Snipe / FreeSat V Sky

zaskar

zaskar

Joined
Sep 25, 2007
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UK
Funster No
399
MH
Hymer B544SL
Exp
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In a nutshell, has anyone (like us) got fed up of the cost of a Sky subscription and tried FreeSat instead?
Were you satisfied?
Was it a good move or are you sorry and missing Sky?

We first started with a basic Sky package years ago @ approx £19/month. It's now chuffin' £44/month!
We don't have sports or movies, just a basic package.
I like Discovery programmes (factual- "how its made"/ engineering type stuff ) and ffi' likes cooking progs........tho' most of those seem to have gone American how much can you stuff in your gob at once!

Ta
 
Tried Sky once about 10 years ago - what a waste of money. Used to watch the sports and entertainment stuff online for free if I felt the need. Been on Freesat since and it still has way more channels than I need.
 
No Ch4 HD on Freesat.........
 
Tell Sky you want to leave and you will be put through to their retention team
Be polite and you will get a better price
If you're still not happy with the offer cancel and try freesat for a bit
Sky will contact you after two or three months to try to entice you back
You can choose them if you are happy with fresat or want to go back to Sky
 
Are you using at home or in the van?

If at home do you have an aerial? If so can you not use freeview? Would have most of what you need.
 
We had sky for years and released that we could get most of the programs we wanted on web sites or that they were repeated via freesat after about six months. Cancelled the Sky package and within a week had the customer retention team make contact. We got the full Sky/internet free for six months and cancelled again, within a week were contacted again and same deal, this went on for nearly three years trying to get our custom. Now only have freesat at home and in the van but he decoder in the van picks up very channel going so we can get local news wherever we are but its a pain as it picks up over 3500 channels! Freesat every time for us .
 
Skys basic package is approx 25 GBP per month.
More if you want HD.
More if you want kids
More if you want Sports
More if you want Movies
More if you want box sets
More if you want BT Sports

So call them, as you may be on a legacy pack, (ie an old pack and not their new packs), get rid of the kids channels (save 5 GBP per month), and ask them for a discount. IF you dont ask you dont get. YOu get better deals with bigger packs, but you can get up to 50% off for 18 months if you ask.

Cancelling your SKy sub, your Sky box will still receive all the free to air channels. It will receive more free to air channels than are on Freesat (C4 HD for example is NOT on Freesat). But you will get Quest and Dmax, the Discovery channel free channels, so you will still get a fix of "how its made", but with a delay of a few years on new programmeing...

But if you have a Sky+HD box, then recording ability will also stop when you cancel. If you want the Freesat , and recording, then you need to hunt down a Freesat recording box. The HUmax boxes have not been made since middle last year, so no new stocks, and why prices are high on Ebay and Amazon. The new boxes made by Arris are only , at the moment, available via Currys, stocks are low, (was meant to be out "late 2019", but only made available around easter, then taken off sale, and now slowly being put back on) and very buggy.

ALso, dont forget you have Freeview, via a TV aerial. Offers similar channels to Freesat, and others that are not on satellite at all. If you are in / goe to areas with good Freeview reception.
 
Satandpcguy said:
If you want the Freesat , and recording, then you need to hunt down a Freesat recording box.
Click to expand...
Or knowing old cheapskate Funsters they could just dig out their Betamax recorders!:whistle:;):giggle:
 
Ring up sky as we did and got a 12 month deal at 15.00, it was that or we were off. The other good thing is a Firestick, put downloader on, then download cinema HD, all the latest movies FOC

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Satandpcguy said:
Skys basic package is approx 25 GBP per month.
More if you want HD.
More if you want kids
More if you want Sports
More if you want Movies
More if you want box sets
More if you want BT Sports

So call them, as you may be on a legacy pack, (ie an old pack and not their new packs), get rid of the kids channels (save 5 GBP per month), and ask them for a discount. IF you dont ask you dont get. YOu get better deals with bigger packs, but you can get up to 50% off for 18 months if you ask.

Cancelling your SKy sub, your Sky box will still receive all the free to air channels. It will receive more free to air channels than are on Freesat (C4 HD for example is NOT on Freesat). But you will get Quest and Dmax, the Discovery channel free channels, so you will still get a fix of "how its made", but with a delay of a few years on new programmeing...

But if you have a Sky+HD box, then recording ability will also stop when you cancel. If you want the Freesat , and recording, then you need to hunt down a Freesat recording box. The HUmax boxes have not been made since middle last year, so no new stocks, and why prices are high on Ebay and Amazon. The new boxes made by Arris are only , at the moment, available via Currys, stocks are low, (was meant to be out "late 2019", but only made available around easter, then taken off sale, and now slowly being put back on) and very buggy.

ALso, dont forget you have Freeview, via a TV aerial. Offers similar channels to Freesat, and others that are not on satellite at all. If you are in / goe to areas with good Freeview reception.
Click to expand...
Also, if you have Sky Q, you’ll have to return that HW when you cancel.
We never own that Q stuff, just lease it (or similar ?).
 
I would cancel SKY but you cannot get Eurosport on Freesat which we watch for the cycling and another plus point is that many Sky subscription channels can be watched all over Spain as there transmitted on the Pan European beam which is easily received via an 85cm dish
 
Freesat every time. Gave up Sky 15 years ago.
Freesat in the house and motorhome. Never had a problem with it. Watch one channel, record one or two, more channels than you can ever watch and plenty of HD.....and it is all FREE.
 
Another vote for the fire stick
 
You don't have to point your dish at Astra 28 satellites, sports are available from other broadcasters, have a look at lyngsat.

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Personally, we got rid of our TV a few years ago as we never watched it and it was taking up space in the wardrobe. It's easy to do. We do not miss TV either in the MH or at home.
 
I used to work on Sky products, starting on Set Top Box software and ending with work on Q components, and got a free box and subscription with the full package. Sky have a world leading, high quality robust product, but since retiring I have Freesat, as I couldn't the cost of Sky.
The Humax box we have is OK, but a league below the Sky quality and usability, and the remote is poor.
I miss Eurosport and Channel 4 HD.
 
Wow! thanks for all the info guys, VERY interesting.
think we'll give Sky a ring and politely give the "what's going on?" and see what happens.
 
JaG said:
Freesat every time. Gave up Sky 15 years ago.
Freesat in the house and motorhome. Never had a problem with it. Watch one channel, record one or two, more channels than you can ever watch and plenty of HD.....and it is all FREE.
Click to expand...

Hi JaG, I have the Snipe 3 sat receiver mounted on the roof of the moho, with a

Vmade X1 HD Combo DVB-S/S2 DVB-T/T2 Digital Receiver Satellite & Terrestrial, Set Top Digital Box Tuner, Multi TV Program Recoder, Free to Air Analog to Digital Converter


this setup gives me Freesat, but I cant see how I can watch one channel and record others, am I doing something wrong ??
 
  • Like
Reactions: JaG
zaskar said:
In a nutshell, has anyone (like us) got fed up of the cost of a Sky subscription and tried FreeSat instead?
Were you satisfied?
Was it a good move or are you sorry and missing Sky?

We first started with a basic Sky package years ago @ approx £19/month. It's now chuffin' £44/month!
We don't have sports or movies, just a basic package.
I like Discovery programmes (factual- "how its made"/ engineering type stuff ) and ffi' likes cooking progs........tho' most of those seem to have gone American how much can you stuff in your gob at once!

Ta
Click to expand...
I haggled with sky and now pay £32 PM

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I am paying £18pm including Eurosport 1& 2 (not HD). Don’t keep excepting their prices , tell them you are going to leave them. Or another idea is to open in your wife’s or husbands name and you will classed as a new account and get a much better deal for twelve months ,
 
Bubba said:
Personally, we got rid of our TV a few years ago as we never watched it and it was taking up space in the wardrobe. It's easy to do. We do not miss TV either in the MH or at home.
Click to expand...
You are very lucky to be able to do that. We never had a TV either in the van, until Jean had a car accident many years ago, suffers a lot of back and leg pains and became unable to get about unless on a mobility scooter, which is weather dependant. At times it becomes a lifeline for her.
We would love nothing more than to go trekking over hills and dales. Unfortunately it will never be again.
 
wybmadwity said:
.....

The Humax box we have is OK, but a league below the Sky quality and usability, and the remote is poor.
I miss Eurosport and Channel 4 HD.
Click to expand...

We're in the same position, gave up Sky basic package twelve months ago and bought a Humax Box, agree with the quality but it does what we want. No interest in Eurosport or HD.
Also have Freesat at home if we need it and the option of anything off the internet either via the Humax box or a PC (HDMI to a TV).

Sky tried desperately to get us back, I think the last offer was below £12 / month but we're still not interested.

With the exception of the current situation we spent at least ten weeks away from home in the camper each year and deliberately do our best not to bother with TV when away although we can use some phone data or a PCTV nanoStick if we're desperate.
 
bigalw35 said:
Hi JaG, I have the Snipe 3 sat receiver mounted on the roof of the moho, with a

Vmade X1 HD Combo DVB-S/S2 DVB-T/T2 Digital Receiver Satellite & Terrestrial, Set Top Digital Box Tuner, Multi TV Program Recoder, Free to Air Analog to Digital Converter


this setup gives me Freesat, but I cant see how I can watch one channel and record others, am I doing something wrong ??
Click to expand...
The box needs two tuners in it, some have not, especially the mobile type. The one in the MH is a single channel so it is only at home where we can watch one and record another, or record two.
 
Pardon my ignorance but we have a Humax HDR-200T HD Digital Recorder would we benefit but attaching it to our Motor home tv ?
thanks in advance.

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