The in-laws are going to cancel there sky at the end of the one year contract and want to get freesat. Do they have to purchase a card or just use the one they have? A quick google came back with some forum links back in 2009 saying you had to purchase a card for £20. But a guy at work seemed to think that they do it for free. Just want to know what to ask for before calling them. Anyone who has done it before?

Cheers

when i did it a while ago I needed a card for about 10 pounds to unlock some of the channels – you could get a lot of channels but not all of them without the card

If they have sky plus or HD I’m pretty sure none of that stuff works if you cancel your subscription

Ask ton he should know, but don’t mention anything about his seat post.

You can’t get Freesat with a Sky box, you can only get those channels that are broadcast ’free to air’ over Sky
Sky will usually just leave you with the equipment including the card so you should be fine if you want to go that route

Freesat itself requires another receiver & has a different channel list

Just cancel it, you end up with the same channels as freesat plus a few others see:

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/what-can-i-watch/

Remember that if they have sky+ this will stop working, if you want to keep the recording features you need a freesat+ box.

you can get freesat with a sky box.
you need to ring sky and ask them nicely if you can buy a suitable card.
they may do this as a one off payment.
but this depends on the operator you get through to.

ton – Member

you can get freesat with a sky box.
you need to ring sky and ask them nicely if you can buy a suitable card.

Interesting. Would it still work as a sky+ box?

you can, but it will not record.

THanks ton. It’s the recording I’d be looking for 🙁

Sky+ recording is available at £10 a month. No length of contract – just monthly.
If you get any channel package, this becomes free.

Robbing buggers

Nice one guys. Thanks for all the feed back. I’ll give em a call and get the card. Sorted!

If you’ve got a viewing card for the existing subscription, then you shouldn’t need another one, nor should you have to pay for one.

so the sky card becomes a freesat sky card if you end your subscription?

Not widely publicised – but it seems – from our experience – you can get the free HD channels with a sky free card in an HD box.

Yes, that’s true Stoatsbrother. I did that for a while before I decided I ‘needed’ eurosport.

Rumour was that if you cancel your contract the sky plus (recording aspects) doesn’t automatically get cancelled. You existing card should be fine for FTA (freee to air) and FTV (Free to view) channels until the next time sky decide to update their cards. The difference being that FTV channels need a card to allow them to be decrypted.