[Chris]

What you're proposing will not work. The Sky distribution pack will allow you to view the output from your Sky+ box on a TV in another room, and by using the Digi Eyes you can even control the Sky box from another room, but you will not be able to connect a Freesat box to a lead coming from your Sky+ box and get it to work.

A satellite tuner needs two-way communication with the LNB (Low Noise Blocker), the widget that sits on the arm sticking out of your satellite dish, in order to work. If you want to run more than one tuner from your dish, then every tuner has to have its own LNB, which means every tuner has to be cabled directly back to the dish, and not via any other tuner.

Your Sky+ box contains two tuners. Each Freesat box you require will have one tuner each. That's five tuners in total, which means five cables to run from your dish. If you have had Sky+ installed you already have two cables (probably moulded together so they look like a bit like single cable), both connected to the Sky+ box in your living room and at the other end, both connected to a dual-LNB (two LNBs contained in a single housing).

To add three Freesat boxes to this, you will need to replace the LNB on your dish with one that has sufficient connections - I think the next size up that will do for you is an octo-LNB, which contains eight LNBs in a single housing and has eight cable points. You would then need to attach your Sky+ cables to it, add three more cables, and run them to the bedrooms and the kitchen.

And if you haven't unpacked your Sky distribution pack, take it back to the shop!