Help With Sky Subscription

BexTech

The £25 is the price to pay to not be connected to the phone line, this is really just a manual authorisation fee, as usually if the box is connected to the phone line the installer simply accesses the authorisation from the box, but manually has to phone the Sky centre.

With single box installs that have not paid the £25 fee and were connected at install, 99% of the time the phone line is never policed, if a call back is actioned and it fails nothing is done, it's only multi-room boxes they worry about.

I remember a couple of boxes were more sensitive than others, but you main issue will the size of dish you require, to enable to pick up all the channels as some channels are on a tight British Isles beam, some are on a north beam others a south beam.

SES Astra footprints: http://www.ses-astra.com/consumer/sites/uk/Receive_Astra/Footprints_and_Frequencies/index.php

http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/285e_popd.html#

Channels on the South Beam wouldn't be a problem, channels on the North Beam would need a bigger dish, channels on the British Isles beam would need and even bigger dish.

The Eutelsat Eurobird would require a bigger dish than the UK.

Sky and the channels you'd get with a Sky Digibox uses all the beams, some one one beam, some on the other etc. So without a big enough dish you may find channels with no satellite signal found or breaking up.

http://www.astra2d.com/spain.htm

Would be worth finding out locally what size dish people are using and what reception they are getting.

Lyrrad

I'm in a communial situation where the dish is the dish and I'm not allowed one elsewhere. All I know is that the dishes present in the gardens are massive. I know other residents can recieve Sky full package. I only assume so will I be able to. I have an old Panasonic DSB30 I think (can't remember exact detail), but at the time it was the one to have. If I am going to carry a digibox onboard it needs to be small. I only take hand luggage. I do not subscribe to SKy at all at the moment and certainly will not subscribe twice.

So to summerize, dish size is not my concern, it's a digibox that is compact and able to recieve the signal ok

wookie_2

i was one of the many who use this site, who took advantage of the half price offer for 12 months, and we do not have to have the phone line connected at all, sky have continued to give me 50% discount and no warning letters, i also bought another LNB a quad one from Ebay fitted myself and instaled 3 other boxes around the house, along with the magic eye, so the kids can take full advantage of the 50% discount as well, and its only 1 sub:rolleyes:

Lyrrad

wookie wrote: »

i was one of the many who use this site, who took advantage of the half price offer for 12 months, and we do not have to have the phone line connected at all, sky have continued to give me 50% discount and no warning letters, i also bought another LNB a quad one from Ebay fitted myself and instaled 3 other boxes around the house, along with the magic eye, so the kids can take full advantage of the 50% discount as well, and its only 1 sub:rolleyes:

Yeah I may just do that. I don't think I could have got that 50% dicount as i have never had SKY, i think the offer was for existing customers of some sort. I'll negotiate after 12 months I'm sure. Free broadband etc I believe has put paid to new customers being enticed. I just need to be able to take the box to Spain when I vist. I know I might have to wait 12 months until the box is able to be replaced (card paired with another box), but I need to know if a portable digibox exists

Moneymaker

Lyrrad wrote: »

I need to know if a portable digibox exists

The most portable Sky Digibox is the Pace "Javelin" Minibox. It's obsolete but you can still pick them up on eBay occasionally. Info here:
http://www.satcure.com/accs/pace_info.htm#javelin

You can use your Sky card in it to see all but the Premium channels.

There's also portable non-Sky receivers like this one:
http://www.satcure.com/accs/skypacker.htm

Lyrrad

Moneymaker wrote: »

The most portable Sky Digibox is the Pace "Javelin" Minibox. It's obsolete but you can still pick them up on eBay occasionally. Info here:
http://www.satcure.com/accs/pace_info.htm#javelin

You can use your Sky card in it to see all but the Premium channels.

There's also portable non-Sky receivers like this one:
http://www.satcure.com/accs/skypacker.htm

What would happen if after 12 months I phoned SKY and asked them to pair my card to my Pace Javelin because the one the originally supplied had broken. Would I then be able to watch Premium channels wherever my Pace Javelin happened to be?

BexTech

Lyrrad wrote: »

What would happen if after 12 months I phoned SKY and asked them to pair my card to my Pace Javelin because the one the originally supplied had broken. Would I then be able to watch Premium channels wherever my Pace Javelin happened to be?

Sky will pair it to the new box no problem, they'll do it whenever you want, even before the 12 months, you simply tell them you were given a nice small box and decided to use that as it suits you more.

BexTech

Moneymaker wrote: »

There's also portable non-Sky receivers like this one:
http://www.satcure.com/accs/skypacker.htm

Though anyone reading will need to remember Non-Sky boxes will not decode the encrypted (subscription & Free To View) channels only the 100ish Free To Air channels. There are some receivers that can download the NDS encryption either to the box or a CAM, but they need putting in a Sky box every so often to wake the card back up.

Lyrrad

BexTech wrote: »

Sky will pair it to the new box no problem, they'll do it whenever you want, even before the 12 months, you simply tell them you were given a nice small box and decided to use that as it suits you more.

Okay I'm slowly getting there I think. So no point in my getting SKY+ then. As I've never really seen the interface on SKY+, I trust that a PVR, whilst it may do the same job, is not quite as 'user friendly' or integrated as SKY+. However in my circumstance I think it is the way for me to go.

Lyrrad

BexTech wrote: »

Though anyone reading will need to remember Non-Sky boxes will not decode the encrypted (subscription & Free To View) channels only the 100ish Free To Air channels. There are some receivers that can download the NDS encryption either to the box or a CAM, but they need putting in a Sky box every so often to wake the card back up.

You've started to lose me. NDS=? and what is a CAM. Perhaps if I'm asking I need not worry, but I do like to know.