Hi guys. Just wondered if anyone else is having problems with their sky digital reception. I know we've had pretty awful weather these past few weeks but ours seems to go on the blink even in nice weather.
The picture freezes and the sound goes off all the time. We took it to a repair shop here in handsworth and they charged £50 to do something with the aerial socket at the back of the box, and its still doing it!
Now sky are increasing their subscription prices from 1st September, it'll be £44 a month for the package we've got. Its not worth it is it? We might as well throw our money in the bin! Is anyone else having any problems?

Well if anyone remembers, we were considering changing from Telewest to Sky as we were fed up with Telewest crashing all the time. We did indeed change and I wish we hadn't!! The picture constantly goes 'pixilated', small squares all over the screen, the squares get bigger and move accross the screen, we frequently have no picture, just a box saying there is no signal and sometimes just nothing on the channel at all.

I put it down to the weather but I can't say I am happy as it happens all the time.

It's the dish that's at fault. It's too small.

Lidl have got a special on satellite gear this week. 80cm dishes are only £15. It's a sad step backwards for technology, I thought big white dishes were a thing of the past.

http://www.lidl.co.uk/gb/index.nsf/pages/c.o.oow.20040819.p.Satellite_Dish

PS The Telewest boxes are much more stable now!

I agree Telewest is better now - Sky is better with a smaller dish!

Try going on the set up menu and see what the signal strength is. If it's very low, the dish might have moved.

That happened to mine and with the help of a sweeping brush through the bedroom window, I managed to adjust it.

I have just checked the Sky World with Family Package & as from 1/9/2004 the pack will go up by £1 to £41 per month.I have the Family Pack & pay £19.50 it went up last December 2003 & January 2004.Sky are ripping the public off.I have been with Sky since late 1989 & I am paying more now for less.most of the channels are not worth watching & Sky 1 should stop putting repeats on all the time it's getting worse than the BBC. & they should put the likes of the simpsons & all the other related cartoons onto the cartoon network then anyone can choose to watch it.

the simpson is for the whole family not just for kids and can be quite rude for young ears aka cartoon network watches

my sister has had a similar problem with her sky box a few times now, one of the chips in the box wear down very quickley & have to be replaced. this is the problem with her box every time & now she just take it in to the shop for it replacing. although there are different makes of sky boxes (amstrad, sony etc) so it might not be the same problem with yours.

Hi Nez75

A Sky installation needs to be looked as as a whole. Many faults are caused by the dish, LNB and cabling rather than the STB. A common fault is water in the cable which would give rise to the symptoms you describe. Bending the cable at too sharp an angle can also cause sound and picture faults.

If you paid £50 for a fix that didn't work you really need to get them to the house and diagnose the fault with your STB connected to your dish.

BTW never disconnect the signal cable whilst there is power to the STB...on some boxes this can trash the box.

A last note, - I think it is still generally better to get a Sky installer in to sort it. If you're a subscriber they used to have a fixed charge and would replace anything that is faulty, - even the STB. You could just phone Sky and tell them you're going to cancel unless they fix it.

Originally posted by dansufc
the simpson is for the whole family not just for kids and can be quite rude for young ears aka cartoon network watches If its for the whole family are the kids not part of the family.I do not want to watch cartoons at 7pm to 9pm so there should be another channel for the more adult cartoons for those who want to watch them.

We get this problem and atribute it to a build up of static, often during bad weather.

Try unpugging your box for a couple of minutes and then try again.

You coul'd always get rid of sky and try freeview after all the box is cheap£50 and thats it.

Originally posted by tosh13
I do not want to watch cartoons at 7pm to 9pm so there should be another channel for the more adult cartoons for those who want to watch them.

There already is... It's called Sky One!!! ;-P

I've got sky+ :D and it's always been fine apart from the odd crash ( about 2 a year). The picture has been off once during the bad weather but it was a massive thunder storm so can't really blame anyone there.

Stop complaining about sky prices, no-one makes you have it, If it cost to much, get rid of it and get a crap freeview box with crap channels and waste £50 there.

Anyone else got sky+? What a wonderful invention!! :D

This (http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/forumdisplay.php?f=14) forum is full of people complaining about poor Sky installations.

Sky's trouble is that they are too inflexible, like most big companies. I've found:

I can't re-subscribe and just get a new card. I have to have the full package installed again, even though I already have a dish and receiver, they insist it is 'free'.

I can't perform my own installation.

Read and laugh at some of the stories on the forum!