Saorview and satellite combo boxes

Here’s a setup that quietly does the job for a lot of Irish households. An aerial on the chimney for the Irish channels. A dish on the side wall for the British ones. One small box on the shelf that takes both cables and puts every channel in one list. No subscription, no monthly anything, and it keeps working when the broadband falls over.

That box is a combo box, and it’s the least glamorous, most sensible piece of TV kit you can buy.

What you get

From the aerial: everything on Saorview (full channel list). RTÉ One and RTÉ2 in HD, TG4 in HD, the four Virgin Media channels, RTÉ News, RTÉ KIDSjr, TG4+1, Cúla4, Oireachtas TV, Sky News, Challenge, and the RTÉ radio stations.

From the dish: the free-to-air line-up on the Astra 28.2°E satellite. BBC One, Two, Three and Four in HD, ITV1 to ITV4, Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4, Channel 5 and its siblings, Quest, Talking Pictures TV, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News and more. The full list, with the 2024 to 2026 changes that caught out older boxes, is in Free satellite channels.

Add it up and you’re looking at the news from both islands, the GAA on RTÉ and TG4, the Six Nations games split across RTÉ, Virgin Media and the BBC, a lot of very watchable films on Film4 and Talking Pictures, and every soap ever made. All free.

What you don’t get: Premier League, Champions League, the pay sports channels, Netflix and friends. For those, use the finder to work out which months you actually need and what it’ll cost. Most people find it’s a lot less than they feared, precisely because the combo box has already covered the basics.

Approved or not: does it matter?

Saorview runs a testing scheme and lists approved products in three categories: Saorview TV, Saorview Box and Saorview Combi. Approved means the box has been tested against the Saorview specification and behaves properly with the Irish channels, including HD and the digital text service.

Unapproved combo boxes are widely sold and often work. But RTÉ’s own FAQ warns that non-approved receivers can be unstable, can miss HD channels, or may not show digital teletext. Power City is admirably honest about this: it sells a Ferguson combi and labels it as not Saorview approved. If you want the safe choice, buy the approved one.

Boxes worth looking at

Prices are what Irish retailers were listing in September 2026. They move; check before buying. Approval status is from Saorview’s own product list as we read it on 10 November 2026. Saorview’s approved list (official source, opens in a new tab)

The safe pick is the one on Saorview’s own list: Walker’s WPS818C was the combi listed there in November 2026. Start with that, and check the listing for recording before you buy.

The Walker WPSTBW23 is the one to look at if you want recording and catch-up in the same box: it records to USB, has the RTÉ Player app, and is around €100 from an Irish retailer with a real returns desk. Power City sells it as Saorview Approved, but it wasn’t on Saorview’s own list when we looked, so go in knowing that. The rest of the table works for plenty of people and carries the same caveat.

If you’ve no plans for a dish at all, a Saorview-only box does the aerial side for less.

You’ll also find combo boxes in Harvey Norman, Power City, DID and specialist satellite shops. A local independent TV shop is worth a visit too: they’ve usually tested what they sell on the local transmitter.

One thing to avoid. Any box described as “fully loaded”, “pre-configured” or “with all the channels”. A combo box needs no loading. It has two tuners and a channel scan. If someone’s offering more than that, it isn’t a combo box and it isn’t legal.

The dish side

A combo box is only as good as what’s plugged into it. The satellite tuner needs a dish pointed at Astra 28.2°E. (RTÉ by satellite is a different satellite, Saorsat, and it closes in early 2028: see Saorsat and the other satellites.) Three ways to get one:

Reuse an old Sky dish. If the house had Sky at some point, the dish is very likely still on the wall and still pointed at the right satellite. One Irish satellite retailer’s FAQ says you can simply replace the Sky box with a free-to-air box. If it was a Sky Q dish, the LNB on the end of the arm needs swapping for a standard one, a small job for an installer.

Have one fitted. A Dublin installer lists a dish install from around €165, or dish plus Saorview aerial together from around €185. A national installer’s price page puts a dish at €180 to €249, and a complete combo system with box at €250 to €340. Doing the aerial and dish in one visit usually works out cheaper than two call-outs. More prices, and what to ask an installer, in aerial and satellite installation costs.

Fit one yourself. Possible, but aligning a dish by eye is a special kind of frustrating. Satworld sells a 60cm dish with a quad LNB for around €59 and calls it the most commonly used dish in Ireland for this satellite. A dish size guide from an Irish installer suggests 60 to 80cm is enough in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, with 80cm or bigger in rural and coastal parts of the west.

Planning and apartments

A single dish on a house is exempt from planning permission under the Planning and Development Regulations, according to the county council copy of the rules we checked. There are conditions. It has to be the only dish and no more than 1 metre across. It can’t be on or in front of the front wall, on the front roof slope, or higher than the roof. A 60 or 80cm dish on a side or back wall ticks every box.

The exemption refers to a house. Apartments are a different conversation: the wall belongs to the block, and the management company sets the rules. Ask them first. Some blocks already have a communal dish and aerial system, in which case you may only need the box.

Setting it up

1. Aerial cable into the terrestrial input. Dish cable into the satellite input. HDMI into the TV.
2. Run the terrestrial scan with the country set to Ireland. RTÉ One HD should appear.
3. Run the satellite scan. A combo box scans the satellite and lists what it finds.
4. Sort the favourites list so the channels you use are at the top. Most boxes let you do this. It’s the difference between a box you love and one you shout at.

If the satellite scan comes up empty, the dish isn’t aligned or the LNB is the wrong type. That’s an installer job, and a quick one.

Is this enough telly?

For a lot of households, honestly, yes. Irish news and sport, British drama and documentaries, films every night on Film4, kids’ channels, and everything catch-up on the apps of a streaming stick. If the missing piece is the Premier League or the Champions League, the finder will tell you the cheapest month-by-month way to add it without paying for the eleven months you don’t watch.

Before you order

• Check your TV has a spare HDMI socket.
• Check the aerial actually works: scan for channels on the TV first.
• Look on the side wall for a dish you’d forgotten about.
• Buy an approved box from a retailer who’ll take it back.
• Get quotes for the dish if you don’t have one. Typical prices are in installation costs.