SKY Dish ANGUISH

[dazzer6666]

Yes.

Turns out all HD channels are fine, its just the SD ones that are unwatchable

Are they split down those 2 cables I.e. 1 for HD, the other for SD?

Think they are (if I remember what the chap who fixed ours said correctly).....suspect one of your cables is corroded or badly connected?

 

[R. Slicker]

Everything, films, sport, music, all bar pay per view events, BIG broadband and home phone, 2 TiVo boxes and one other, happy as Larry.

Sorry, I can't agree. TiVo. Slow cumbersome control, makes ridiculous noises when you press the wrong button. Fills up the hard drive with crap that we haven't asked it to record, (it even recorded channel 4 news for a couple of weeks). No catch up and on demand to speak of and most importantly, HD pics about half as good as Sky.
Extremely unhappy, I've got 18 months until I can cancel and go back to the magnificent Sky+HD..

 

[Gordon Bennett]

I had a fence panel take out my dish a couple of years ago during a heavy storm so lost all channels. Phoned Sky and they said they could send an engineer but it would cost £60 to fit a new dish so I told them I'd think about it. Phoned back a little later and they tried to sweeten the deal a little more by offering me a £45 call out charge to fix the dish plus a new, free Sky+ box but I told them I wasn't really that bothered by a Sky+ box, especially as it would cost me an extra £3-4 a month on my subscription. (At this point I may not have been telling Sky 100% the truth!) Phoned back in the evening and told them I wanted to cancel my subscription - luckily I was out of my 12 month contract and had found a deal with Talk Talk which offered a better TV, phone and broadband package, so I had a good basis on which to haggle. Plus I had nothing to lose so would have left! Ended up with a new dish and a new Sky+ box for no cost and broadband free for a year.

So, its definitely worth giving them a call - especially if you are interested in doing a deal which involves taking their broadband. They generally don't like people leaving and in my experience can usually come up with a package that will tempt you to stay.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Sorry, I can't agree. TiVo. Slow cumbersome control, makes ridiculous noises when you press the wrong button. Fills up the hard drive with crap that we haven't asked it to record, (it even recorded channel 4 news for a couple of weeks). No catch up and on demand to speak of and most importantly, HD pics about half as good as Sky.
Extremely unhappy, I've got 18 months until I can cancel and go back to the magnificent Sky+HD..

Some confusion here I think. I use catch up all the time, record shows that I never watch, and the drive never even appears to have used any storage? HD quality is down to TV quality most of the time so I cannot comment there.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Yes.

Turns out all HD channels are fine, its just the SD ones that are unwatchable

Are they split down those 2 cables I.e. 1 for HD, the other for SD?

Are you talking about the cables that come out of the lnb? No they are identical, just used to record and watch channels simultaneously. Im sure your cables are fine, if they weren't you would have problems on all channels. It sounds like your dish has moved a nats out. You can get a satellite finder from maplins or eBay for about 5-10 quid. Plug it in by the dish and follow instructions. If it's not the alignment then your lnb may need changing but that's extremely unlikely. Also ignore those that say dishes will be obsolete soon. It's the only way to for big tv companies to blanket transmit.

Edited to add, has a neighbour or anyone erected scaffolding or is there anything above and in front of the dish that might block the signal? If not, check your alignment.

 

[paul-brighton]

some channels are horizontally polorised, some are vertically polorised. You say some channels are Ok and others not. Most likely cause is dish has moved a little left or right or, less likely, up or down. Just to add confusion there are also high and low frequencies which are switched by 22khz tone. This rarely goes wrong. My money is on the dish moving left or right a bit.

 

[Hamilton]

Morning NSC,

After these strong winds we've had recently - the picture I'm getting from my dish has gone all perculiar.

A bit like what you get in a storm but much more often - almost every time its even a bit windy. A right ballache.

However, not all the channels are affected. The BBC ones are almost unwatchable but the Sky ones - e.g Sky News, Sky Sports etc seem completely unaffected.

I can't help thinking Murdoch's evil hands are all over this one and I don't want to go all 'Rod Hull' by fiddling with the dish

Whats going on? Also, I'm think of getting Sky broadband to go with my telly - are they likely to renew my 10 year old dish without charging me ££££££ if I take out additional services?

Cheers

Sky are shocking.

Go with Virgin.

 

[R. Slicker]

Some confusion here I think. I use catch up all the time, record shows that I never watch, and the drive never even appears to have used any storage? HD quality is down to TV quality most of the time so I cannot comment there.

I will bow to your obviously superior knowledge here, but that doesn't explain why SkyHd and freeview HD are perfect on my 'poor quality' TV and virgin isn't,