As title suggests, never watch anything but BBC, CH4, and occasionally Film4.

I realise that i will not have the recording facility, but thats no big deal.

So if i cancel my subscription with Sky will the box (Thomson) be able to be used as a freesat box, or will there be a bit of tinkering required

Over to the STW maseeev

My Grandad uses his as a freeview box so I guess it can work somehow. I think you have to have a different card in it.

Yes get a freesat card that is all

Yup, we were told by Sky that we would be able to.

Where do i get a freesat card ? do SKY send one out ? or will the existing card be suffice

No you have to get one from sky…. Didnt cost much

Search google for freesat – £20 one off fee.

Dead simple. Until your children take the card out and hide it…

Simples, easier than i thought

Cheers

Afaik, you don’t need owt. Just cancel sky and your box effectively becomes a freesat box by default. We had a sky box left by the previous owners of our house, it had an old sky card in it and it worked fine. HTH

You need the freesat card but it works.

just moved into a house and previous owner left sky box .

all i need to get freesat is get one of those sky cards ( plenty on ebay ) to receive freesat ???

that would be excellent as fed up with patchy freeview .

OK, so do i need to purchase a card or will the existing card be deactivated and automatically default to freesat ?

I think any old sky card will do, yep.

If it’s a Sky+ box, bear in mind that none of the record / pause functionality will work.

jon1973, yeah thats not a problem.

SKY wont be funny and ask for the box back or try and get me to purchase it will they ?

They never asked for my box back, unlike Virgin I thought you owned the box with Sky.

I never got a freesat card, just let the contract expire. Only thing I’ve noticed with it is that Dave doesn’t work.

Assume there is more to the card than that?

You most definitely do not need a card. I have 2 running. There might be less choice of channels, I don’t know, but the ones you list will be ok.

Dave is not a freesat channel

It’s works fine, we do the same.

The only thing is you won’t get Channel 5 – which in my book is not great loss. 😉 But I think you can pay Sky a one-off £20 payment to get it.

shame the sky+functions wont work anymore, but nice to know i wont have to do anything once the hosuemate moves out and cancels his sky subscription (he’s leaving the boxes behind).

will multi-room still work? 😀

i canceld sky a couple of months back ive not bought another card and still get most of the channels including the horror channel. sky told me i could also use the recorder on it if i paid them £10 a month. but i didnt think it was worth it

You don’t need another card, your sky box will default automatically to freeview when you cancel your subscription and your notice period runs out.

If you have a sky box, it needs a card in it to work, in my experience, the card needs to be paired with the sky box and only sky can do that, so just be careful what you buy. It shouldn’t be necessary though if your just cancelling your subscription.

SKY engineer here, without a subscription your box will become effectively a freesat box.

Your current card will just have the subscription channels disabled on it ,so any free to view channels will be available still.
Also by keeping your current kind in you still be able to view Channel 5(not available when you remove the card) and also the regionalised programmes like BBC and ITV will be correct for your region still ie.Granada for the Nth West,Central for down south etc.

You may notice 1 or 2 channels that are not available that you would get on freeview or a Standalone Freesat box.

If you have had your Sky box for 12months or more it is now yours,Under 12 months and Sky may send a engineer for it.

The only thing is you won’t get Channel 5 – which in my book is not great loss.
+1 to that. I think the only thing I’ve ever watched on Ch5 is football.