Sky card de-activation

[junger]

I think that I have come across what appears to be a malice by sky and wonder if anyone has had the same experience.
When a new digibox is clean, i.e never been acivated with a sky card, there are stations that are free to view, an example of the is
I am seeing more digiboxes that have had sky cards and when the customer stops subscibing the card kills some the preiously obtainable free channels 'THE VAULT'.'Sky Sports News' are two that are affected.
Is this a coincidence or is anyone else able to confirm this.Sky say its not them (suprise suprise)
Just for interest, I commonly see this on Panasonic DSU30' s mainly.
Sky news never gets killed.

 

[rolfw]

So if you take the card out, do the channels work again? The Vault is free to air, so will work without a card, but Sky Sports News is part of the Sky package.

 

[junger]

So if you take the card out, do the channels work again? The Vault is free to air, so will work without a card, but Sky Sports News is part of the Sky package.

No, even with the card out, what was free previously is now killed

 

[rolfw]

Switch the box off at the mains with the card out and see if the Vault comes back up. Then try the same with the card in.

 

[Analoguesat]

No, even with the card out, what was free previously is now killed

SSN is a pay channel on satellite. so you wont get that one back.

 

[junger]

I have experienced this phenomenon on more that 20 boxes. Even a full reset does not clear the problem. I suggest that sky are removing the ability of the digibox to receive previously free channels (SSN) I stand corrected, but there are some 8 free channels (4 of which are music) and on each separate occasion the same channels are removed.
My question was "Has any1 who has subscribed and then cancelled then found that some free channels were removed"?. If not, I shall do some further work on one of the boxes.

 

[Analoguesat]

Exactly which music channels are you losing remembering that the majority of them are pay services on Sky?

 

[junger]

Of the top of my head I cannot remember them all, What I remember The Vault, Q, The Box. Do you have a URL listings link that I can look at and I will name them.
Thanx

 

[Analoguesat]

http://www.flysat.com/ebird1-astra28.php

Q & The Box are both subscription services so its no wonder the channels are disappearing

 

[junger]

Analoguesat
I understand your point, however, my main client base work is not satelite and therefor I cannot remember of the top of my head all the free channels. But you do appear to be confusing the issue which is the programme that brought it to my attention is 'THE VAULT' which is free on a clean digibox, but appears cannot be viewed following subsciption then un-subsciption to sky. To keep it easy have you experienced this situation as I have on multiple occassions or have you experienced otherwise
Thanx

 

[Analoguesat]

Never had any problems with channels disappearing. If anything strange happens on my Grundig box, I just yank the power cable out for 10 minutes and allow the receiver to reset..

heres an almost up to date list of just the fta stuff here:

http://www.digitalsat.co.uk/skyepgtv.html

If you are losing The Vault, then its a problem at your end - Sky will not disable fta channels off their epg. if its reproducable across multiple receivers of the same type, its more likely that its a software bug.

 

[junger]

ok, thanks for that, I' ll look into it further and keep the forum posted

 

[rolfw]

As a matter of interest, just tested The Vault with a deactivated sub card in my Sky+ box and it is fine.

 

[junger]

I dont think i have expained correctly, here goes.
Buy a sky digibox (Unsubscribed-without card), The Vault is available free.
Subscribe to sports channels etc.
------
a few months later-same box
Unsubscribe to sports channels the vault no longer works (with or without the card)
------
Replace box---The Vault is back (eliminating the alignment. lnb etc)
Thanks

 

[Analoguesat]

Yank the power cord out the wall, put the subs card in upside down, and allow the receiver to reboot. It may reset things.

 

[PoloMint]

Have you noticed anything like this with FTV cards? Is The Vault there on a FTV card?

Can't say I've ever come across this, then again I doubt I'd even have noticed if The Vault was sub or FTA

 

[Schnuffi]

I´m not sure if it still is there but the Vault used to carry an encrypted
flag even though it is and was FTA on my sammy I had to search for
encrypted channels to get it and the flag till this day is still there.
Hope that makes sense.

 

[PoloMint]

It's quite interesting, but I expect it is just some bug in Sky's channel deactivation system, rather than a deliberate ploy by Sky to make people think they have to pay for The Vault.

 

[gameboy]

Watching 'The Vault' Free-to-air on Astra 28.2 east on Dreambox - no encryption.

You'll have to investigate further - junger

 

[junger]

Hi All,
Great informative forum and hoping for some more help please.
If you look at my recent posts you will see that i have been busy with a non-parabolic dish, however back to this subject. Remember not getting the FTA Vault channel, well i've had another look at the problem and it appears to be the feed.
There are 6 sat boxes fed from a dual lnb, through a distribution system which seems to seperat H & V, I am thinking the problem to be one of the LNB outlets.
That theory is great until I found that sky news works and that is on the same polarisation as the vault. anyone come accross this before. any ideas appreciated