Freesat

Can someone confirm that I have this right please. I want to get Channel4 and UTV/ITV1 on satellite. As far as I know I need to purchase a Freesat card from Sky but I must live in the UK. As I have a sister living in the UK I can get her to purchase it for me. Once she has the card she needs to send it to me. I then need to get it activated. To do this I need to put the card in my digibox (as once it's activated it's linked to my specific digibox), ring sky but make sure I block the number coz they won't do it if they know I'm calling from ROI (I suppose I could get the skin and blister to call for me). Am I missing anything ?

Here they are on ebay.ie

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stick it in your digibox , reboot, wait overnight and up they come.

Thanks tonka. I have seen them on ebay but it would probably be cheaper to get the sister to purchase for me. So are you saying I don't have to ring sky to get it activated ?

the ones on ebay are activated already, dont let the digibox fone home from Ireland with an activated UK card in it and you will be grand ...ie disconnect it.

if your sis gets one she must put it into a UK digibox over there, let it fone home = activate , and then she can ship it to you ...ask her for the website where she can order them and post it in here please.

tonka said:

the ones on ebay are activated already, dont let the digibox fone home from Ireland with an activated UK card in it and you will be grand ...ie disconnect it.

if your sis gets one she must put it into a UK digibox over there, let it fone home = activate , and then she can ship it to you ...ask her for the website where she can order them and post it in here please.

Click to expand...

I'm not his sister, but here you go!


20 sterling. Your best bet is to have the sister activate it. However, she also needs to ring up, they are not self activating AFAIK. But when she activates it in her box its ok, as the cards do not 'marry' to the box they are activated in.

If she wants to order 2, I'll be happy to take one off you with commision for yourself!

Good Post so once I buy one of these cards(Ebay option) and insert it to my Digibox I can get Utv and CH4.....does it just come on or do I need to tune it in?

If the card is activated it will come on...but sometimes it can take up to 24 hours. When you do put in the UK card just to be safe make sure yo uunplug the phone line. From what i have read Sky have not previously disabled UK cards in Ireland, but who knows. I think this is also because the card is trying to phone the UK from ireland but in fact it does not know to dial the international access so some people say its irrelevant taking out the phone line as it can't phone home but better safe than sorry.

Be careful buying off Ebay as sometimes people sell you cards, then ring Sky and say they have lost the card, get it cancelled and get a new card and then your card is only fit for the bin.

Also, final point. If you use your UK card very infrequently then don't just bang it in 2 minutes before a program you want to watch is starting. 99% you won't get to see it. This is because Sky send out stay alive messages to cards. Noone knows when they are sent but if your card misses them it sill go to sleep. Thats why it can sometimes take 24 hours to start showing you the UK channels again, its gone to sleep and will only show them when it receives the next wake up signal.

At least, the above is my understanding of what goes on.....as always, these are the boys with the knowledge...
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