Changing from Sky to BBC

eagle

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I have a digibox bought from e-bay with on old Sky card and want to change this card with a new BBC card (which I’ve got).
Do I have to inform Sky what I’m doing or can I do A virgin installation. (if so-How?)
Does the box physically have to be in England. (Telephone call-back?)
Thanks for your help.
 

rolfw

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If you're in the UK then you should be able to use the new installation feature and do it by phone, if not you will need to get someone to ring the BBC 08702 438000 to activate the new card.
 

rolfw

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No problem Eagle, what I also should have said (in case you didn't know), to get to the installation menu press Services\System Setup\0,1,Select. Then when you choose the New Installation option it will perform a channel scan and phone home, this should activate a virgin BBC card. (It will of course need to be connected to a dish.) :)
 

eagle

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When you say "phone home" is this the digibox itself or does it have to be connected to a phone.
If it doesnt have to be connected to the phone is there anyway they can find out where your receiving the signal from (i.e abroad)
 

rolfw

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If you are not in the UK, then you cannot use the new installation option on the box, as it requires the phone to be connected to a UK line.

All you have to do if abroad, is get a friend in the UK to ring the BBC, armed with all of the information on the system information screen, the BBC will then ask for the activation signal to be sent out.

They cannot tell if you are watching from outside the UK with no phoneline connected.
 

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Sorry to intervene on this subject, but will this new installation option also work with an old BBC card that needs reactivation because of inactivity. I know it will reactivate in time but when I get back from holiday this may bring in the stations quicker.
 

rolfw

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@ Eagle, You're Welcome

@ Devonbrown, I can't see it speeding things up, but it shouldn't do any harm either.
 

ameolive

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Hi


I'm in a similar identical to than one already described by Eagle, here in Rome I can receive with my second hand E-bay bought digibox and a 80 cm dish all the FTA channels plus Channel 4 ( 100% Strength 20% Quality ) and Five by using an old expired Sky card.

To upgrade to BBC channels, I asked my wife's parents to call BBC for a new FTV card, they dialled the 0800 number, communicated my digibox data and last week I finally received the new card.

When I inserted the card in the digibox I received a message that sounded more or less like ' this card need to be activate call your broadcast for further assistance ..."

As explained in your discussion I asked my wife's parent to complete the job by asking BBC to activate the card.

However when I asked to do this they were rather reluctant as they had been told that BBC ( or maybe SKy itself) in their pursue of cracking down on card used abroad, are sending people around to inspect houses from which they had received phone calls for new cards , to check if a dish is actually mounted outside !

They were also told that as soon as BBC realise that the card is not operated from the UK address for which it was requested ,they send a satellite signal that not only kills the card but the digibox as well !

Honestly I don't know if these strories have been deliberately circulated to create unjustified panic among people , but as you can understand I'm at the moment really worried that when I ask the card activation I will end up loosing even Channel 4 and Five !

In this respect I would be grateful if you could send me any relevant information regardiing the reliability of these rumors.

Please, feel free to not publish this message if you believe that its contents may create unnecessary concerns, in this case I will be very happy to learn privately that there is no reason to worry about .

Being sorry for this rather lenghty message and for my poor English

Regards

Amedeo
 

ProDave

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ameolive, I think you are being paranoid.

I really can't believe the BBC are sending people out to look for dishes. Many dishes are installed on the backs of houses where they cannot be seen from the road.

All your wife's parents need to give when phoning to activating the card is the model and serial number of the digibox (which you need to provide them with).

Another point. If you have one of the new cards, it will only work with the latest software, so you might need to do a software update. This is proving a problem for some who can't reveive the default transponder.

If the BBC ever do find out your card is in use outside the UK, then yes they will send a signal to disable that card, but it won't kill the digibox as well.
 

eagle

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Just thought you would like to know that I managed to change my Sky card to an FTV card without any problems.

All you have to do is set it up in England and phone the customer service number up where they ask you the serial and version number of your digibox.

All the channels came through quickly apart from BBC1 which took three days.

Id like to thank everyone for thier good advice.

Eagle
 

mickmills

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Hi,
I install both sky and BBC FTA systems in southern Spain and the new dark blue cards are giving all us installers nightmares. We cannot phone directly for activation, because whatever we do, the BBC know we are phoning from outside the UK.
When we try to activate our cards through a Spanish Telefonica landline using our ususal call-back machine, approx. 20% activate fully, the rest come up "channel unavailable" on BBC1. There seems to be no set pattern to this (ie postcodes etc). Is anyone experiencing this in the UK?. This IS a problem down here. Free week in Marbella for anyone who solves this 100%! (I'm not kidding!). However, before you commit yourself to a sunshine holiday in Spain, be warned me and 'er indoors have three dogs, 25 parrots, ten cats and two racehorses.
 
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