duffer

You've answered your own question:

To benefit from the Multiroom price for your 2nd digibox, BOTH digiboxes must be connected to the same phoneline, in order for the boxes to make regular callbacks to Sky. So basically, Sky are using caller ID to confirm that both the boxes are physically in the same household.

If you know of any VOIP or other method that can mask your caller ID then this is the solution.

Don't take my word for it certainly but if there is a big price difference between a 120cm and 100cm dish, you could go for the smaller dish, as there are user reports from several people successfully using 100cm dishes in Varese, Milan and Modena. The worst case scenario is that you might get intermittent reception of BBC and ITV on a 100cm but full reception of the subscription channels.

MattinMilan

thanks duffer.

think you're confirming what i suspected.

Called sky posing the question of what would happen if it's too physically awkward to connect my multiroom box to a phone line and they told me that i'll be able to pay the £10.25 for 3 months (whilst they send reminder letters to plug the box in) then will automatically charge me the full amount (£24.50 in this case, + the £10.25 multiroom fee). She made it sound like it was relatively common (which given the number of sky boxes across europe it must be).

Need to decide whether it's worth forking out the extra money for a 1.2m dish.

There definitely is a price bump. I can get a 1m or 1.1m dish for c.£80, but a 1.2m will cost £175+.

FYI, the info i got from calling around a few of the shops and asking advice was that a matched feedhorn was of greater importance than LNB brand (as long as it's half decent). I.e. getting an LNB holder that was the same brand and designed specifically for the dish would give greater improvement in signal quality than an amazing LNB. Having said all that, given the cost, i'll probably get the Invacom LNB!

Cheers again

duffer

Ciao,

So regarding the Multiroom, you'd have to pay the normal subcription fee AND the multiroom fee after the 3 months? So it would be like a penalty fee then?

I suppose 80 Euro for a 1.1m dish is very reasonable. Does that include the feedhorn? The 2 dishes I've bought were supplied with the feedhorn so I presume they were fairly matched. From my experience, changing the cabling (I have a 25m run) from the existing cheap and thin standard cable to a high quality, shielded German much thicker cable improved the signal quality (strength remained the same). When I changed the LNB to the Invacom the improvements were much greater. I was well satisfied with that purchase. In fact, I will order another one as a spare in case mine melts in the Italian heat.

Domino

that makes perfect sense !
the thinner the cable conductor(s) the higher the line resistance
the higher the line resistance the more the signal db drop at the device.
using thin cable makes no sense because surely the price difference isnt that much, and if it might be there is the knowledge that it will be a one off.
there is also a drop of abt 3db every time you put a connector in the line, so use a single run of cable and don't try to join it. some connectors can give you an even higher db drop.

rgds

MattinMilan

sounds like a single thick cable is the way to go then.

Duffer - yes, after 3 months you have to pay multiroom fee (c.£10) plus a regular subscription fee (c.£25, depending what channels you get), in addition to whatever your subscription is in the UK. Think its a penalty/admission by sky that they know you've got two accounts running from the same account but at different addresses.

next step is investigating dish prices in uk vs italy. assume they're pretty similar, if not i'll have to pay for it as an oversized item on my flight from the UK

MattinMilan

realised that to activate my sky box and pair it with my new multiroom viewing card, i'll need to plug it all in at my uk home (i.e. to the phone line) to update the software, etc.

once i've done this, will it be ready to plug in and use in italy? think it will.

found a local satellite installer about 50m from my house, so i'm hoping with my dishpointer info on angles, etc, and my specific equipment request i should be up and running in a couple of weeks.

thanks for all the advice

Domino

survey published a couple of weeks ago (by Which IIRC) that confirmed my thoughts - a SCART lead that costs £4.99 is no better, no worse performer than the SCART lead with gold plated connections and supposed gold wires at £35.99 or more.
Gold just looks and sounds good when talking about it.
performance is identical.

just a thought.

duffer

Usually, the card will need to be paired if you have some of the premium channels otherwise it can be simply activated over the phone (Skype or Voip) here in Italy.

Just tell the guy to point the dish at 28.2E and look for Astra 2.

This are the settings for the box -

•Frequency (GHz) 11.778
•Polarisation V
•Symbol Rate (Mbaud) 27.5
•FEC 2/3

Let us know how you get on with the installation, size of dish, reception report, etc. as it could be helpful for others.

Good luck!

Snickter

Does anyone know if English Sky in Italy will be affected when England goes digital in April?

duffer

Nothing will happen to Sky UK as it's already a digital satellite service. It's only the traditional terrestrial set top signal that's switching over from analogue (I wrote anal) to digital.

Patty

Duffer - I watch English tv on Astra 28 with dish/decoder - will this be affected in April ? (please remember that I am really really thick about all things technological )

duffer

Yeah I know Patty. However, if you're using Freesat or Sky UK equipment, you're already watching digital UK TV and therefore will be unaffected by the switchover. It's impossible to view the UK analogue broadcasts here in Italy in any case.

What's happening now in the UK is the switchover from the old terrestrial analogue signal of the 'normal' BBC, ITV, etc. channels to a digital only signal. It's the same as what happened here in Italy a couple of years ago. So it only affects the way you watch the non-satellite TV. I suppose the only people here in Italy that would be affected are those who are watching via a slingbox connected to a standard non-digital TV.

In other words, people in the UK will need a digital decoder set top box for their old cathode ray TV or buy a new TV with built in digital terrestrial.

So we can give credit to Italy for once, for being one of the first, if not the first, countries in Europe to switch off the analogue signal and go digital only.

peter cotgrove

duffers can you tell me how to get uk sky in algerho sardinia regards peter

duffer

yeah, read the forum

37100

Welcome to BE.


Having a bad morning, Duffer?