Yeah I've seen the remotes on ebay too - I was hoping to find out without buying one. I can power the unit on and it comes to a "split screen" - the top half of the screen says "VOOM" and has a little video window on the right side that says "WATCH" by it.
The bottom half of the screen has a bunch of menu options, like All Channels, All HD, Favorites, etc. But when I click on any of those using the buttons on the front of the box it just says "New program information is loading from the satellite. This process may take several minutes." I can't seem to get into the Help menu using the box's buttons.
I programmed one of my other remotes for the box and was able to do a little more, like punch in channel numbers, but still couldn't get into the Help menus. Another problem is the box doesn't have an 8VSB antenna module, so I can't punch in my local channel numbers anyway. I have one of those coming in the mail from ebay now.
The bottom line is: does the screen I get when I power on the box have anything to do with whether the box is activated or not? I've heard of some "activation required, please call VOOM" type screens, but I don't know when those show up.
Thanks! I'll probably pick up a remote one way or another anyway, but I was curious if I could tell before I get that, since I might return the box if it's not activated.