My old digital box gets all the free to air channels, how did that happen?

LighterGuy · 07-04-2011 12:06am #1

To make a long story short.
Havent had a sky digital subscription in years. But the box and reciever was still there. About a a year / year and a half ago I plugged in my sky digibox to check what the chanells were there. Not much. But I left it attached to my 3 pin adaptor so any time I plugged in my tv ... sky digibox was on too. But I never watched any of the free channels on sky.

To my suprise I checked it the other day and I am able to recieve all FTA channels. In fact the channel listings have changed. No longer is channel 101 rte but it is BBC england. And other channels are ITV london, etc etc and I am able to tune in other channels like Channel 5.

Can anyone explain what happened to my box? ... like, is that normal?
I hear that digi boxes update themselves weather you have a current sky subscription or not. But how come it auto updated alot of fta channels?

(hopefully I dont sound stupid with this question :P im just curious to see if sky boxes update themselves to fta )

pa990 · 07-04-2011 12:47am

completely normal

a lot of the most watched channels are free to air, ie no encryption.

i have a freesat system, its more user friendly than a sky box without a subscription.

however you could try and get a FreeToView (FTV) card from sky, this will unlock a few additional channels on your sky box.

LighterGuy · 07-04-2011 12:55am

thanks for getting back.
What stations would a sky FTA card unlock?
I can tune in channel 5 already, minus epg guide.

Kristopherus · 07-04-2011 1:08am

Sky's Freesat from Sky card is only available to UK addresses.Sky will not deliver to an Irish address. It costs £25. If you have family/friends in UK or NI, find out what their postcode is. You can then order online from Sky & give the postcode and have the card delivered to the UK/NI address. The postcode determines the regional variation of the BBC & ITV & Channel 4 you will get. Hope this makes sense to you, as I'm ready to hit the sack:)

LighterGuy · 07-04-2011 2:26am

So at what point does a sky digibox turn itself over to Free to air?

Am I right to believe that if you have any current, or recent sky subscription you will not naturally recieve such channels? (talking about basic fta channels and not by putting in a sky FTA card as my digibox has done)

I was looking at this:

So thats the methoed in order to turn a regular sky digibox into recieving FTA channels? ... Like for example, my neighbour has a sky subscription and is recieving their channels... rte1 c101 etc. So the above metheod is how to swtich it into FTA mode as such, .... or is the lastest standard that all sky digiboxes with subscription also include itv london, bbc london (etc) as well as notherern ireland regions?

Cantona's Collars · 07-04-2011 9:10am

A skybox without a card is always a fta receiver as in it only picks up the fta channels-the active viewing card simply allows you to pick up the encrypted channels you pay for.
No magic or mystery about it.I actually know of some people who cancelled sky and promptly disconnected the box from the dish as they thought sky would still charge them if they kept it plugged in.:D
Or another gem is swapping the Sky dish for a FTA dish

There is a sticky at the top of the page showing how Sky subscribers can tune in various channels and regional variations of them into their boxes.

Rippy · 07-04-2011 2:21pm

zerks wrote: »

A skybox without a card is always a fta receiver as in it only picks up the fta channels-the active viewing card simply allows you to pick up the encrypted channels you pay for.
No magic or mystery about it.I actually know of some people who cancelled sky and promptly disconnected the box from the dish as they thought sky would still charge them if they kept it plugged in.:D
Or another gem is swapping the Sky dish for a FTA dish

There is a sticky at the top of the page showing how Sky subscribers can tune in various channels and regional variations of them into their boxes.

Plenty of unscrupulous installers selling Fta boxes and sometimes changing dishes too unnecessarily.
Some even take the old sky box away for 're-cycling' ........

paulcdub85 · 07-04-2011 3:26pm

Rippy wrote: »

Plenty of unscrupulous installers selling Fta boxes and sometimes changing dishes too unnecessarily.
Some even take the old sky box away for 're-cycling' ........

What would they really be using the box for...somthing illegal that we're not allowed discuss here? not been smart I honestly don't know...

fj1200 · 07-04-2011 3:31pm

More than likely to sell them on.

alejandro1977 · 07-04-2011 6:13pm

I see from the Sky Freesat page that Sky One is not listed

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/what-can-i-watch/

Is this a feature of the old Freesat Cards or am I missing something? I'm in the UK and have a HD box though flicking is really annoying as lots of Channels are missing - it there an easy way to exclude Sky One etc (I don't want to watch it anyway)

Cantona's Collars · 07-04-2011 7:28pm

alejandro1977 wrote: »

I see from the Sky Freesat page that Sky One is not listed

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/what-can-i-watch/

Is this a feature of the old Freesat Cards or am I missing something? I'm in the UK and have a HD box though flicking is really annoying as lots of Channels are missing - it there an easy way to exclude Sky One etc (I don't want to watch it anyway)

The EPG stays the same no matter if you have a FTV card or active subscription,nothing you can do to change it in anyway.(i.e remove channels from it)

Cantona's Collars · 07-04-2011 7:37pm

Rippy wrote: »

Plenty of unscrupulous installers selling Fta boxes and sometimes changing dishes too unnecessarily.
Some even take the old sky box away for 're-cycling' ........

Heard of one who charged the people for the privelege of keeping their own skybox to use as fta,he simply changed a damaged lnb.

LighterGuy · 07-04-2011 8:19pm

Rippy wrote: »

Plenty of unscrupulous installers selling Fta boxes and sometimes changing dishes too unnecessarily.
Some even take the old sky box away for 're-cycling' ........

Yeah, thats what I was thinking.
I see so many houses that have an FTA dish and a sky dish. Obviously got conned by an installer.

Just wondering, can I change my sky digibox with a freesat reciever?

Cantona's Collars · 07-04-2011 8:27pm

LighterGuy wrote: »

Just wondering, can I change my sky digibox with a freesat reciever?

Yeah,just disconnect the Skybox and connect the Freesat to the dish,bit pointless forking out for one really as you still only pick up the same channels on it.

Set the 50 most watched fta channels on the skybox as favourites then all you need do is use the blue button on the remote to cycle through them,thus avoiding having to trawl through all the channels you can't watch.

clln · 07-04-2011 8:29pm

LighterGuy wrote: »

Yeah, thats what I was thinking.
I see so many houses that have an FTA dish and a sky dish. Obviously got conned by an installer.

Just wondering, can I change my sky digibox with a freesat reciever?

Yes you can very easy,you could go for a cheap piece of cr*p or contact Tony, owner of satellite.ie who is a great poster here.

He knows all about it and will give you the best deal he can.

*no brown envelopes were passed to me to make this post*

http://www.satellite.ie/

My old digital box gets all the free to air channels, how did that happen?

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