ex sky plus customer - but not all free to air channels.. pls help?

[rennie]

Hi there..
please can I ask for some advise.
I am an ex sky plus customer. I have two sky plus boxes (living room and son's room)
so effectively we now have free sat going to these boxes. which is fine. credit crunch.. blah blah
however my son's sky plus system ONLY recieves channels 1-5
not bbc three etc etc.
what are we doing wrong.. how can he have the free to view channels from sky through our system like we currently have down staris.
thank u in advance

:-)

[waqasahmed]

Are you sure the sat is actually hooked up to your son's Sky receiver and you're not just hooking the TV(instead of the Sky receiver to a dish) up to an aerial? (Not calling you dumb or anything). I suppose if no one finds the solution to your problem, you could always buy a freeview receiver cheap from places like eBay and cash converters for probably a tenner or so

[rennie]

Originally Posted by waqasahmed

Are you sure the sat is actually hooked up to your son's Sky receiver and you're not just hooking the TV(instead of the Sky receiver to a dish) up to an aerial? (Not calling you dumb or anything). I suppose if no one finds the solution to your problem, you could always buy a freeview receiver cheap from places like eBay and cash converters for probably a tenner or so

Hi.. thanks for reply.
no the sky plus is defo hooked up correctly.
we were a fully paid member of sky up until last week when my subscription ended. then the channels (sky sports.. movies) all go off BUT i thought we should get the free to air channels such as BBC THREE etc. we do on one of the tv's but not the other.

i hope that answer clarifies.

I did read you can scan for more channels via the options menu.. i'm yet to do this so will try when im home. but anymore advise would be greatful.

I know the sky plus facility itself wont work as this is subscription dependant. that im happy with. but would like more channels on this particular box. rather than the 1-5.

i dont want to get freeview as i live 1mile from sea in dorset and we get NO signal.. tried and failed terribly before. hence why we went with sky.
cheers for helps so far

:-)

[Robbo]

Are you saying that the other channels don't even appear in the EPG?

You could try the usual, unplug it for a bit (don't know how long, maybe a while when not being used) and plug it back in. You want the 'Searching for listings' message to come up.

Of course, that assumes you have a good signal, which is a fair assumption since the subscription was working OK, but worth checking anyway, by going through all the FTA transponders and checking the sig quality.


Another thing to try maybe is a forced software update.

I hate Sky boxes, one doesn't know what they're up to. A standard FTA receiver is far superior to a Sky box in that respect. You are in charge, not it.

[waqasahmed]

Do as Robbo says and iff all else fails, I guess you could go on eBay You would also gain some knowledge if you connected this to a motorised dish(that is as long as you dont have any more money problems and if the receiver has any power to drive a motor)

Have you tried putting your receiver in your son's room?

[rennie]

cheers chaps!!
i will try each of those things.. the old turn on/off is the first stop.
my wife was moaning at me last night he ONLY had 5 channels..
kids eh?!!
we only had 4 in arr day etc etc.. lol

anyway i'll try those things.. do a search etc.

cheers for responses!!

Peace :-)

[Robbo]

I have FTA receivers in three of my bedrooms, theyr'e good as you can also put the channels in any order, and get rid of all the subbed channels, to save wading through them. The youngest has an old sky box, which is just used for one channel- Tiny Pop, it's too complicated for him to find any others.

Freesat Humax Foxsat HD is another option.