Dear Dreamo:
It all depends exactly what you want, and also what you can do, so this reply is complicated (!), but .......
By far the easiest way of getting free UK digital TV (inc. ALL BBC) is a Freeview box, available £25 upwards, but you have to be "in range of" a Freeview transmitter. For further info , see my Freeview guide in FAQs sections below.
If you can't easily get Freeview, then SKy also has many free channels (inc ALL BBC, and a few not on Freeview, but NOT E4/more4/TMF/FTN/UK History, which all need a monthly subscription!).
The easiest way to get
Sky "Freesat" is phone them, and for £150 an installer will come and fit the entire system working (a card comes through the post for ch4/5, and also gives access
Sky box office pay per view movies).
Or, you can buy a used
Sky digibox (see
www.dcsat.com ), a minidish with lnb fitted (zone 2 if for north england / scotland), and satellite cable, then you have to fit the whole thing yourself, and get the £20 card direct form
Sky. Doable, but tedious, and you won't save much money!
There's also lots of free European channels, for which really you need a different non-SKy type of receiver (ie, NOT a digibox!). However, not that much free in English (apart from CNBC tonight and late night shows, both very entertaining, and French Arte shows some films with English soundtrack!).
Unfortunately,
Sky and non SKy don't easily "mix", and many people who get both effectively have 2 completely separate satellite systems!
Otherwise, yes, you can get all available FTA channels on just one receiver, including free SKy (but NOT ch4/5!), but note:
a) Receiver should be a "blind scan" type, because the
Sky channel frequnecies change quite often, so without that you'll need to manually update fairly often!
b) To get all the "big 3" satellites, Astra1, Astra2 (
Sky), Hotbird, you need either a large dish and 3 lnbs on a bracket, or else a motorised dish (which needs setting up!).
So, your BEST OPTIONS (without getting too complicated!) are:
1) If "in range" for Freeview, get that! Then, if desired, also get a cheapish FTA non SKy type receiver for the free non-English European channels. A 60cm dish and "monobloc" type lnb will get Hotbird/Astra1 down a single cable from a fixed dish, but you do have to "find" the satellites!.
2) If you can't get Freeview, then go for
Sky Freesat, and consider a separate dish/receiver system for non
Sky channels.