Help please.. 2 sky boxes, one dish but no channels

[katief]

Hi,

Im new on here and in some desperate need of help.... I have a sky+hd box down stairs... which is connected to a quad on my dish.. I dont have a main aerial to the house so thought that i would use my old sky+ box upstairs in my bedroom.. I have connected to from my dish to the box and i have the main sky menu on the telly but when i choose a channel to watch it says, searching but then nothing..

Please can someone tell me what i need to do, I have even tried my sky card from the box down stairs upstairs and nothing.,... Im not the best when it comes to techno stuff... im not bothered about watching any of the paid channels, anything would do.

Katie

[nibblitz]

Have you got two satellite feed cables going into the box upstairs? If you only have one feed cable in the bedroom, there is is two inputs on the sky box, try swapping the single feed cable into the other input socket on the sky box..

[katief]

Hi,

Ii you mean the rf output thing then i have tried both but still no joy... i have the main screen but when i select all channels it keeps telling me its searching..so im at a loss

[nibblitz]

No, not the RF output... On your Sky+ box there will be two screw thread sockets for connecting the cables from the satellite dish, they are called something like "Dish Input 1" and "Dish input 2". Have you connected a cable from the satellite dish to one of these connectors?

[katief]

hi,

Sorry i have tried on both of those and its now back in dish 1, but still says searching for listings but still nothing, i have switched it on and off at the wall,

[katief]

i have a quad connector and just picked one of the spare ones to connect to upstairs

[ABA]

Originally Posted by katief

i have a quad connector and just picked one of the spare ones to connect to upstairs

not sure what a quad connector is hopefully a quad lnb have you try ed your box on the coax down stairs
try going in to the sky menus services 4 0 1 select and check your signal strength and quality
Evan try redoing your f plugs on each end of the coax as you only need 1 strand of the braid touching the center core of the coax and nowt will work

[katief]

thanks aba,
will try that, im still confused as to whether i need another sky card for upstairs, or whether i take the one out of the downstairs one,,,,im really not very techno and im surprised i have got this far.. the f plugs seem ok as they are new on.. and i checked them when i connected it yesterday...

[nibblitz]

Without the sky card the box will show FTA channels (Free to Air) If you put the card in it from the box downstairs it will show FTA channels and also your Subscription channels, but not Sports, Movies or Box office..

If you tried the satellite cable in both Input1 and Input2 then as Aba said, check the connectors are proper good.. The feed to your Bedroom sky box is coming directly from the connector on the satellite dish, yes?

[Basil2]

Don't worry about the card as it isn't needed in a Sky box to receive Sky's FTA programmes like Sky News. In any case, it will probably be 'locked' to only work in the box it was first used in.

Besides the possibility of a short circuit at one of your connectors, it's possible that the centre wire doesn't extend far enough to make contact. It should stick out 3 to 5mm beyond the plug's shoulder. This also allows you to ensure that it goes into the hole, rather than misses and folds over instead. Another thing to check is that the cable hasn't got any kinks in it and that it hasn't been squashed at any point.

If it still can't find channels, you'll need to eliminate the possible suspects by substitution. After noting where everything is connected downstairs, substitute your box and see if it tunes. Try the working box on your cable. Try your cable on a different LNB output. Check that the LNB output is clean and not corroded.

One other thing... It's vital that the cable is intended for satellite receivers. Aerial cable for terrestrial tv is way too 'lossy' for satellite.

Once it's up and running, you might consider getting a basic freesat box. They're really cheap and receive almost all the freeview channels along with loads more.

Good luck!