Can i use an old sky box as freeview?

Kels100

I have just moved into a new house and unfortunately the aeriel is not working (i think has been put up wrong) but i need to get a new aeriel, but in this current climate i can't afford it esp having to get new bits for my first house.
There is an sky dish up and i was wondering that if i brought a sky box from Ebay then i would be able to use this as freeview until i could afford to get my aeriel replaced? Does anyone know if i can do this seeing as i don't have an account with sky or does it have to be that i have had to have an account with them in the past ?

Please help!!

Inactive

Yes you can, however you will get the free to view channels which are slightly different to " Freeview " that is only available from an aerial.

A car boot sale could be cheaper than eBay.

DAS_TV

If the SKY dish is all wired up, you could get hold of a Freesat box and just plug it in. A second-hand SKY box might work, it might not. It's a murky area. If you're lucky, the box "might" carry an out-dated subscription, but chances are it won't so you'll only be able to get Freesat From Sky (which isn't the same as the first Freesat I mentioned!)

macman

Freview service requires an aerial. Sky requires a sat dish. So you can't get Freeview using a Sky box and dish, only the non-sub Sky channels.

ioscorpio

Try asking for a sky box on freecycle, a lad gave me one that he had not used for 4 years, I gave it a clean connected it and it works fine with the free to air channels. It does not even have a card with it.

hobgate

wish somebody would give me one

Inactive

hobgate wrote: »

wish somebody would give me one

Don't we all... :rotfl:

I_luv_cats

You can get a Freesat SD box under £50 or HD under £70.

The best thing with Freesat is you know all the channels are yours to watch. With Sky box you get annoying subscription messages. Also you may need a viewing card for some channels like ITV.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

I_luv_cats wrote: »

Also you may need a viewing card for some channels like ITV.

Not any more. The channels the Sky card gives you now is FIVER, FIVEUS and Sky 3.

The normal terrestrial channels are all there, though you do have to add in FIVE manually.

Moneymaker

You can see a list here: http://sam-radford.me.uk/ftv.htm