Help! Need to activate Sky card without a dish...

karlh

Mods - i read rules and don't see any issue with this but let me know if there is...

Hi all,

I'd appreciate some help here - bit of a weird one.

My folks live in Spain and they asked me to get them a Sky card on my address so they can get Irish channels. They have a suitable dish and I know this is very common. I heard you just need to pair a card to a box and send it over.

All this is fine - I subscribed, bought an out of contract box off ebay (so no phone line issues) and the card arrived to my address.

I plugged it in, inserted the card and went to get info from the services menu but the guy from Sky said it has to be receiving a satellite signal to activate it. I made an excuse that I'd just moved in, hadnt got it hooked up etc. but no joy with him.

Obviously i dont actually have a signal, or a dish, but was wondering if I just pretend and give them the info from the serives menu will they be none the wiser?

The only other alternative is to send it over to my folks, let them hook it up to the satellelite and give me the info off the screen and I'll call it in pretending I cant reach the tv.

I've read a lot on forums about how easy it is to pair a card and a box and send it abroad but never found anyone saying whether you actually need to be receiving a signal to do it.

Any info much appreciated!

byte

Yeah, your'e going to need an incoming signal for the card to activate.

If you can't get access to a working dish for a while, then you'll just have to send it over to them, taking the numbers required (card, version and serial numbers). Then you can ring when they've it setup and have confirmed it's working (free channels will work to confirm you have signal).

karlh

hey, thanks for the info.

So I can hook it up to ANY Sky signal? I presumed it would have to be hooked up to the dish it will be used with.

If I just ask a neighbour will they have any way of knowing they already have a box/card or can I happily pretend it's mine?

byte

You can hook it up to any Sky signal. It doesn't need to be hooked to the dish it'll be permanently wired with.

So if you can connect up to your neighbour's dish, you're good to go. Just bear in mind, that by phoning Sky to activate the card, it could take anything between 5 minutes and 24 hours for card to activate. As activation signal is sent over the air via dish, the box will need to remain connected to Skydish until card is completely active.

karlh

gotcha, thanks!

fat-tony

byte wrote: »

You can hook it up to any Sky signal. It doesn't need to be hooked to the dish it'll be permanently wired with.

So if you can connect up to your neighbour's dish, you're good to go. Just bear in mind, that by phoning Sky to activate the card, it could take anything between 5 minutes and 24 hours for card to activate. As activation signal is sent over the air via dish, the box will need to remain connected to Skydish until card is completely active.

Hi byte. Are the new white cards not "paired" with a specific box? I'm not a regular user of SKY anymore as I have Freesat since January. Just checking:)

byte

I'm not sure, Tony. But just so I'm absolutely clear, I meant for karlh to use HIS OWN receiver and his new card on the neighbour's dish and NOT use their receiver to activate card. Just to keep things simple.

fat-tony

I assumed that karlh had his own receiver (but no dish) and his folks had another receiver. May have misunderstood:o

karlh

thanks for the replies, I have an update but need some further help....

I couldnt get a signal in Ireland to use to activate card/box so I sent it over the Spain and i'm assured that the whole thing is hooked up to satellite dish properly.

I got all the necessary card/box/version numbers from the settings screen and called Sky...

All fine, gave him the serial/card/version numbers and he said the card would be activated in 24 hours. All fine it would seem...

I checked back in with Spain and apparently the message on the screen is 'No satellite signal'. My folks seem to think that this doesnt matter and that because they are abroad, the card will still activate but i'm not convinced.

I'm guessing the card will not activate and that i'm going to get a call from Sky when it fails. Does anyone have any experience of activating a card from abroad and is there any way a message could say 'no satellite signal' when there is actually one for card activation purposes.

According to some other forums, they should be able to see free channels - RTE, Sky News etc. but they can't...

HELP!

steveon

If they cant see any of the free to air channels then its likely that there dish isnt aligned properly...what size dish do they have over there in spain??

karlh

i'm not sure of the make/model but it has previously worked with a Sky subscription

re: alignment, think ill have to get someone over there to check it out and call Sky back

steveon

Would be the best bet to get it checked as you should be able to receive the fta channels with or without a card..

byte

If receiver is displaying "no signal" message, then card will not activate.

exaisle

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but the OP said "I couldnt get a signal in Ireland to use to activate card/box".

Does this mean that he connected the box to an already-working dish and couldnt get a signal? If so, it seems to me that he's bought a duff box on ebay.

I'm afraid, the next step is for his parents to find somebody who has a working sky dish. Connect the box up to it and see if they can get the FTA channels. If not, then just buy another box. If it picks up the FTA channels, then the box is ok and it's just the dish out of alignment.

E.