Problems with Sky

glowgirl_2

For the past two or three days we have been having reception problems with our Sky. Our picture is pixilated and the sky goes on and off with a message saying no signal received. We spoke to sky last night who said we had a weak signal and asked if we had an obstacle in the way and did we have adverse weather conditions. We do have a tree in line with the dish but it has always been there, we have had sky for over a year with no problems. The weather has been windy but no more than that.

Is it possible or am I being paranoid that because we didn't want to take out extra warranty on the box/dish that sky are doing something to our signal, particularly on the channels we watch the most to make us call out an engineer at a cost of £60 or take up the extra warranty at £8.99 per month? What do people think or does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be wrong, we haven't yet received the new card sky are sending out.

trcooke

The chances are your dish has moved. Perhaps a particularly fat pigeon landed on it.

You'd probably get a local non-sky engineer to come out and re-align it for you for far less than the £60 sky would charge you for the same.

scoobysi

It could be your LNB (I think that's what it's called), the bit that sticks out from the Dish. When I had problems with poor reception that was the cause.

What package are you on, how long have you been with Sky? Chances are you may be able to get a repair for free as they don't want to lose customers. If no joy ask to go through to cancellations and say that you're thinking about cancelling if they don't send someone out for free. At this point you don't actually have to cancel, just threaten.

Si

penrhyn

Maybe your tree has grown a bit, the signal hits the dish at an angle of around 30 degrees to the horizontal.
But as other have said its probably either misaligned or a faulty LNB.
£65 is not too bad as it covers anything that may need fixing, and cheaper than an annual maintenance contract assuming that yopu have less than one breakdown a year.
Of course you could always try the I'm not paying a call out charge I'll cancel routine, but be aware thy may just call your bluff.

cozza

hi glowgirl
i have just had same problem with my sky .I have sky + and only got it on 10th march and my box kept going off so rang them . The man i spoke to made me do a few tests and it come back with my sky box was faulty . So had to have new one he did try to say i had to pay £65 service charge but when i said i only had the box since 10th march he said sorry to me and i wouldnt need to pay any thing .

Like me i thought it was my dish coz it had been really windy but no it was the box . so good luck
cozza

glowgirl_2

Thank you all for the helpful replies, I have been with sky for just over a year and have everything except films in my package, I think I'll see how much a local engineer might be and depending on that price decide whether to go down the fix it or I'll cancel route:T

ebsay2000

As said above........

ring sky......ask to be put through to cancellations......

when you get put through, explain the problem.........and that you cannot afford to pay the call out fee, and so you would like to cancel your subscription.

they should hopefully waive the charge and you will get fixed for free!!

TonyMMM

I had similar problems and ended up replacing the LNB myself ....cost less than £10 (inc postage) and took 10mins to fit. Depends how accessible your dish is ?

Reception was fine after that

Skippy4u

TonyMMM wrote: »

I had similar problems and ended up replacing the LNB myself ....cost less than £10 (inc postage) and took 10mins to fit. Depends how accessible your dish is ?

Reception was fine after that

Did the same with mine with a quad LNB
Only cost about £12, hope this link helps http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thomson-Digiquad-LNB-Sky-minidish/dp/B001HK4NZ0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1242139442&sr=8-5

Inactive

I would suggest that your dish has moved slightly due to not being fitted properly in the first place.

This is the most likely cause of weak signal resulting in picture break up.

glowgirl_2

Thanks everyone, local engineer quoted around £50 so not that different from Sky, strangely the reception seems to have improved although not perfect on its own so still not sure whats going on, great suggestions though.