Freeview on Sky?

[Milky Bar Kid]

Evening all, I'm after some advice.

The freeview signal at my house is non existant, and as such I've been having a nose about on the interweb to see if I can get anything through the old sky dish I have hanging off my garage. Basically, it seems I can just plug a sky box in and it shoold give me a certain amount of free channels.

Do I need to get a card at all, as I have read differing opinions on this. Also, could I get a sky+ box and still use the sky+ recording features? Any help or advice will be most welcome as the 4 normal channels are getting boring after having had sky before.

[TheDutch]

'Freeview on Sky' would be Freesat, nothing to do with Sky, uses the same dish and no viewing card required: http://www.freesat.co.uk/

[telecat]

As for Freeview itself check when your area is being switched over. Once they switch off analogue the digital signal power is ramped up at least 10 times

[Los Palmas 7]

Milky Bar Kid said:

it seems I can just plug a sky box in and it should give me a certain amount of free channels.

It will, but not many. I've got an uncarded Sky box in the bedroom and actually get fewer channels than Freeview. You get the big five (and their associated subsidiaries - E4, Five USA etc) but that's about it - no "Dave" for Top Gear repeats, for example.

I would say it's OK if you're not a big TV watcher who needs every possible channel (I mainly use it for watching CSI in bed).

[miniman]

I would give Sky a call. They do a thing called Freesat from Sky (www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/) however they want £150 for a box, dish and install - not sure if they will sell you just the card. They certainly used to for about £20.