in the right direction. (Optus 2B satellite is at 152E, which means the dish would need to point virtually due north from Sydney at 151.2E)

If you have a computer with high speed internet, then my recommendation is:

Doozija

It only costs $10 US/month and it gives you popular recorded Thai tv programs from the last couple months. My wife watches it regularly.

Another option is:

IPTV

It is more expensive and my wife found it more difficult to navigate. It has shows stored for much longer and shows can even be downloaded so that slower connections may also work. My wife found that they wouldn't always record each episode of a story which pissed her off and she often had problems downloading shows.

If you don't have a computer, then perhaps others will find these links useful.