Freesat from Sky, Channels vanished

hellokitty08

I have had freesat from Sky for 10 months now and on Thursday my channel 4, E4, and More 4 all stopped working. It constantly says no signal is being recieved. I tried the usually relaible method of turing the box off and on again but it didnt help. These are my favourite channels. Any idea what could be causing it? I am fairly confident the satalie dish hasnt moved.

macman

I would start by checking the cabling from LNB to Skybox to TV.
Is it just these channels you have lost?

hellokitty08

Yerh just these channels now. Was loads of them on Thursday, but they had come back by Friday. Just the 4's missing now. I am dunce whats a LNB? Not techie in the slightest. I tired googling it, that didnt help. All the cables are plugged in at my end.

macman

LNB =Low Noise Block: the thing on the front of the dish that the signal is focused onto. That's where the wires run from to the digibox. Try rescanning for new channels and see if they come back.

hellokitty08

I plug my cable in to a socket in the wall, which connects me to the communial sky, but i do know there are a whole lots of cables to do with the TV in the meter cupboard. I tired scanning for new channels, but it didnt come up with any of the channel 4 ones. Could the fact that I am using an old sky + box be anything to do with it? Thank you for trying to help, its greatly appreciated.

macman

You didn't say it was a communal dish? In that case have you asked your neighbours if they have lost the same channels? If so it is likeley to be a fault in the dish or common connections.
Doubt if it's a box problem as you had those channels before using the same box.

macman

Hang on a minute , if it's just the Channel 4 channels you've lost, has your viewing card expired (you need this for Freesat from Sky Channel 4)? Sky were recently sending out new viewing cards in order to change the encryption-do you have yours?
If this is the problem, then you will also have lost Channel 5 and Sky Three which are also encrypted channels. If so you need to contactSky to get a replacement card.

hellokitty08

I have got sky 3 and channel 5. Its all so confusing. As far as I know I am the only one using the Sky dish at the moment. Maybe I will just phone sky and ask for a new card in the hope that this will fix the problem.

macman

If you are getting C5 and Sky 3 then the card is not the problem. Partial channel loss indicates dish damage or cable fault.
Since this is a communal system I suggest you ask the managing agents to get it checked out.

hellokitty08

awesome. Thanks very much. Will do.

samba

There can be many things that would cause only some channels to disappear. The first thing to check is your sky box and cable connecting it to the wall plate. If you can borrow one from a friend / neighbour and plug it in in place of yours it will help eliminate that as the cause of the problem. Otherwise it could be a fault with the lnb, dish, cabling or the distribution system required for a communal dish, which would require the management company to sort out.