Sky box, need a card or not

TAZ

my son has just moved into his own flat and as his freeveiw box wont work with the normal installed and because there is a sky ariel fitted etc he asked us for an old box. this box has no card and having looked online it would seem he would have to pay £25 for a freesat card, but can he get basis channels by just installing the box.
you can imagine as a first ime tenent and all the bond and stuff he would like to wait a while before he pays out more money.

spike7451

Yes,he can get most freeview channels except Sky3,Fiver & Five US.Channel 5 can be added manually.

Mazzarati2000

Do you have a card that is no longer in use? I believe the box needs a card, but not necessarily one with a valid subscription on it iyswim. We used my old box with my old card in it to get digibox channels in the bedroom when I first moved in, but have had multiroom since Oct 08, so not sure if it still works.....Sky have issued new cards for our subscription boxes since then, but will try with an old one later & let you know. HopeTH :-)

Pokerlad

Mazzarati2000 wrote: »

Do you have a card that is no longer in use? I believe the box needs a card, but not necessarily one with a valid subscription on it iyswim. We used my old box with my old card in it to get digibox channels in the bedroom when I first moved in, but have had multiroom since Oct 08, so not sure if it still works.....Sky have issued new cards for our subscription boxes since then, but will try with an old one later & let you know. HopeTH :-)

The box does not need any card in it to receive FTA channels. Take your card out and try it to see.

ukcarper

I use an old skybox with no card and all I have lost is fiver, five USA and sky3. The only thing I would add is that when I first took out card I kept my local BBC channel and ITV channel but when I lost power to box without card BBC reverted to London and ITV reverted to Central.

TAZ

have just had a message from him he has got it running and is getting some channels but is not getting itv, but is getting itv 2 itv3 etc

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

TAZ wrote: »

have just had a message from him he has got it running and is getting some channels but is not getting itv, but is getting itv 2 itv3 etc

That happens in some regions and it's because the box is looking for the card.

If you get him to do a force update on the box, he'll get ITV1 back on 103.

The only issue, as mentioned above, is that BBC1 defaults to London and ITV1 to Central. The regional BBC stations are up in the 900 channels and if he wants to he can add the regional ITV into 'Other Channels.'