time for a new digibox?

pushn

I live in london and recently BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 and BBC3 (possibly other channels) have become scambled (pixelated and no sound). I am currently viewing ITV1 through the channel islands broadcast and cannot get BBC2 at all (terrestrial only). I have tried all i know to get it working myself, but to no avail.

Is it possible to buy a digibox on its own and replace it yourself? (i dont know if sky allow this) if so, which is the best/ fastest box to buy?

I have an old and annoyingly slow Grundig box, which takes ages with the EPG. I chose not to get the sky insurance as it costs £8 per month (£96 per year), because I can call an engineer at any time (£65 one-off call out charge) and they will mend or replace my box for free. I dont want this box mended for any money, but i would like a new faster box.

Anyone out there with some experiece who can lend a hand? If not I would appreciate your views as to which is the current best sky digibox.

Thanks for your help

P

BarMoo

Hi Pushn and welcome to the site

Sounds like there are two issues in hand here You have clearly gotten bored with your old dogibox. I have a m8 with an old Pace and that's crap too. The other might be your installation.

Regards box: perhaps you should cough-up and buy a new one; we all have to move with the times. If you are currently enjoying a top-end package why not look into getting SKY+ (offer: includes new installion). If none of that takes your fancy and you are only concerned that the box is faulty, albeit slow, take it round to a friends house, hook it up and see if everything works.

Installation: Given that you are experiencing problems with BBC2, it could be that your dish is slightly out of alignment. Since last year the BBC have transmitted their stuff from a different satellite (also at 28.2°E) but with a much tighter signal footprint: this has caused some viewer's some problems.

Perhaps other members have a wheeze on how to rectify this fault. All I could suggest is that you check and/or renew all connections you have access to. But, don't doss-around with anything you don't know. If that fails - get a m8 to bring round their box and hook it up. If that fails, come back to the board.

In any event, I reckon you'll isolate the problem.

Hope this helps,

Mark.

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rolfw

As mark says, you really need to be able to ensure that it is your box at fault, the Grundig power supplies are fated to die amd the gradual loss of channels would tend to point that way, but it could still be the dish.

There are bonafide sellers on Ebay who sell brand new boxes for £150 or so, but a Sky plus box, again as Mark has suggested, may be a logical replacement as well as an upgrade.

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pushn

Cheers mark,

I don't really have the funds (or the requirements) for a Sky+ box, so I think a new box is in order. I've had the problem with the pixelated channels for around two weeks now, and i've phoned sky to check they haven't made any changes in that time.

I tried re-tuning the channels from the listed satelite positions, and although the process was sucessfull, i still have the problem. How would I know if my dish is out of alignment, and how would i rectify it?

With regards to the box, I think you are right about the pace decoders and I can assure you the Grundig box I have is not the best, but would you know which brands (if any) are regarded as the best? Also, is it possible to buy a offlie box (e.g from Ebay ) and hook it up, or will i have to involve sky. I have very limited knowledge compared to others in this forum, but I'm sure i'll catch the drift of any technical tips.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, and your useful comments Mark.

Regards

Push

rolfw

If you know anyone else with a Sky Digibox, ask them if you can try it on your setup and vice versa, you can at least establish whether it is the box or the dish.

You can buy the box from whoever you like, you only need to involve Sky when you phone them to ask them to marry the card to the new box, they will do this without question.

If you have a couple of premium channels in your existing package, then you will not be charged a monthly supplement by Sky, they are I believe supplying and installing the box for around £250 at the moment, so not a huge amount more than a regular box.

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pushn

Hi,

Sorry about the late post, been very busy recently. Big thanks to mark and rolf and all those who viewed or replyed to my thread. Although your advice has been useful and allowed me to try new ways of fixing the problem, I haven't managed to sort it. I will probably take the posted advice and invest in a sky+ box (when i've saved up), but I have learned some interesting new things thanks to the wealth of knowledge purveyed by all those on this site. Top marks to all for your assistance, and keep up the good work.

All the best

Push