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I would imagine that the main reason that they would revoke the card is because sky believe they are not receiving payment.
I don't suppose they would agree to you taking the card abroad as they don't have broadcasting rights but you are paying for the UK transmission so I don't really see what the problem is. It's up to you if you want to go to all the bother to take it away with you each time you go out to Spain.
The idea of turning off the card is to catch out the people who have paid a third party for the service.
It's always amazed me when I've read that someone has contacted Sky direct from Spain when they have had a problem with reception although I think some of the third party companies call themselved Sky so perhaps it's not so strange afterall!
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We have a Sky freeview card in Spain, but we don't get C4 & C5 and never have. We also get BBC London and ITV Midlands, but we have the channel numbers for the NW broadcasts.
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Poppyseed
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Yikes no channel 5, can't live without my weekly CSI fix  I've had to give up Bones and Cold Case when Vigin fell out with Sky and we lost Sky 1 
Bones I can catch up with on DVD but they still haven't released Cold Case onto DVD yet, why I don't know!
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Is your sky card one that previously had a subscription linked to it? If you cancel a subscription, Sky will obviously turn off the paid for content. When you buy a card from Sky for £20 they activate it so that you can receive free to view (but not free to air) channels such as 4 & 5. Part of their commitment under the broadcasting licence is to also regionalise the BBC & ITV regions. When you activate the card they use the postcode you are located in to give 101 & 103 to that area.
More. The cards are not capable of transmitting. There is no requirement after the initial 12 months of a new subscription to have a telephone line connected to your box, therefore there is no way for Sky to know where in the World the card is at any time and what box it may be in. The only exception to this rule is if you have a multiroom subscription where the card must be in a specified box and connected to a telephone line as Sky will make random call backs to the box. If therefore you have paid a £10 multiroom sub for a 2nd box in your house which is in fact being used in Spain, when the call back is made it fails and you will be disconnected.
Mark
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Thanks Mark. I was just thinking, hey, we can do away with the phone line which is around the edge of the lounge carpet but then I though HOW will I buy QVC stuff via the TV if I do THAT ? 
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Hi Mark, our card is just a £20 one, we never paid a subscription. We had the NW regional programmes until the dish had to be re-aligned after some storms, it was then the regional channels changed, but it doesn't matter we just put in the channel number for the NW broadcasts. Would like C4 & C5 though.
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Poppyseed
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Help, I've read the whole thread 3 times and I'm still confused about this free to air package.
At the moment you get BBC1,BBC2 and ITV and from July Channels 4 and 5 will be included, this you will get via an Astra signal?
Mark you mention paying Sky £20 for a free to air card, is this monthly or a one off charge?
You then go on to say that you don't need a card just a satellite Decoder Box, that's when I got lost.
To get Astra do you need a large dish?
I would like to understand the other options open to me if I decide to go down another route to get some english news channels.
Ages ago I had the engineer round to retune my digi box for the new channels and he told me then that the Gaurdia were dismantling large dishes which people had put on walls or in what they considered a dangerous place. The home owner was then made to pay for the work done.
In a way it makes sense as we do get very strong winds on the coast.
Better bear this in mind before you install a dish.
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I don't really know the geography of Spain yet, but I know that C4 & C5 can be awkward to get with some of the channels disappearing at certain times of the evening because of atmospherics. Ourselves in Vera can't get C4 but we can get C4+1, I have also been told a lot can depend on which digibox you have.
Also, if you leave the box switched off for any period of time (say when you are back in the UK) the card can "go to sleep" which will remove the regionalisation and some channels. The box then needs to be powered up for between 24 to 72 hours until the information is received again.
Mar
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Okay, here we go  .
There are many different types of satellite receiver on the market, not all of them are Sky branded. With any generic decoder and a Sky decoder, there are a number of channels you can received from the Astra satellite. These are free to air programmes are not encrypted, like BBC, ITV, Zone Reality, Sumo TV, (there are about 200 free to air programmes, see here for info http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/ ). Then you have the free to view channels which are the likes of C4 & C5, but are only available with an activated card, although they are free. To get a card, you ring Sky and ask for their Free satellite deal. You are then asked to pay a one off £20 fee for the card and then you need to activate it. You need to put it in a box in the UK as when you ring Sky they will ask you to go into the programme menus and ask for serial numbers and the like. You can do it via a UK mobile phone in Spain, but it will be expensive. Once you have given Sky a all the numbers they want, they send the signal to the card to activate. This can take up to 48 hours to activate and once it has, you will know because 4 & 5 will be available and your BBC and ITV will be regionalised. You then take the card out of the box, put in your regular card (if you have one) and put your new card in your wallet until next time you go to Spain.
Not sure on the size of the dish, we just took a feed from one of the neighbours dish which is te way it seems to be done on the local urbs, saves a dish being on every terrace!
Hope this clears it up a bit.
Mark
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Uhmm...so if you have an existing subscription and you request one of the freeview don't they think its all a bit suspicious?
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No. Don't forget in the UK TV is going digital which means every TV without a built in digital tuner will require a set top box of some sort. Other people (such as us) that have a subscription downstairs also have a box in the bedroom and our son's room, there is nothing to say you have to have a sub or multiroom just because you have more than one box.
Mark
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Read the link and now I understand. 
What a list of channels, will stay with my freeview box here but might have a look for a dvd recorder with a digital feed. I think I'll need to put a new ariel on the roof as we only have the mesh disc but would like to see what channels I can get with this. Will later find out about dish size etc and decide then if to go down that route.
Thanks for your help, much appreciated.
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Just seen posted "elsewhere" today
" My wife rang the Telmicro engineer who installed our Telmicro system. He told her how to add the channels over the phone. She added the channels, following his instructions as he was talking to her. She said it was easy. We now have UK Gold, UK Style, UK Drama, Sky One, Living and Hallmark"
Looking better !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Those chanels were given as extra ages ago More......................no replacements for the Sky they've taken off yet tho.
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 ' Do unto others as you would be done by'
Now a non-smoker !
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As it was only posted today, K, I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that it was new news. 
Ah well, at least we have our (expensive) Sky channels here.
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service has been resumed as normal.
We now have a full package again other than the Sky movies.
Sky sports 1,2,3 and Sentanta are back on although apparently not transmitted by Telmicro?????
There is a statement on one of the channels to state they are now all full legal and only transmit "rights paid" tv,....ummm,we will see.
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www.taylorlandandpropertygroup.co.uk
still here after all these years!
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Other forums have pages of people complaining ever since they pulled plug so to speak but when the sports channels came back on this weekend they were complaining about that too
I realise it's annoying not to receive something you're paying for but it's a hookie system and can go at any time. That's why I've always kept the option to pay by Direct Debit.
Personally I'm not bothered about the movie channels or for that matter the sport. I was rather looking forward to going out to make a drink and coming back in to find the same channel on. He who says he must be obeyed always likes to check on the score
Take your eyes off the TV for a moment and your channels gone.
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Help please....I have read somewhere that you can buy a digibox from Hypercor for 50Euro which will pick up around 25 spanish channels and if any of the programmes are dubbed from American/Enlgish these can be switched to English to hear... does anyone know of this? Thanks for looking
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its called tdt - television digital terrestrial. up to 30 ish channels, digital quality, audio changes (when available not all the time!), and all through a TV aerial - which may have to be reconfigured.
check out www.tdt.es for channels and availability - or the other tdt threads about here
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Hi satandpcguy,
Many thanks for coming back so quickly, I want the spanish channels to help with learning the lingo but it is nice occasionally for the brain to stop working and veg out on a sitcom.
regards,
Mo
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