I've just done this myself. Cut the RG6 cable from the sky dish . . . added the appropriate connector and hooked up to my aerial. All is working well so ripped the sky dish from the roof and discarded. 

Cable to a satellite dish should be RG6 - this is rated to a slightly higher spec than what is required for UHF TV, so is normally a good choice to use.

Great, as I thought. Thanks all.

RunningMan:

this is rated to a slightly higher spec than what is required for UHF TV.

You can get away with greater attenuation of higher frequencies on a cable being used for UHF TV as opposed to a sat dish. UHF TV will use up to approx 800MHz, whereas you will need up to approx 2GHz to cable to a sat dish.

Yeah, will definitely work using the Sat cable, I do this all the time to save re-running new cabling.

The Sat dish cable is more likely higher quality than what is needed for UHF anyway.

Why not just fix a diplexer at each end of the existing RG6 cable and leave the satellite dish on the roof for future flexibility?

https://www.dishtv.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=92 

RunningMan:

 

Cable to a satellite dish should be RG6 - this is rated to a slightly higher spec than what is required for UHF TV, so is normally a good choice to use.

 

They recommend RG6 for all new UHF installs these days.

farcus:

 

I've just done this myself. Cut the RG6 cable from the sky dish . . . added the appropriate connector and hooked up to my aerial. All is working well so ripped the sky dish from the roof and discarded. 

 

Thanks - where did you purchase the UHF aerial and connector from? Is it straightforward for someone with basic skills (me)?

Most TV sellers will sell aerials. I got mine from JB HiFi - It came with the Hockey stick (pole to attach to side of house/barge-board), some cable and the antenna. Easy to assemble and put up.

Mine has a f-plug on it, so I put an f-connector on the cable I already had and screwed it into the aerial.

It is possible your existing Sky dish has an F-connector screwing the cable into the LNB - if you can unscrew that, and get a new aerial with a f-plug on it, then you shouldn't need to re-crimp any connectors onto your cable.

My house is cabled with RG-59. I asked the installer if it was RG-6 (I had requested this), he said yes. I found out it wasn't when I went to terminate at wall plates with F types (I think the cable had originally been soldered to terminals on plate).

EDIT: RG-59 is fine in my case. 16 km from Sugarloaf, split 2 way then 2 way again and 4 way on other leg

dafman:

 

farcus:

 

I've just done this myself. Cut the RG6 cable from the sky dish . . . added the appropriate connector and hooked up to my aerial. All is working well so ripped the sky dish from the roof and discarded. 

 

 

Thanks - where did you purchase the UHF aerial and connector from? Is it straightforward for someone with basic skills (me)?

 

I just got a UHF antenna off trademe.
Had to cut the F connector off of the sky dish to pull the cable out.

As I don't have a crimping tool I just purchased a screw on F connector from Mitre 10. As it is weather protected on the antenna the screw on type should be fine.