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Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Old Oct 31st 2006, 9:00 pm
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Default Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has any information about English speaking TV in Italy, specifically Northern Italy?

Can we get it through a satellite installed directly in Italy by an Italian company or is it better to bring an existing SKY dish over?

Thanks for any info.
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Old Nov 1st 2006, 7:00 am
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hi, if its anything like Spain, you can use your UK box and card but will need a local size dish.
If you drop your subscriptions you will still get your free channels.
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Old Nov 1st 2006, 8:45 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Thanks for that. Seems pretty straight forward. Are there any potential problems?
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Old Nov 1st 2006, 9:31 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Only when it rains heavy sometimes we lose the signal, but it doesn`t rain very often and its illegal to watch Sky outside of UK
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Old Nov 2nd 2006, 12:25 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Originally Posted by Gail1
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has any information about English speaking TV in Italy, specifically Northern Italy?

Can we get it through a satellite installed directly in Italy by an Italian company or is it better to bring an existing SKY dish over?

Thanks for any info.
I've looked into this and it's possible to get a dish installed by an Italian co. but you need a 1.8 metre dish to pick up the English satellite. If you need to install the dish on your roof (rather than a terrace) you will also need some sort of structure going from the inside of the house through the roof to keep the dish balanced and secure, and that costs a lot of money. You don't need this for the smaller dishes. the reason you need such a huge dish here is that the footprint for English Sky is not that strong in Northern Italy - the further east you go, the worse it gets. So Spain is fine. Another thing is that Sky know ex-pats are taking their Sky cards with them (and you'll need to do this if you want English Sky, make sure you keep an address in the Uk that you can register it to) and they make some of the more popular programmes/times very difficult to view (don't know how but a friend said that during the news and peak-time progs he always gets a dodgy reception). but having said that, he said it is worth it for the good programmes he does get to see. You can get regular Italian Sky which is probably crap like the terrestrial TV but you can change the progs back to English if that is the language they were originally in. But, for me, one of the reasons to get English Sky is for the real English programmes, on at the right time (taking into account the hour). we still haven't decided what to do - we've been in this apartment for 7 months now and still don't have a TV even!
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Old Nov 2nd 2006, 1:10 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

We got Sky TV when we moved over here, but in terms of UK channels the only ones we watch regularly are Sky News, Fox (bit like Sky One) and BBC Prime! You lose the other BBC channels (BBC 1, BBC 2 etc) which are the ones we would probably watch most.
The Sky film channels are good and have helped our Italian as you can select in most cases to have English with Italian subtitles or dubbed into Italian (Italian dubbing is really good so it does not detract from the film).
You also get lots of UK Premiership football and sporting events on the regular sports channels without any further subscription to the premium sports channels (these show the Italian matches)

Alternatively, in the supermarkets you can pick up a huge satelite dish and then get it installed by a fitter, and I am told that up here in the North this should get you all the UK channels (as well as many others) on a kind of free-view basis. I have no first hand experience of this though - we only found out after we had signed up for Sky.
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Old Nov 7th 2006, 5:16 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Originally Posted by Gail1
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has any information about English speaking TV in Italy, specifically Northern Italy?

Can we get it through a satellite installed directly in Italy by an Italian company or is it better to bring an existing SKY dish over?

Thanks for any info.
If you do a search on the internet there is a company called Insat International who claim to be able to set everything up for you provided you have the correct size satellite dish. I haven't approached them myself yet so cannot vouch for them, but might be worth taking a look. Having spent 3 months with an 11 year old starved of Simpsons and Futurama I think I certainly will be in the near future.
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Old Dec 1st 2006, 12:40 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy...!

Ok guys heres the deal. Be very careful who you ask for Sky in italy. You can get very ripped off! I bought my reciever from uk and the card with insatinternational, have not tested the card yet but all looks very ok to me. Took down the old 80cm dish as I want to get the full benefit from my package. Maybe able to make do with this small dish but a 1.2metre is the very best. When the moment came and we had to go in a shop and ask for the new dish I was faced with a barrage of completely in my opinion irrelevant questions, what frequency is it on, blah blah. I had already explained it needed to point to the Astra satellite 2A and 2B at 28.2 degrees true south. Insat also recommend a 1.2metre dish.

The problem was that I already have an engineer who was very willing to install it for me at a much lower price! So to win the work the shop tried to pull a fast one by asking these types of questions! The answer according to insat is that the frequency is preset in the uk digibox, so whats the problem! Also the shop here in north italy even asked if they could take apart my digibox! I Dont think so !

So at the moment I have a digi box, one sky card im paying for and no bloody dish! I will keep looking around for a shop I can trust and buy from there! You have been warned! Listen to what you have been told the uk end and not what they try to feed you here!
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Old Jan 3rd 2007, 3:24 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hi Guys,

I have SKY in northern Italy and the best thing to do is bring you system from the UK if your moving here. I got my card from a fella down in Sicily and and bought the box from a pal when I had a weekend in England. I have a regular 80cm dish and therefore don't receive any BBC channels or E4. But hey, not too bothered, don't really want a 2m dish sitting on my balcony.

If your already in Italy and have a UK address. The best thing to do when your back in ole blighty is call SKY and subscribe and get them to send the card to your UK address. In the meantime buy yourself a decoder. Once your card arrives, hook up your decoder to a friends dish and call sky to activate your card. Once your card is activated to YOUR decoder, pack the decoder and card up in your luggage and get yourselves back over to Italy. Once here buy yourself a dish for 50 euros from Media World and get an installer to set up the dish and reception and hey presto!!

Or, if you don't have an English address, there's a fella down in Sicily (I'll try and dig out the number) that will subscribe to the card for you. All you need is your UK bank details or a credit card for the monthly billing. He charges 80 euros for getting the card for you but you wil need to have your dish and box for registering when you receive your card.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: Never call sky direct from outside UK unless you know that your number will be blocked. A friend of mine in Germany called and his number pooped up on the ID display and bam, they disconnected him.

All the best.

Wayne
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 11:17 am
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hi! I'm also in Vicenza, North Italy. I live in an apartment building which has a standard (I think 80cm) dish on the roof servicing the entire building. It is currently positioned to pick up Sky Italia.

I have a Sky UK digibox back home in England with a viewing card. If I brought this over and connected it to the dish on the roof would I be able to viwq anything, do you think?

Are Sky Italia and Sky UK broadcasting from the same satellite? If not, would I need to place another dish on the roof or could I make do with just another LNB??

BTW Wayne - Which major UK channels are you picking up?

Cheers.
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 11:40 am
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Originally Posted by duffer
Hi! I'm also in Vicenza, North Italy. I live in an apartment building which has a standard (I think 80cm) dish on the roof servicing the entire building. It is currently positioned to pick up Sky Italia.

I have a Sky UK digibox back home in England with a viewing card. If I brought this over and connected it to the dish on the roof would I be able to viwq anything, do you think?

Are Sky Italia and Sky UK broadcasting from the same satellite? If not, would I need to place another dish on the roof or could I make do with just another LNB??

BTW Wayne - Which major UK channels are you picking up?

Cheers.
Hi Duffer - welcome to the area! Where in Vicenza are you - centro or on the outskirts?

Can't really help you with the answer I am afraid - think they are on different frequencies so the dish would need to be repositioned to get one or the other Sky version, but I am sure someone else can steer you right if that is not the case. (Thank goodness my hubby is more technically minded than me! )

I haven't seen Wayne on here for a while so if he isn't about maybe someone else can help you.

Carrie
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 11:44 am
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hi! I'm in the 'burbs! Montecchio famous for the twin castles on top of the hill called Romeo and Juliette.
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 11:53 am
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Originally Posted by duffer
Hi! I'm in the 'burbs! Montecchio famous for the twin castles on top of the hill called Romeo and Juliette.
Ah, I really like Montecchio - went up to the castles last summer on a walk I found in a book - great going up on the road but a shame that the way down was via a muddy, steep track!
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 12:13 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

Hey Duffer,

You can use the old dish thats on your roof, just get a satelite guy out to move the dish to 28.2 degrees East (Astra 2D). then you'll be able to get the UK sky, providing your UK decoder is plugged in. You'll get all the chanels that you subscribed for except the BBC's, E4 and a couple of others I don't remember.

Istill haven't got my big dish yet, but apparantly you need a 150cm dish to get BBC down here!

I hope this is help to you.

Clarky


Originally Posted by duffer
Hi! I'm also in Vicenza, North Italy. I live in an apartment building which has a standard (I think 80cm) dish on the roof servicing the entire building. It is currently positioned to pick up Sky Italia.

I have a Sky UK digibox back home in England with a viewing card. If I brought this over and connected it to the dish on the roof would I be able to viwq anything, do you think?

Are Sky Italia and Sky UK broadcasting from the same satellite? If not, would I need to place another dish on the roof or could I make do with just another LNB??

BTW Wayne - Which major UK channels are you picking up?

Cheers.
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Old Feb 1st 2007, 12:47 pm
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Default Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy

I really wanted to watch the BBC however ITV will do.

The thing is that the dish is a communal one therefore if I moved it there might be some complaints from the rest of the people in the flat that they cannot see anything. Or do you think the signal from Sky Italia is a lot stronger so a slight change won't harm...

Where in Vicenza are you watching Sky UK from?
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