Buying a used Sky+ box - will it work?

[MacOS10]

My parents have the standard Sky box at the moment, but were looking into getting Sky+. Last december they had their dish moved by a local TV/aerial installer further up the outside wall, so while they were doing that they thought it would be a good idea to get the extra wires (dual LNB) from the dish installed so that it was ready for Sky+. They're still on a monthly subscription, so that would continue as normal.

Anyway, they enquired about upgrading to Sky+ and were given a price of ?150 (inc hardware and installation). This despite the fact that they're giving the Sky+ boxes away for new customers. Needless to say, my mum and dad were horrified at that price so decided not to upgrade.

I was looking on eBay last week and bidded on a nearly new Sky+ box - it was on at ?30 Buy It Now, but also had "Make an Offer" too so I made the seller an offer of ?25 and they accepted. According to the seller, you can simply place your existing Sky viewing card into this Sky+ box to enable recording.

Now I've got the box (which looks just like new), I'm getting a bit nervous whether it will be this easy - you know what Sky are like, I'm sure they'll shaft us somehow. So, does anyone know if we'll have any problems with this? I'm through at my parents this weekend so I'll try it out then. I've got a nasty feeling it won't be as easy as the seller says it will be. Has anyone tried this?

Thanks for any advice.

[mm009b]

its called multi room mate you should get it for a tenner but you might need a phone line connected to it also sky will send you out a new card mate the old on supplied with box wont work hope this helps cheers

[mdt]

sky+

it should just be a case of phoneing sky to have your parents viewing card that is inserted in their standard sky box "paired" to the new sky+ box which you got of ebay. you can then plug 2 downleads from the dish into the sky+ to enable recording of 1 channel while watching another. you could then use the standard sky box for fta channels in another room if you have a quad lnb (4 ports) and running another downlead if you wish or if you wanted for a extra 10 gbp per month you could have the same sky channels that are on the sky+ box on the standard box aswell. regards mdt

[MacOS10]

Thanks, mdt and mm09b!

I thought I'd have to call Sky at some point. So, are Sky viewing cards locked to a particular box then?

[Manic01]

Yes amte, they will not open premium chanels is a box not paired to the card.

[felix1]

what your parents could have done is say they wanted to cancel. when asked why tell them you dont want to be paying a sub and have to pay ?150 just for a new box.

i guess this is of no use now as youve got a box but may be useful another time.

i mean they could have got a free hd box as the current offers are for all.