I am a newbie- Have a few questions to be answered

Needinfo

Hello.

I have really no idea about satellite tv etc and was looking for some advice on this forum.

I have recently moved into a new apartment. It apparently has a "community satellite" where you can get sky from.

There is a connection point in the TV room.

So, I rang a few places looking for a Sky installation (i told them about this community satellite thing and they were all "oh no no we cant do that". Why I dont know).

So eventually I ring this guy and he says the same thing but also says "I know a guy who has installed Sky in the apartment block you are living in already". So im like "Great".

So I ring this other guy, I tell him I want Sky and also that I have no phone line. He says he can install it without the phone line but that he has to take the card away and do something with it for 7 days (had no idea what he was talking about). After 7 days we can then use the card.

The charges would be €150 for the installation and the 7 day card thing and €63 for the Sky package.

Can anyone explain the "card 7 day thing" - is it an ok thing to do? and also does the price sound ok?

Thanks!

Now I'm open to correction but it sounds like complete rubbish to me.

Couple of things first you must find out.
1. by community dish do es that mean that you have a sat cable coming to your appartment? and how many appartments are on this dish?
2. or is the dish simply used for an internal cable tv feed and perhaps thats what you have access to on the cable you mention?


The other thing is, you can buy a Sky digi box yourself and simply hook that cable into it(if its a sky cable-check that first with the appartment builders/admins).
Then you simply phone sky and ask for a 2nd hand contract and they will post that out to you and a card.
You put the card in the box and wait for it to validate or ring sky asking them to validate it, which they'll do when they have your contract and direct debit mandate.

You dont have to pay an instalation charge for that or even call out anybody.

However you may ber able to ring sky and take advantage of their first time user connection offer and they will supply the box for you free (iirc) plus an install charge depending on the package you choose.

The €150 thing sounds like someone trying to take advantage of your lack of knowledge.

Needinfo

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply.

How many people can fit on a satellite dish!? Sounds like a joke!

Honest! It is turning out to be very complicated to get this installed.

All I know is that there is a Sky dish on the roof and there are cables running to the apartments. We have no channels at the moment except for RTE1, 2 and TV3 (and TG4). There doesnt seem to be that many people in the building anyways and the neighbours we talked to didnt have it (and we did ask them about the, at this stage, famous dish on the roof, but they know nothing of it either as they dont want Sky!)

So I Rang Sky there. They said get a digibox, then they would send out the card (second hand contract). But looked on the net there and a digibox costs about €179. Plus if anything ever happened it, there would be no contract to fix it. I dont think (as you can see from my post above) that I would know enough about this to even try get a second hand digibox.

Still thinking the man installing it (this would include box, him installing it and doing the 7 day card thing) might be a better option.

Or is it?!!!

Any suggestions? Am in Cork area.

DMC

Quick one...

Do you know anyone who has Sky at the moment? If the cables from the satellite dish are coming into your apartment, then if you got the lend of a box for a night, you would be able to see if getting your own second hand box will work.

yup
good idea as the box will work without a card if thats a sky dish cable

You should ask the landlord or if you own the appartment, the builder what the story is with the dish.

Is the cable coming to a socket or is it a bare cable sticking out from the wall?

Tony

What the engineer is actually doing is connecting the box to his own phoneline and switching on the card that way, now contractually you are still obliged to have your own phone line but sky are currently not enforcing this. The engineer is basically taking a chance that sky will still pay him the cost of the box which he will have to pay full price for , still cheaper than a new box but I would consider a second hand box if I were in your position and avoid any phoneline issues. If you information is correct you could also connect either a FTA or FTV box to the same system, really depends on what channel choice you need.

Hope this helps

Needinfo wrote:

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply.

How many people can fit on a satellite dish!? Sounds like a joke!

Honest! It is turning out to be very complicated to get this installed.

All I know is that there is a Sky dish on the roof and there are cables running to the apartments. We have no channels at the moment except for RTE1, 2 and TV3 (and TG4). There doesnt seem to be that many people in the building anyways and the neighbours we talked to didnt have it (and we did ask them about the, at this stage, famous dish on the roof, but they know nothing of it either as they dont want Sky!)

So I Rang Sky there. They said get a digibox, then they would send out the card (second hand contract). But looked on the net there and a digibox costs about €179. Plus if anything ever happened it, there would be no contract to fix it. I dont think (as you can see from my post above) that I would know enough about this to even try get a second hand digibox.

Still thinking the man installing it (this would include box, him installing it and doing the 7 day card thing) might be a better option.

Or is it?!!!

Any suggestions? Am in Cork area.

BrianD

Sky are installing "community systems" in apartment blocks with a communal dish and then internal cabling to each apartment. I have visited a few show apartments where it was installed. I think Sky Conway was on the junction boxes.

Needinfo

Hi everybody.

Thanks very much for the replies.

Does that mean we could get in trouble if he "manipulates" the card and we use it? If Sky were to enforce this "need to have a phone line" rule, would we be in trouble or the guy? Do many people connect to Sky like this?

I dont understand the FTA, FTV thing. We want the full package with Sky. Would that mean we need a second box (as well as the digibox?)

Thanks!

You're not going to get jail or anything
Did the guy say you were getting the digibox included for the €150?

No 2nd decoder needed, it's all determined by the sub you pay and controlled by the channel permission sky give the card.