MJW

Does anyone know if I take a Sky digibox and dish down to France whether or not it'll work ? I have a spare box given to me by a friend and it still has his viewing card (though no subscription). If I fit it down at our place on the Cote D'Azur will I still be able to pick up the UK Free view digital channels ?

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

I use my Sky box in Southern Germany with a 60cm dish with no problems at all.

Flatcapdriver

Yes you will. If you're vaguely competent technically, you'll be able to rig up your dish/LNB etc but the dish size will be important. In the UK, I have the standard mesh type dish but in order to receive the same signal in Southern Spain I have to use a 1.5m dish which probably raised some eyebrows at GCHQ the last time a satellite went over but I remember seeing a decent site that has all the do's and don'ts so I'll try and find it again.

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

Yes it will work, a friend of mine took his out to Geneva (bear in mind that this was despite the Evian mountains being in the way)

Matthew

It'll work, but you'll need a 60cm dish.

There's enough ex-pats in the area for the local installers to be pretty familiar with setting up Sky systems. Remember you'll still need a clear view of the satellite so mounting the dish on the wall of a north facing apartment won't do.

Matthew

T4molie

My bro uses his Sky box in Menorca with zero problems

Altho I believe ur <cough> not supposed to use them there

dsmith

I use an "Old style" 60cm analogue dish for Sky Digital at le mans every year. Have the stand pre made and marked so takes about 30 secs with a compass, then some manual fine-tuning to lineup. First time it took a while (more like 5 mins!).

Probably looking more like at least 80cm for south of france Astra 2D is a samller footprint so may be harder to get.

If you doing it permanently then you'll want to keep your subscription registered to a UK address and obvioulsy pay-per-view might be tricky- I doubt the box will add the international codes for you

Dean

STi-Frenchie

Plenty of folk watching Sky over here, all over Europe - no problems at all. There are installers who can sort you out with a UK address and take care of pay-per-view as well, all for a fee of course. A quick search on Google will provide you with your nearest address for services.

mightyyid

Easy enough to get your satellite to put in a code prior to dialling - this can be whatever you want it to be, but you just need to be able to access the installer menu on the Sky box. Which is also easy so let me know if you want to do it (its what installers access but you pay them for the privilege). There's also a handy clean-up utlity that frees up hard disk space but keeps all your recordings and planners.

Andy

MJW

Thanks for the replies, I should be able to pick a bigger dish up easily enough. Can I run just the free channels though (basic BBC, ITV, etc.), or will I have to take out a subscription to Sky ? There is an old viewing card with the box, but obviously the subscription has expired.