travelling satellite reception

annemarigold

1. I have some tips.

2. Does anyone know if it's possible to get a second feed from the Oyster dish to activate sky plus?
Thanks,
Anne

rolfw

Hi Anne, by oyster dish, do you mean the sky minidish? If you do then there are both twin and quad LNBs available for that style of dish, but they're not cheap. As far as I know the mere connection of the second input is not enough to activate it, sky do it via a software update and require £10 per month for the service.

I will move this down to the sky Technical forum, as it will be more appropriate there.

We are always pleased to receive any personal tips and ideas about setting up travelling dishes, so post away, if suitable we can include them in our How To forum.

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annemarigold

Hello Rolf,
We have an Oyster dish on our motorhome. Not sure of size but quite big. We pay for sky plus but can't get it with the standard set up on the van. We can't cancel as we haven't had it for 12 months yet but can't complain to sky as I understand we shouldn't be using our digibox in the van anyway! We're moving to Spain in March 2004 and very disappointed with the BBC and ITV if they follow. I agree with the astra 2d site that the ex pat market is desperate for exploitation.
Cheers,
Anne

rolfw

Just a straightforward twin LNb will enable you to resume the facility Anne, yes you are technically breaking their contract by not having it connected to the phone, but you can certainly get away with it for a period and possibly ad infinitum.

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annemarigold

Many thanks. W'ell give this a try at the dealer as we have the secong thingy from our last home. I don't feel morally obliged to worry about contracts etc as I'm still paying!

Tips (perhaps already commonly known)

1. Have a compass (!!) and make sure you have a nice clear view at 28 east of south with no tree branches etc. Even on very shaded sites in S Spain we've managed to get line of site. Often a move of a couple of feet will do.

2. If the digibox has been off for a while it may take some time to pick up listings so be patient, try re-booting and don't give up.

3. get to the installer set-up from system set-up by pressing 0,1 and select. Change default transponder setting from 11.778 to 11.720 (some say 11.719) and change V to H then save, select and back-up. I don't know if this is necessary in S Spain but it worked for us although we couldn't get ITV programmes. Of course this may all be nullified by the BBC move anyway.

annemarigold

More tips

4. Don't forget the signal test but on southern beam you may not get the bars even though there is a signal.

5. Last resort - keep TV on, cut off mains power for 20 seconds. Hold back-up button in and power up until a message appears (we have a sky plus box and we haven't yet seen a message but these actions still do the trick). release button, wait for message to go then power up.

6. Keep trying!

Good luck,
Anne

methos_de

@anne I dont know how long you've had your sky+ and if you use it exclusively in the van. If you have it in your home every now and again you`ll maybe get away with it as once you rig it up to the telephone line the box will dial at some point out. But believe me once sky has not received a call back signal for 3/4 months they will send you a letter telling you to reconnect or they will deactivate your card. Card deactivation takes place at the beginning of the following month after the letter. I know so many people to whom this has happened that I can guarantee to 100% that this will also happen to you if you move to spain inside of your initial 12 months. I nearly had the same problem. I received a letter at one point and luckily the three months in which they received no call back signal were the last three months of my contract so once I phoned up and they saw this they didnt force me to reconnect. I did however have a second box which was well inside the time and they deactivated the card. I also offered paying the full sub for the second box too as at the time it was a cheap sub for 15GBP plus 10SKY+. I said I would be willing to pay the full 48GBP if I didnt have to connect it to the telephone line but they still refused.
Before you go investing money in dishes or lnbs think about it just in case your card is deactivated in the near future.

Methos.

annemarigold

Many thanks for this help. What a shame we can't all get reception legitimately. Cheers,
Anne

pajo100

Seems strange that you cannot dial up when you are away , is it not possible to dial the int prefix first and then get your box to dial the rest say as if you are ordering a movie??? and hopefully Sly would recognise your box etc.etc. and no further probs!! come on somebody must have tried it!!

BFN
Pajo