Sky Freesat

[whisturx]

Any suggestions as to how I stop Sky cutting me off when the van is unused for a couple of months ? Have just taken the van out of my barn and put up the Oyster to find BBC 1,2 and ITV 1 all working but Channel 4 & 5 ring Sky to subscibe ! Usual hour on hold and told that the digibox should be left on permanently. I assume with the dish down and the van undercover that even with the digibox on the signal is broken anyway ? Apparently Sky updates the signal periodically and if there is no response they cut you off ! I have had to leave the van out,dish up for the last three hours while they resend the signal. This is a regular occurence during the winter as up to now with work and weather we don't use the van as often as I would like to.

Alternatively it seems I need to take the van out of its shed weekly and put up the dish. Anybody else with this problem ?

Ian

[Guest Frank Wilkinson]

I used to have this problem but I never bothered phoning Sky mainly because I was in Europe and a cellphone call would have cost a fortune. The secret is to leave the digibox switched on overnight and usually, by next morning, you'll find that the missing channels appear. It's something to do with Sky sending out its updates in the early hours of the morning. Naturally, you must be set up to receive the signals properly, even if the TV isn't on.

I know this means that you're missing some channels for a day but anything's better than phoning Sky!

I solved the problem for myself by an unusual method. I'm on cable TV now but I still have a Sky dish so I had the cable connected into my study, where I've a small analogue TV and I connect my Skybox to that and use it to watch digital TV when I'm working.

You only lose channels if you're disconnected for a few days I think. When I use the 'van I take the Sky digibox from the study and it works first time on all channels.

[Randonneur]

We had the same problem but resolved it by putting a quad LNB on the minidish and putting the spare Sky box in the kitchen, which is where I spend most of my time, hubby has his SkySports on in the lounge. When we go in the van we just take the spare with us, just needs connecting up to the cable from the dish, no hardship really.

[Randonneur]

I should add that the minidish is attached to the house and that we have a manual crank up dish on the van. The quad LNB on the minidish means that you can have up to 4 ordinary digiboxes attached to one dish not Skyplus, as they use 2 of the connections.