Freesatfrom sky card authorisation?

[Cat]

Hello, I'm new to this forum (having only so-far viewed postings as a guest) but have found it very useful in getting set up for British tv viewing.

I recently ordered a freesat card from Sky, thanks to the info posted in this group, and it arrived in the post this morning (forwarded, of course, from a UK address).  Only problem is, after waiting several hours with my sat-box switched on and tuned to Sky News, the dratted thing says it's not authorised and I must phone Sky.

Checking the excellent "Satellite for Caravans" website, it seems that the blurb that comes with the card is misleading...

"What do I need to do to activate the card? The instructions supplied with the card tell you to place it in the digibox and wait 20 minutes. Unfortunately the half of Sky that wrote those instructions didn't talk to the other half that encoded the card chip. Turns out you need to phone Sky with the serial number of your digibox in order to get the card activated."

So here comes my question, is it safe to phone Sky using my UK mobile from here in France?  Will they somehow "know" that the call is coming from France?  Is it a better bet to get a friend in the UK to ring, or will thay be asked akward questions that they may not be able to answer?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

 

 

 

[pepito05]

Hi Cat46,

You can phone Sky using your UK mobile and no questions asked except your phone number in the Uk that you gave to them when you ordered it as a contact number. They will ask you to go to the menu's on the screen and ask for details of the system (very easy!!). They tell you to wait for upto 24hrs before activation but we waited & waited and a friend suggested turning off the tv & sat box and switch back on - there they were!! we found that ITV, C4 and C5 took some time to come on but it all was up and running quite quickly.

Have you got your dish aligned correctly to the Astra 2 sat?? you can check this by going into system set up on the screen and checking the signal strength and quality (only come up to 1/2 bar each more in our case) but the digital picture is brilliant on all channels!!!

 

Good luck !!

Pepito05

[Cat]

Thanks very much for that Pepito!

I phoned Sky on my UK mobile with no problems, and can now get ITV1 and 2, as well as Channel 4 and Five   Well worth £20 for 3 years.  It did take a while for some of the channels to appear, as you mentioned, but ITV2 was enabled straight away.

In case anyone else needs to phone Sky to get their Freesat card set up, but has to get a friend in the UK to do it, the things you need to note down and pass on to your friend can be found using the Sky remote-control Services Button; then

4 System set-up

5 System details

then make a note of the manufacturer, model number, version number, serial number, viewing card number, operating system number, EPG software version.

(You won't need all of this, but it may help to avoid any akwardness when calling Sky).

They will also need to tell Sky the UK address the card was supplied to, and the telephone number. If Sky ask if the digibox is connected to a phone line, the answer is no.

Happy Viewing!