Swapping from Sky to Freesat - can it be easily done?

[Ari]

We very rarely watch TV so decided to give up Sky. We're left with a handful of channels and would have many more if we had Freeview, but we have no aerial.

Presumably Freesat gives the same channels as Freeview, but is it a simple case of ditching the Sky box for a Freesat box? Or does it need a new dish or pointing at a different satellite or something?

[Ari]

mcflurry said:

AFAIK an out of contract Sky box gives pretty much the same channel line up as Freesat..

That's interesting because there are far less channels than Freeview, so does Freesat have much fewer channels than Freeview?

Little point changing if there is no difference.

[Ari]

daved said:

Did this a few years ago. Re-used the same dish but had to have a new (twin) LNB and cabling from it to the Freesat box. Not sure if this was necessary to take advantage of the watch one channel and record another possibilities of Freesat, or it really was necessary to make it work at all. It was a few years ago so things might have changed.

We don't need the recording facility, we just want to be able to watch TV occasionally.

[Ari]

Aha! That's massively helpful, thank you all!