Freesat Using Old Sky Box

[smary 14]

Can I use my old sky box as a freesat receiver and if yes how do I go about it?

[speleo1 10]

Just use it as you are doing now without subscriptions, you will be limited to what you can see, ,maybe need retuning, and maybe better with a Freesat box.

[willman 10]

Once upon a time you needed a card to facilitate the free stuff,don't know if thats still the case these days now that its Comsat owned.

 

[iansheff 84]

1 hour ago, willman said:

Once upon a time you needed a card to facilitate the free stuff, don't know if thats still the case these days now that its Comsat owned.

 

Yes I looked at getting a card for my Sky box, think it was about £20, I didn't bother. I still use my Sky box to watch the Freeview channels because it gives me the +1 option  if there are 2 programmes I like on at the same time. With the catch up services available now such as Freeview play you can catch up with a lot of the channels that is if you have smart TV or something like a Roku box.

[alchresearch 208]

"If you’ve previously had Sky TV, you can simply connect your Sky box to the existing cables in your home, your Sky Viewing card automatically became a Freesat card once your monthly Sky TV subscription ended."

[Ghozer 112]

But yes, you do need a card (even if it's an expired Sky one) to be able to decrypt some of the channels!

You will be VERY limited without a card!

[smary 14]

Just to let you know - Sky box up and running. thanks for all the help

[richb99 10]

I have used old sky boxes as freeview boxes and suggest you use the "Favourites" function to include all the stations you CAN view and avoid having to go through all the stations which are encrypted.

[Longy67 23]

So, if I get an old sky box, I can just plug the wires into it from the dish to watch freeview stuff, I just need a card???

[Ghozer 112]

2 hours ago, Longy67 said:

So, if I get an old sky box, I can just plug the wires into it from the dish to watch freeview stuff, I just need a card???

Pretty much, yeah - there will be some channels (although not many) that will work without a card... but having a card offers decryption of more channels (Even if an inactive card) - but you could call sky and get an old card converted to a 'freeview' card...

(There are also other tricks you can do to receive other channels, such as searching for different MUX's online, and entering the polarization mux and channel info etc.... Some times you may need to realign the dish too.. - but dont worry about all that :) if you're just wanting to normal freeview! :) )

 

[Longy67 23]

On 08/06/2020 at 02:43, Ghozer said:

Pretty much, yeah - there will be some channels (although not many) that will work without a card... but having a card offers decryption of more channels (Even if an inactive card) - but you could call sky and get an old card converted to a 'freeview' card...

(There are also other tricks you can do to receive other channels, such as searching for different MUX's online, and entering the polarization mux and channel info etc.... Some times you may need to realign the dish too.. - but dont worry about all that if you're just wanting to normal freeview! )

 

Cheers Ghozer...👍👍👍

[PlayStation 10]

you won't be able to use the live pause, rewind and recording features. so just keep that in mind. don't know if it is still the same but years ago when we got rid of sky and just used it as a freesat box, they said if we paid £10 we could still use the record function.