h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having just cancelled my Sky subscription I am left with their digibox (which of course I had to buy) and the sat dish. In theory I should be receiving only Freeview programmes now, but for some reason, I don't get them all (no E4, Film4,More4 or UKTV History). Sky will only let me have the missing free channels for a fee!

It's not a location problem because my next door neighbour has all the Freeview channels.

So - can I buy another Freeview box, link it to the sat dish, and then get all the Freeview channels?

You're confusing freeview with free to air satellite.

You can't hook a freeview box up to a satellite dish, it requires an old fashioned aerial.

I gather to receive most free to air channels over satellite you just need to leave your old decoder card in the decoder box, since although they are free they may be still encrypted. Chances are you'll have a completely different channel lineup to freeview too.

After a quick read elsewhere, it looks like most of your channels (about 200) are being held hostage by Sky until you give them £20 for a Freesat decoder card.

You've now got exactly the setup I've got - and to be honest, I don't miss channels 4 & 5 not being there... (You should still be able to get Film 4 though - if you can't - there's a problem somewhere with either your equipment or the way its tuned in.

My thanks to you both, Croz & Whiskey, for your speedy response.

I guess it's decision time now. I have a good grade roof aerial that can handle it should I opt for a Freeview digibox, so it's a choice between that and giving Sky their ransom money - the latter seeming to be the cheaper option.

Thanks again

Or the third option - don't give sky their ransom money and just do without Channels 4 and 5... There's still a heck of a lot of programming available Free to Air (no decoder card needed)...

So, you won't get Big Brother - but how important is that in the scheme of things?


(Principal Channels I get - without a decoder card)

BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, CBBC, CBEEBIES, BBC Parliament, News 24.
ITV 1, 2, 2+1, 3, 3+1, 4
CNN, SKY NEWS, BLOOMBERG
Film 4 & 4+1
+ a couple of dozen other 'junk' cable channels (Men & Motors, Audi)
+ the hundreds of Indian/Pakistani channels, shopping channels etc.

You can also watch alot of Channel four related programmes online on their 4od (on demand) service for free.

Cheers, I didn't know that. I'll take a look - thanks for the input.