replacing skycard & digital receiver box

HAVEFAITH

Hello Forum,

On behalf of a neighbour i have a question:

They have been asked to replace their skycard? (£20 i hear?) & they currently have an 'old' Amstrad receiver box. What about replacing that & whats the cost involved? any places where to buy from?

Many thanks

googler

If they don't replace the card, then they just need to take the existing card out of the box, and the box will still receive all the free channels, but not those which are covered by subscription (and hence are made accessible by the card)

If the box is currently working fine, there's absolutely no need to replace it.

The above assumes that they own their own box and pay Sky merely for the card. If they have some leasing/rental contract for the box AND card (I'm not familiar with all Sky's options) then that may be a case of 'return box to Sky, buy new or refurbished box' - in which case, www.brymar.co.uk was where I bought mine....

Savvy_Sue

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chocolateilike

I am in the same boat as well. If I take out the card, I can still get the free channels...however Sky did said :

If you do not replace your Sky viewing card, you will start to lose access to the following channels from October 2009:

ITV1 (if you receive one of the following ITV1 regions: ITV Anglia West, ITV Central South West, ITV Meridian North, ITV Meridian South East, ITV Tyne Tees South or ITV Yorkshire East)

FIVE (if you live in London, the North of England or Scotland)

FIVE USA, FIVE USA +1, FIVER, FIVER +1

Channel 4 HD

Sky 3

and yes it's true. I am :mad: since ITV and Five are free channels! Quite tempted to throw the box out of the window at this point as I don't fancy paying Sky £20...

mjm3346

If you can get receive freeview then get a freeview box (under £20) which will give you back itv, five, five USA, fiver and sky 3 and get you Virgin 1, Dave, Quest, Yesterday and sky sports news. Wouldn't throw the sky box as you still get quite a few free channels on it, although "never mind the quality feel the width" springs to mind.

will-in-estoril

HAVEFAITH wrote: »

Hello Forum,

On behalf of a neighbour i have a question:

They have been asked to replace their skycard? (£20 i hear?) & they currently have an 'old' Amstrad receiver box. What about replacing that & whats the cost involved? any places where to buy from?

Many thanks

They have probably got an old Amstrad DRX100 or 200. Far too slow. Ebay is a good place to look. I would recommend a Pace, but avoid older Grundig/Thomson, as they are prone to PSU failure. If a digibox has not been used for a while the software may not have updated, but an upgrade can be 'forced'. (The exception is the Pace 2600c1, where you need to wait for Sky to send out the update signal.)

The card can be ordered separately from Sky, as per the screen prompts.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

chocolateilike wrote: »

.....since ITV and Five are free channels! Quite tempted to throw the box out of the window at this point as I don't fancy paying Sky £20...

You can add FIVE and ITV regions into 'Other channels,' so you won't lose them. Unfortunately, they won't appear on the EPG.

Another way is to do a force update on the box. This will put ITV Central into 103 and gives BBC London on 101. You can still add your ITV region and FIVE into 'Other channels' if you want the regional programming.

googler

chocolateilike wrote: »

Quite tempted to throw the box out of the window at this point as I don't fancy paying Sky £20...

Well, didn't you pay Sky to get the card in the first place.... either as a one-off or subscription?

How much have you paid them already, and what proportion of this does an extra £20 represent?