liquorice wrote:Thanks everyone for the response. i was told that a normal Sky box will only accept the card it is subscribed to but if you buy a non-subscribed box you can use any card in it. this is what a friend of mine has done at his holiday home in the Canaries. Everyone who goes takes their own card and uses it there.
Freeview sounds like a good option but i was worried about what channels you could actually get as Cyprus is very far south of what they call the footprint of the signal so you can only get certain channels at certain times of day.
Not entirely true!
If you put a skycard from a different box into yours it will still work.
If it is fully subscribed to Sky then you will get most of the channels to watch but not sky sports or movies (basically the premium channels) but the the rest wil be able to be viewed.
If the card is not subscribed to sky anymore you can still watch the free channels.
It might not work straight away as when i used to change boxes i would sometimes get someof the channels telling me that the card is not registered to the box but after leaving it for a few minutes the channels would work.
On what channels you will get depends on where you are on the island and the quality of of the equipment used (sky box, dish, lnb, cable). Obviously you already have the dish installed so all that leaves you is the box. A v.good box at cheap price off ebay (£40-£50) would be the pace 2600 model.
The further east you go the bigger the dish required to get bbc and itv which are the basis on how good a signal you can get 24hr/day.
A 2.5m in paphos will get you it most of the time but agia napa you are looking at 4.5m
Hope this helps.
