Using sky for freeview

motorman99

Hi all
im giving up on sky…just too dear, plus we have Netflix and Amazon, I can’t justify £65 month to sky.
however, I’ve obviously got to send back the sky Q box and mini box in the bedroom 
if I want to use sky to watch freeview channels is it as simple as buying a secondhand Q box and mini box and putting my old viewing card in?

if not I’ll get freeview thru terrestrial aerial, but reception here is erratic.

but not £65 a month erratic!

Thanks in advance 

Bob 

DullGreyGuy

Buying a secondhand Sky box is one option... some TVs have a freesat tuner built in so no need for an external box and other brands of freesat boxes exist.

The Sky Q Minibox however wont work as freesat without a subscription, if you have a dish feed to the bedroom then another type of box can work

matelodave

You can buy a "freesat" box but not "freeview" to work with your dish.

Dunno about secondhand SKY Q boxes because they usually have to be returned to SKY otherwsie they'll charge you for it, so they may not be easy to find

Second hand SKY HD boxes are available. However bear in mind that the SKY dish for Q wont work with an old HD box and you need to ensure that any Freesat box you do buy is compatible with the Q dish (some installations did have a hybrid LNB but you need extra cabling to use the older system.

prowla

When I changed from Sky HD to Sky Q the engineer just replaced a couple of little widgets (LNBs) in the connection block of the satellite dish; I'd imagine the old-style ones are readily available.

One way to check is to acquire an old Sky HD receiver, plug it in, and see what it does; Freeview through a Sky box is just a matter of not inserting a viewing card, though it won't have the record functionality.

Sky HD boxes are typically available on Freecycle, at car boot/jumble sales, and in high-street cash/pawn shops; they did do a smaller one without the recording capability (ie. no hard disk in it).

motorman99

Thank you