Sky Digital Help

Ladjacket

Hi all,

I re-installed sky digital last year and when the guy came around to put it in, he said that he needed to either drill a hole from the attic down through the ceiling to connect to the TV, or else snip the aerial which meant that whatever we watched on Sky, would have had to be watched in all rooms in the house. Being the safer and less messier option, i went for this.

Last night, all the other tv's in the house have turned fuzzy and snowy, which must be related to this.

Has anyone heard of this before, the snipping of the aerial?

And would Sky have a record of who they used to do the installation?

Thanks
LJ

bulbs2010

it could be any one of a number of problems.dont think theres any point calling sky

Peter Rhea

Ladjacket wrote: »

I re-installed sky digital last year and when the guy came around to put it in, he said that he needed to either drill a hole from the attic down through the ceiling to connect to the TV

So the Sky box is in the attic?

Ladjacket

no, the sky box is in the living room.

the guy who done the install said that he needed to feed the wires through the attic, and in doing so, made a connection from one wire to another, instead of having to drill down through the ceiling.

In the meantime, both last night and tonight, when I attempted to record something on Sky+, it made the whole thing freeze thing flashed up saying no satellite signal received. I called sky and the guy i spoke to told me that i would need an engineer to come out and fix it next Wednesday at €100 cost. Apparently, something on the system says that it is 'Not Locked' and this should say 'Locked'.

I found the guy to be really unhelpful, and behaved as if i should know exactly what he meant each time he spoke. I asked him would it be related to the issue of the televisions in the rest of the house going off and he said 'I am sky, I can only deal with the TV relating to the sky box'.

I informed him that as it was a Sky engineer who made this situation occur in the first place, I wanted a Sky engineer to sort it.

Customer Service Satisfaction - 0/10.

Liameter

Ladjacket wrote: »

I re-installed sky digital last year and when the guy came around to put it in, he said that he needed to either drill a hole from the attic down through the ceiling to connect to the TV, or else snip the aerial

Did he have a huge pair of bolt cutters or do you mean "snip the aerial cable and use it to feed the LNB signal downstairs"?

Ladjacket wrote: »

which meant that whatever we watched on Sky, would have had to be watched in all rooms in the house. Being the safer and less messier option, i went for this.

So your TVs are without an aerial signal now?

Ladjacket wrote: »

Last night, all the other tv's in the house have turned fuzzy and snowy, which must be related to this.

Interesting. Have you tried scraping it off the TVs? Or do you mean that the TV picture looks "fuzzy and snowy"?

Ladjacket wrote: »

Has anyone heard of this before, the snipping of the aerial?

No but snipping the aerial cable is a trick commonly used by cowboys. Obviously UHF TV aerial cable is not designed to carry high-frequency LNB signals so I'd expect it not to work very well.

Ladjacket wrote: »

And would Sky have a record of who they used to do the installation?

They ought to, in order to meet Quality Assurance standards. All jobs should be traceable.

Ladjacket wrote: »

Apparently, something on the system says that it is 'Not Locked' and this should say 'Locked'.

Yes, the Digibox can't lock onto the poor signal coming down the aerial cable. Possibly because it's not proper satellite cable or possibly for another reason.

Liameter

One possible solution occurs to me. If you can use the old TV cable to pull cord through, then use the cord to pull "shotgun" cable through, you'll end up with two good cables for aerial and LNB signals.

Ladjacket

ha! i have been out with the ice scrapers! cheers!

seriously though, thanks for your response, television and its details would not be my speciality at all!

yeah, he snipped the aerial cable and connected another one, which meant that whatever was watched on sky in the living room, had to be watched on all other tvs on the house, as opposed to before when we had the choice of bbc,itv,rte, tg4 etc.

However now it has gone totally pear shaped, nothing is working properly at all. Looks to me as if the cowboys have had a victory here unfortunately.

Kristopherus

Get back on to $ky and demand an engineer out pronto to clear up the bad workmanship of the first cowboy. If they are not prepared to play ball tell them you wish to cancel. That should soften their cough. But be prepared to go through with the cancellation. If you get no satisfaction and do cancel, remember you can always get another member of the household to sign up again with a different bank a/c. Or you can sign up again with your own name "as Gaeilge" !!! THe dumb asses in Sky will not know where your address is, let alone know its you again !

Ladjacket

I have spoken to Sky, they are to send an engineer out on Wednesday, and were quick to advise of the €100 fee it would cost. I spoke to another guy who also does a bit of work with TVs and he said that from the sounds of it that there is a problem with the Input 2 signal, which is saying 'Not Locked' on the display.

I called Sky back and cancelled the engineer appointment as this guy said he would take a look at it for me on Monday, and that he has heard horror story after story about their shoddy work.

How do they get away with it?!

Peter Rhea

Ladjacket wrote: »

no, the sky box is in the living room.

Ladjacket wrote: »

he snipped the aerial cable and connected another one, which meant that whatever was watched on sky in the living room, had to be watched on all other tvs on the house, as opposed to before when we had the choice of bbc,itv,rte, tg4 etc.

So you can watch the Skybox output on any tv in the house?

In that case, all he's done is use the former aerial feed as a return cable & the original aerial cable is most likely still in the attic & can be reconnected to your distribution system.

Sky+ requires 2 lnb feeds, so it isn't going to be working from your 'snipped' aerial cable.

Ronnie Raygun

Peter Rhea wrote: »

In that case, all he's done is use the former aerial feed as a return cable & the original aerial cable is most likely still in the attic & can be reconnected to your distribution system.

Or there was a feed & return in place from before (along with a single lnb feed) & he decided removing the terrestrial signal was the lesser of 2 evils ...

Peter Rhea

Well then, before anyone starts crying 'cowboy', it should be made clear what the installer actually installed & what (if anything) was reused from the (presumed) earlier Sky installation.