Running 2 sky boxes on one tv?

In the lounge we have sky+, I then installed a further cable to the LNB and put it up in the furthest away bedroom connected to a SkyHD box we got from the bro-in-law and is receiving just the free channnels. We don't have an aerial whatsoever as when we moved to this remote area of the scottish highlands we were told to forget about an analogue signal, getting a decent sky signal was difficult enough. Occasioanally I want to record two programmes on the sky+ but would still want to watch another simultaneously in the lounge. We have an old basic sky box too, and as the controls don't interfere with each other could I run the fourth and final cable to the box and scart it to the tv? Then while the sky+ is busy recording I could switch to av2, change the stereo output and control what I'm watching although it would be freeview stuff only? It seems a better alternative than having to get a freesat tv?

It should work fine.

BTW if you don't already have them you might want to look into getting a couple of "freesat from sky" cards. For a small one-off fee they will get you a number of channels you can't get on a box without a card and will let you get channel 5 without going through the "other channels" menu.

works good, but..........

on the one sky box you have to change the channel in the setup

normally they are on channel 69, so one you have to change to 71 or something, otherwize they transmit on the same channel and you cannot tune into it.

to do this, you first have to unplug one box and change the channel of that one

Good luck

Ta for the advice it's worth a try! I suppose as Sky+ and HD remotes don't interchange, then theoretically I could at some stage have them both in the same room, pay the multiroom subscription and have 4 fully recordable channels?!
BTW is it common to lose the sky signa- ie does it "drift"l? Our neighbours get the same problem. I bought an analogue tuner from screwfix but it looks a faff to use so I just used a bit of threaded rod hinged at the post the dish is on, drilled a 5mm hole through the edge of the dish and put a nut either side.
When the picture quality goes it's easier to go down the garden and micro tune it wi the other half shouting "better!, worse!" etc.....

mcluma said:

works good, but..........

on the one sky box you have to change the channel in the setup

normally they are on channel 69, so one you have to change to 71 or something, otherwize they transmit on the same channel and you cannot tune into it.

to do this, you first have to unplug one box and change the channel of that one

Click to expand...

That should only be needed if you are using RF to hook up the sky boxes, if you are using scart or HDMI it shouldn't be an issue.

plugwash said:

mcluma said:

works good, but..........

on the one sky box you have to change the channel in the setup

normally they are on channel 69, so one you have to change to 71 or something, otherwize they transmit on the same channel and you cannot tune into it.

to do this, you first have to unplug one box and change the channel of that one

Click to expand...

That should only be needed if you are using RF to hook up the sky boxes, if you are using scart or HDMI it shouldn't be an issue.

Click to expand...

That is correct,
if you distribute the signal in more then one room, then you need to change the channel