Freesat on Sky

One of why_d's points was that his local BBC and ITV variants on 101, 102 and 103 (BBC 1 NI & BBC 2 NI and UTV) were replaced by London once the subscription was cancelled.

As someone thinking of cancelling my own Sky subscription, will the Freesat Card give me my local variants on 101, 102 and 103?

Any card should give you the appropriate versions on 101-104.... albeit a card with expired subscription or a 'freesat card'. The only exception of course is one that has moved to a diffrent region (i.e. registere in London and then taken to Manchester)

If you have no card you'll get London of everything

Well, you'll get BBC One London on 101, BBC Two England on 102, and 103-105 won't work, because they're FTV, not FTA.

When you register a Freesat card, you have to give your address, which defines the regional variants you get on 101-104.

To answer the local variant question.

If you have a Freesat card (and I believe - though the original poster's experience contradicts this) you will get regional BBC One and ITV1 variations, and national BBC Two variations, as well as the correct advert region for Channel Four.

The variations are defined by the registered post-code - with the EPG channel number to service mapping stored in the card.

If you run FTA with no card, then there is no EPG storage in the card, so the receiver defaults to the standard EPG, which is BBC One London on 101, and BBC Two England on 102, with nothing on 103-105.

Sky One is the next channel in the line-up - presumably because it is the same channel on all cards?