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.

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.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Thanks for that. Seems pretty straight forward. Are there any potential problems?

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 :D

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

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!

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. :(

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

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.

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!

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

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.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

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! :o )

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

Carrie

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.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

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! :ohmy:

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

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?

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Alright fella,

Well if your dish is a communal one then you'll have to buy a new dish. Every broadcaster has their own co-ordinates and UK SKY is what I mentioned before. Italia SKY could be 42.9 North or something to that effect.

Get yourslef down to Media World, I bought my 80cm dish from there for 50 yo-yo's.

By the way, I'm in Vicenza.

Clarky

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

I had the l'antennista come round last night. We cannot move the current Sky Italia dish because it's a communal dish and if he adds another LNB it will only be able to pick up Spanish and French channels. So the option is to get a new dish from Mediaworld and then this guy can install it for 100 Euro.

Is 100 Euro just for the installation a reasonable price?

Or I could just get a subscription to BBC Prime but this would cost about 200 euro for the first year. Better off getting Sky Italia which includes BBC Prime.

I'll make a decision soon...

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

When we got Sky Italia the installation was free

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

But they will only point the dish to Sky Italia and I presume it was subject to you signing up to at least a basic package like Mondo?

Only problem is that I do not have the UK Sky digibox with me at the moment. I'll pick mine up next time I am there or get a friend to send their old one over.

Will I need to use the my card with my UK digibox only or could I use my card in my friend's digibox? I wonder...

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

I don't know about your other wonderings! I don't fully understand these technical things.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Persuaded a friend to post me his old Sky digibox from the UK as I can't wait until I'm next in the UK ;)

It should arrive any day now.

Next step is to get the satellite man round and hook up a new dish. Anyone have any recommendations for either dish type, where to buy, installation, etc.? It would be very much appreciated :thumbup:

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Ok. My Sky+ digibox in a nice pearl white finish to (almost) match my Xbox 360 arrived today. A big thank you goes out to Omar Pimp Daddy for kindly taking the time and expense to send it to me in the first place!

Still waiting on my mum to send me a viewing card though. Once I have it I'll get the satellite man to give me his opinion regarding if size matters ;)

I think sticking a 1,5m dish will be too expensive and maybe a 1,2m dish not good enough.

We'll see :thumbup:

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

hello, it is ok to get sky with the correct dish in Italy, I sell the yellow house viewing cards which give a massive amount of channels to most of Europe sometimes with boxes and they work ok as long as you use a Uk address or telephone if you ever have to contact Sky in the future

There is a no advertising policy on this forum.... SITE RULES rule 8. thanks jdr (moderator)

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

The thing we were told about buying a UK digi box is to make sure is not one that comes with special offers (free box or similar deals) as that is connected to sky via tel line.

We bought our sky box off ebay and signed up with sky prior to leaving the UK and it works.

The other thing we were strongly adviced against is to never get the card through a 3rd part but from sky direct but one must give a UK address to get it. Using a 3rd party one might end up paying for subscription (possibly up to a year) up front and than the 3rd party doing a runner and leaving people with no sky and loss of cash

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Hello, yellow-card selling person - I have Italian sky with the normal size dish - I want to know if your yellow cards can get me the Uk channels or not? BBC Prime is all well and good but I want to watch Joseph! (Not - but I do want to watch BBC etc.)

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

hello mazi, i have wrote an email to you, not sure if you have got it, could you let me know

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Just a thank you to DCSWIFTLY for sending me the Sky viewing card at a very good price. My Sky digibox recognises it no problems. Now I just need to sort out a large dish. I think I know where next months bonus will spent on ;)

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Hi,

I'm trying to get UK sky tv in San-Remo, Italy. I have sky at home & was thinking of getting another box through the multi-room subscription & taking that box to San-Remo. The only problem I can see is that Sky will see that the box is either not connected to a phone line & fine me for this, or they'll see that it is connected to an Itialian phone line & I'll be cut off alltogether. Whats the best way around this ?

Any help is greatly appreciated

Thanks

Des

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

We had to use our card with our digibox to get it activated (we couldn't use our neighbour's box), also we were told that if the digibox/card are unplugged/removed we had 10 days to reinsert it or the card would be invalid. If you are thinking to take your digibox abroad you have to make sure is not one of those that are given out foc when one gets a sky package deal as it is usually connected to a telephone line.

Your best bet is get a digibox that is not part of any special offer/deal insert card while you are in the UK and if it is an existing account gets the updates. Then unplug when you are due to come back and reconnect everything when you get to Italy. Whatever you do don't call sky from abroad as if they see a number from outside the UK they will terminate your account. That's what we did and it works although we don't get all the channels we have signed up for.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Ciao Des,

It used to be that in return for a free digibox you had to keep it connected to the phone line for the first 12 months only - after that no probem. If you've already done the 12 months then you can disconnect the box from the phone - it won't affect your ability to receive ppv in the uk because the signal from the satellite holds this information and not thru the phone line.
Regarding a second box I am not sure. You could phone them (from the UK of course - never from overseas) and advise them that there is no phone line in the room where you want to keep the 2nd box... if it's not a problem then you're sorted. Get the box activated and bring it to Italy. You will never need to connect the box to a phone line in italy.

How much extra does it cost for the 2nd box btw? because you could get a sky viewing box and card from the internet. i got my friend to send me his box and i bought a viewing card for £20 from someone off this website. I'm sure you could pick a box up from ebay for about 30 to 40 quid.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Hi Duffer,

Thanks for the reply.

Its only after I made the post I realised that I can buy the box & subscription separately.

Can you tell me what size dish I will require in San-Remo to receive UK sky ?

... Or can anyone recommend a satellite installer in or around San-Remo to install the dish for me ?

Thanks

Des

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

It's a question of size really matters...;)

However your location is quite good compared with the rest of italy. i doubt a 60cm dish would be sufficient for all the channels - i would say at least 1m or 1.2m would be okay but then i'm no expert! The bigger the dish the better chance you have of picking up a decent reception of all the channels however you also need to make sure you get a good quality dish and lnb input> big dish with poor quality equipment might not be as good as a 80cm dish with good stuff.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

I've just taken the plunge and signed up for SKY Italia! Only trouble is we aren't getting a signal. Of course sky has activated the account anyway, so at the moment I am paying for a lovely blue screen with an advice message stuck on it!

Sky seems to think it is the dish, which was already here, but I can't see how it can be as we have been getting Freeview channels okay up until now. The sky box doesn't even pick up those. Any thoughts? Could the dish need realigning or have I got a dodgy decoder?

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Here is a map of the footprint along with some other info that might be of help:
http://www.brymar.co.uk/info/Astra/astra.html

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Do you know if you can get Sky Uk and Sky Italy on the same receiver provided I have one dish on Astra and one on Hotbird? Eventually what sort of receiver should I look for?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Do you happen to know if you can get Sky UK and Sky Italy with the same receiver?

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Would not have thought so - think you would need to have two different Sky cards and the dishes need to point in different directions for Italian and UK Sky.

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

I had an engineer out today - I now have SKY! Problem was a dodgy LNB, too many connections in the house for one Parabola, and SKY needing a stronger signal than Freeview. So only have one connection that works now - but who needs 5 anyway?! A chunck of LNB that looks like a ray gun, but a working SKY signal. Kids watching Scooby Doo - result!!:D

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

Yay, welcome back to the TV land of the living! You'll soon be getting fed up of the re-runs on BBC Prime too!

Carrie

Re: Getting SKY Tv in Italy
 

I was checking what was on all the channels. Benny Hill! OMG!! Forgotten he's a hit here!