Secondhand sky plus boxes, whats the limits?

A

Al.Bundy

Member
My Satellite Setup
humax freesat box, couple of old sky boxes
My Location
U.K., and touring
Hi,
Followed a link from the caravanning amigos website to get here, need to pick some brains.
I use an old sky box in my caravan, with an aging viewing card, can get most of the free to air channels, but am looking to get a sky plus box, again secondhand, can anyone tell me what I would expect to receive with a veiwing card about 10 years old, will the record work without a current subsciption, or indeed, are there any other reasonably cheap ways of getting similar results.
any assistance gratfully appriciated
Bundy
 
If your viewing card is Blue with a Yellow House logo, then it's not doing very much at all!

These have all been superceded by White Cards.

Indeed, Cards are not necessary anyway for Free To Air Channels (apart from a small number of "funnies").

Take the Card out and see .................

Anyway, getting a Sky+ box is all well and good, but you need to consider how to keep the Recording function enabled as Sky charge a £10 per month Tax for that.

I note from your profile that you have a Humax Foxsat ............... I assume this is not the PVR version as you would have answered your own question!
 
Al.Bundy said:
am looking to get a sky plus box, again secondhand, can anyone tell me what I would expect to receive with a veiwing card about 10 years old,
Click to expand...
The card will be doing almost nothing for you now, possibly not even setting the regionality (which area of BBC1, BBC2 and ITV1 you get). You certainly won't be getting any extra channels with it.

Al.Bundy said:
will the record work without a current subsciption, or indeed, are there any other reasonably cheap ways of getting similar results.
Click to expand...
No. You won't be able to use the record function without paying monthly for it. It'll be there with a minimum subscription pack but if you just want to record the normal terrestrial channels you'll need a new card (a Freesat from $ly card - currently about £25.00 one off payment) and pay £10.00 a month to use the record function. Note that if you later decide to stop paying the monthly fee ALL programmes that you have already recoded become unavailable to you.

To be honest I think you should be thinking about a true Freesat + box. A Humax Foxsat HDR seems to be going for around the £200 level. As the adverts say, there's no monthly payment.
 
A blue card does nothing except regionalise the viewing area.

To get the ftv channels you need a white freesatfromskycard (25 quid from Sky).

You wont get any recording facilities unless you pay a tenner a month "recording tax" to Sky.

To be honest you are better off getting a Humax Freesat box - a bit more pricey but you get recording facilities, and a good selection of free channels.
 
Is there a suitable emoticon catering for the near simultaneous answering of an OP by 3 people saying the same thing?

Some kind of "Yawn" thingummy ? :D
 
Is there an echo in here? lol
 
ok, thanks guys, next silly question, the humax is a pvr, can get more channels if i take it off the freesat setting, but get a lot of non channels, can't find an edit channel list function, is the box lacking, or am I?
 
Edit function is there ..... Menu > goes into Settings screen with a Clock highlighted...... do not scroll right and up'down, but instead scroll down only - then you'll have a Folder icon highlighted and a new Menu "Edit Channels"

It's the second main Menu in the column at the left of the screen - above the Dish icon for Tuning etc
 
Tivù said:
Edit function is there ..... Menu > goes into Settings screen with a Clock highlighted...... do not scroll right and up'down, but instead scroll down only - then you'll have a Folder icon highlighted and a new Menu "Edit Channels"

It's the second main Menu in the column at the left of the screen - above the Dish icon for Tuning etc
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks for rapid reply, will give that a try tommorrow :)
 
Do you have a twin cable connected from the dish ?

How's Peg and the children ?
 
there is a hack to enable recording on one of the older pace boxes, got to be a specific model number though.

will see if i can dig the info out :-righton

edit-Has to be a Pace 3100 pvr2.
 
Channel Hopper said:
Do you have a twin cable connected from the dish ?

How's Peg and the children ?
Click to expand...
Yes, twin cable, all works fine, but she who must likes the freesat set up, all the channels in the right order, tried the manualtune and edit, but oh so many still scrambled. Will wait with interest as to what crops up with that new fangled astra 1n I think it is, might bring some new channels along, as well as free others from from the hackers grip.
Peg and the kids are fine, bleeding me dry, but people will always need shoes.
 
You don't have to scan in the scrambled Channels ............. the scan screen has options to select FTA only!


Might be best to Edit > Select All > Delete then re-scan.
 
Dont expect loads of new free channels once Astra 1N goes into service - its not going to happen. In the short term is reasonable to expect the Channel5 family of channels to go fta, along with all the ITV1 sub regions that are currently scrambled, but lopts of channels suddenly going fta - nah no chance - the sums dont add up.
 
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