Sky Freesat - best supply/install options

m_stan

My Dad is going down the freesat route and I wanted to ask your advice on the best way to get it installed - buy the hardware himself and get someone to install or just go with a supplier/installer ?

He wants to get it installed at home in Dublin and in his holiday home in Wexford so would be buying two systems.

Price is a factor.

Any advice ? Thanks

Pal

Buy a digibox with freesat card on ebay.

the card delivers FTV channels as well as FTA ones.

get a dish, LNB, cable, sat finder.

point at the sun at 11am and start fiddling


you should read the FAQ on this forum

watty

You can get burnt getting Freesat cards from ebay. Better to pay the £21 to Sky yourself. You need a UK postcode address for them to send it to.

Strictly speaking only the Digiboxes are sold on eBay. The cards belong to Sky/NDS. But someone might leave a card in the box

Often too Digiboxes sold on eBay are old and may suffer PSU or tuner failure in short time or be very slow with EPG.

You can install two dishes and have one box. Certainaly one card as the card if the box is unplugged can stop working and need 24hs or so of refresh to start again.

Or you can go for a FTA box. Cheaper, but no detail EPG or interactive, but more flexible.

A Free To View card only adds C4, Five and Sky3. All the BBC/ITV work with no card on Digibox or a FTA box.

A non-Sky PVR satellite receiver works on all free channels without a subscription.

A Sky+ PVR only records with a Sub and only BBC1 NI and BBC2 and no ITV channels.

Sparky

I will point out that I was not too long ago that I got a digibox from ebay that had not been used for quite some time. As a result it missed many updates and will not read a yellow house card nor show channels in other groups other than All channels.
So watch out for them.
If you may, try and go for a more recent model of digibox.
The old panny boxes are great as long as they are kept updated.

construct06

Try http://www.satone.tv/freesatcard.htm for the freesat cards, £28 for card and £3.50 for postage, (even if ure gettting a few cards).

The card is already activated.

Berberis

watty wrote:

You can get burnt getting Freesat cards from ebay. Better to pay the £21 to Sky yourself. You need a UK postcode address for them to send it to.

.

If I get my sister in london to buy one of these cards for me. What info does she need ( is just the make and model of the digibox enough or does she need more)

When I get the card then What? is it just a case of inserting it into box or do I have to ring sky and get them to activate it.

Also does anyone know if it is possible for me to use the parental control feature when you have this card. ( young kids in house and with less channels to view there will I'm sure be more chance of coming across the stuff i would not like them to see.

watty

yes it is, usually the last four digits of card, unless it is a replacement of old FTV / UK card, in which case the previous card digits apply.

Needs the box stuff on the services setup system bpage, but not the card number on that page