Wanting to leave sky and clueless about freeview or saorview

sparky89

Hi all i received a letter in the post from sky saying my bill charges will be increasing in the new year. I have the basis package with no extras and Im paying €30 per month, I have found in the last year or two there charges are rising every year. I cant afford to pay anymore than what I am paying and also pay for a tv license.
I will be canceling my subscription shortly and looking to go freeview or saorview but I am clueless about both, I dont have an aerial only a sky dish and I dont have broadband, I will need rte also
If anyone could point me in the right direction in would be grateful and Im based in Athlone

Avns1s

If you have a Saorview TV connected to an aerial, you should have the Irish Terrestrial channels. Then if your skybox is of the old type, just take out the card, restart the box and you will have the FTA Channels on an English EPG.

If you have an older non saorview TV and a newer HD Skybox, you might be as well to consider a combo box like this. You will need to connect to an aerial and the existing cable from your LNB and then you should be able to get all of the Irish and UK free channels.

sparky89

I have no areal as it was taken out when sky was installed
would it be expensive to get it installed again

odckdo

sparky89 wrote: »

Hi all i received a letter in the post from sky saying my bill charges will be increasing in the new year. I have the basis package with no extras and Im paying €30 per month, I have found in the last year or two there charges are rising every year. I cant afford to pay anymore than what I am paying and also pay for a tv license.
I will be canceling my subscription shortly and looking to go freeview or saorview but I am clueless about both, I dont have an aerial only a sky dish and I dont have broadband, I will need rte also
If anyone could point me in the right direction in would be grateful and Im based in Athlone

You are based in Athlone so you probably won't get freeview - which is the UK version of saorview.

Using your Sky dish you can get freesat which gives you all the UK channels. You can pick up a freesat box from Amazon. Humax are the best and a Manhatton freesat box is good too. You can get ones with a hard disk for recording like Sky.
www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A560798%2Ck%3Afreesat+hd+recorder&keywords=freesat+hd+recorder&ie=UTF8&qid=1419677461&rnid=1642204031

I am not sure how much a aerial + install would cost in your area. If it is one of those small aerials would less than €100 cover it?

If you have an older TV then you will need a saorview box. I have a Triax one and I use an external hard drive or USB stick for the odd programme I record. Can be got in powercity.ie or tvtrade.ie
www.powercity.ie/index.php?par=10-23&cat=TV,%20DVD,%20Soundbar,%20%20Saorview%20,%20Tablet,%20iPad%20,%20Laptops,%20Cameras&action=brandstory

Technofobe

Personally if i were you I would go for a combibox
That is a single box that does both saorview ( RTE ) and free satelite stations
all in one box with 1 remote control
something like an ariva combi
or the amiko mini HD both around €90
2 tuners 1 for satelite 1 for terrestial ( rte )
you can record rte while watching satelite

If recording is important to you you may want to consider a slightly more expensive triple tuner €140
The Amiko Alien 2+ has 3 tuners
2 tuners for satelite and 1 terrestial tuner for saorview
you can record 2 satelite stations while watching rte

You will need an external usb HDD ( hard drive ) for recording
and you will require a terrestial ( saorview aerial ) you could install this yourself if you are any way handy not a big job cost around € 20
The hard work is already done if you have the sky dish just unscrew the 2 satelite feeds from the sky box and put them on your new combi box do a scan for rte and off you go

We got the alien 2+ to replace sky and have not looked back

mgbgt1978

Or (if you have a Sky+ HD Box) you could just buy a UK expired card from adverts.ie.
This would pretty much let you use your existing Sky box as a Freesat Box. This would be your cheapest option if money is tight.
You would then need to have an Aerial installed to get the Saorview (RTE's etc) stuff. And unless your TV is pretty new, and is Saorview compatible, you will either have to buy a Saorview box or upgrade your TV.

WealthyB

Hi Guys

Hope you don't mind me highjacking this thread

I have a similar query - When we had Sky installed I asked the installer to run a spare cable from the dish that I'd eventually connect to a 2nd non-sky box.

the Sky Dish already has 2 x cables running to the Sky +HD box. The missus wants to keep Sky, so I'm looking to have a (Combi?) Box connected to the Sky Dish so that we can have different output on our 2nd television
(I currently have the SKY ran to both televisions - one via Scart and the other via HMDI over Cat5e connectors - one of those Neet jobbies which works great)

I guess my questions are:
- Is this possible? Can I maintain SKY and plug the 3rd Cable into a non-sky box?
- If so, what box is best for getting as many channels as possible
- Is an Aerial also required for Irish Channels or can I get them via the 3rd cable connected to the Sky Dish?

Thanks in advance!
Rob

Gerry Wicklow

1. Yes you can connect any satellite box to the third cable to get the Free-To-Air (FTA) channels, BBC, ITV etc.
2. All satellite boxes will get the same FTA channels but a Freesat branded box will organise them in a more user friendly way.
3. Yes you will need an aerial for the Irish (Saorview) channels, they are subscription only on the Sky satellites.
As you guessed, a combi box will allow you to merge the terrestrial and satellite channels into one list which many find more handy.

Technofobe

WealthyB wrote: »

Hi Guys

Hope you don't mind me highjacking this thread

I have a similar query - When we had Sky installed I asked the installer to run a spare cable from the dish that I'd eventually connect to a 2nd non-sky box.

the Sky Dish already has 2 x cables running to the Sky +HD box. The missus wants to keep Sky, so I'm looking to have a (Combi?) Box connected to the Sky Dish so that we can have different output on our 2nd television
(I currently have the SKY ran to both televisions - one via Scart and the other via HMDI over Cat5e connectors - one of those Neet jobbies which works great)

I guess my questions are:
- Is this possible? Can I maintain SKY and plug the 3rd Cable into a non-sky box?
- If so, what box is best for getting as many channels as possible
- Is an Aerial also required for Irish Channels or can I get them via the 3rd cable connected to the Sky Dish?

Thanks in advance!
Rob

If its difficult to add another cable for Saorview
You could possibly use something like this
http://www.freetv.ie/alltrade-tv-aerial-and-satellite-combiner.html
It combines the saorview and sat signals in the same cable
And then use another of same to split them again at the combibox