What to do with Sky box after cancelling Sky

hamsterboy

Hi All
Apologies if this was asked before
My mate has just canceled her Sky package but now she's been hearing that you can still get some channels and even talk of "codes" you can enter to access some other channels.
Anybody know anything about these "stories"

Cheers
HB

hobochris

yep, you can use it the same as free view box pretty much.

Wizard007

The free to air channels are on this link

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055533792

dmeehan

i have 2 spare sky boxes (1, an old silver grundig still going strong) and a spare sky+ box (which is just a heavy version of the other two as it is useless without a sub)

Using 1 in the kitchen, other 2 are collecting dust in the attic

ynotdu

as far as i know this is legal.if you have sky subscriber friend in northern Ireland or the UK ask them to send you their old card as it will give sky box,s a new lease of life if the first sky digital card is anything to go by.more than ten years old now this is only the first card replacement sky digital has made but once a card is replaced by sky the old one remains a free to view(ftv)card. You will also hear of free to air channels(fta)these can be received with just the digibox,no card required.

these obsolete cards will make your digibox think it is located in the UK and you will receive the ftv channels technicly meant for the UK(an obsolete R.O.I card will not do this)

ch 101=bbc1
ch 102=bbc2
ch 103=Itv1
ch 104=ch 4
ch 105=ch 5(if it does not decode it is free to air by manual tuning,google it!
you will also get ch4+1,all the e4,s,more 4,s etc,

also Itv 1, 2,3,4.
bbc 1,2,3,4 and all regions of bbc1 and 2,(bbc scotland great for soccer)
and more,all free.
great for students who cant afford cable or additional options in a cabled house.

Eurorunner

To those of you with boxes gathering dust, stick them on adverts.ie and someone will gladly call round and collect and give you 30-40 euro for them. Aside from the few yoyo, its better someone can get some use out of them. Otherwise, they will find their way onto a scrapheap somewhere.

Max Power1

ynotdu wrote: »

as far as i know this is legal.if you have sky subscriber friend in northern Ireland or the UK ask them to send you their old card as it will give sky box,s a new lease of life if the first sky digital card is anything to go by.more than ten years old now this is only the first card replacement sky digital has made but once a card is replaced by sky the old one remains a free to view(ftv)card. You will also hear of free to air channels(fta)these can be received with just the digibox,no card required.

these obsolete cards will make your digibox think it is located in the UK and you will receive the ftv channels technicly meant for the UK(an obsolete R.O.I card will not do this)

ch 101=bbc1
ch 102=bbc2
ch 103=Itv1
ch 104=ch 4
ch 105=ch 5(if it does not decode it is free to air by manual tuning,google it!
you will also get ch4+1,all the e4,s,more 4,s etc,

also Itv 1, 2,3,4.
bbc 1,2,3,4 and all regions of bbc1 and 2,(bbc scotland great for soccer)
and more,all free.
great for students who cant afford cable or additional options in a cabled house.

You can do this (reset the box to the english EPG) by doing the following:

-with irish card in, go to channel 501 (sky news)
-press red
-WAIT for all screen to load
-remove card
-wait 1 minute
-exit interactive

et voila, there you have the english epg.

Mossy Monk

ynotdu wrote: »

as far as i know this is legal.

The card is the property of Sky and or NDS so you cannot give it away legally but the chances of them asking for it back are very slim. It will however only give 4 channels that are not FTA and they aren't all that great anyway.

Digifriendly

Mossy Monk wrote: »

The card is the property of Sky and or NDS so you cannot give it away legally but the chances of them asking for it back are very slim. It will however only give 4 channels that are not FTA and they aren't all that great anyway.

Don't forget however that having FTV Five on EPG is an advantage over having the FTA version under 'other channels' as it is easier to record from EPG. Agree about the channels not being great but I suppose that all depends on your taste.

Mossy Monk

That's true.

ynotdu

Max Power1 wrote: »

You can do this (reset the box to the english EPG) by doing the following:

-with irish card in, go to channel 501 (sky news)
-press red
-WAIT for all screen to load
-remove card
-wait 1 minute
-exit interactive

et voila, there you have the english epg.

worked for me using a light blue deactivated card.

still no ch5,fiver or five us scrambled or unscrambled,any idea how to force a channel onto the epg?

forced software upgrade(pressing on and holding back up button on decoder,not remote!brings black screen with message saying updating software) nothing seems to put ch5 on 105?

ynotdu

Mossy Monk wrote: »

The card is the property of Sky and or NDS so you cannot give it away legally but the chances of them asking for it back are very slim. It will however only give 4 channels that are not FTA and they aren't all that great anyway.

mossy it being origionally a UK card it gives a lot more than 4 extra channels,also radio channels,but the method des
cribed by other poster about ch501 interactive even better

Mossy Monk

ynotdu wrote: »

mossy it being origionally a UK card it gives a lot more than 4 extra channels,also radio channels

All of which are FTA and do not require a card to listen to them.

ynotdu

Mossy Monk wrote: »

All of which are FTA and do not require a card to listen to them.

Hi Mossy,hardly worth us arguing about eh:)

with the English epg I get the free to air and free to view channels(except the 5,s) on the main epg not the add/other channels menu,it just makes it simpler,when the decoder is under the influence of the defunct Irish card I get a lot less ftv tv and radio channels than my defunct uk card.

fcuked if i understand it, it is just the way it works on 3 ancient sky sd box,s i know of.you keep saying free to air,well yeah if i tune in say as example bbc radio 1 as other channels,no need for me to do so when the epg is the uk one they are just there without the need for the extra channels menu,i am lucky though as i can get an excellant signal of rte1,2,tg4,tv3 using a coathanger as an aeriel.

iwb

Anyone know what has happened to our old Sky Pace box? We have used it for months for the free channels. It seems to have a mind of its own somewhat but was working ok up to now.

When it is first switched on, it says it is searching for listings. It will go to TV Guide but when you select anything it again says searching for listings. We can't do anything with setup as we don't know the pin that has been set. It wasn't in there before so we are thinking the kids set up a pin.

iwb

Never mind. I had thought my son had already tried powering it off and on but he hadn't.

Still can't figure out the pin but don't need it at the moment.

Griffinx

Max Power1 wrote: »

You can do this (reset the box to the english EPG) by doing the following:

-with irish card in, go to channel 501 (sky news)
-press red
-WAIT for all screen to load
-remove card
-wait 1 minute
-exit interactive

et voila, there you have the english epg.

I tried this and now cant get back the Irish EPG...HELP!

Mike 1972

Surely if one takes the card out of they box and does a cold reboot/power cycle they get the default EPG (London BBC1/Midland ITV) anyway

Griffinx

Tried switching on and off and it worked.. The first time I cycled power though it came back with the UK EPG.

Cheers
Gx

I use a cancelled Sky box as a radio receiver,i just connected it to a stereo through an AUX channel and i can receive all the BBCs,RTEs etc.,:)