Has sky cut me off?
Discussion
I had sky ages ago, but when the box blew up, I just canceled my subscription. They didn't bother to ask for the card back, so I chucked it in a drawer and forgot about it.
The ariel has got steadily worse over the years, so instead of getting it fixed, I thought it would be cheaper just to pick up a cheap second hand digibox off eBay and watch freeview through my old card.
All was going well, could access men and motors and all the usual freeview channels, but not E4. I gave sky a quick ring to see why I wasn't picking up E4 and they told me it wasn't available unless I subscribed. Low and behold, all my other channels disappeared overnight bar BBC3,4 and ITV2.
I thought that all the freeview channels were available through sky, not just BBC and ITV. Oh well, that'll teach me, don't suppose anyone knows how to get my card back to normal? I was just getting into the Magnum replays on M&Motors.
The ariel has got steadily worse over the years, so instead of getting it fixed, I thought it would be cheaper just to pick up a cheap second hand digibox off eBay and watch freeview through my old card.
All was going well, could access men and motors and all the usual freeview channels, but not E4. I gave sky a quick ring to see why I wasn't picking up E4 and they told me it wasn't available unless I subscribed. Low and behold, all my other channels disappeared overnight bar BBC3,4 and ITV2.
I thought that all the freeview channels were available through sky, not just BBC and ITV. Oh well, that'll teach me, don't suppose anyone knows how to get my card back to normal? I was just getting into the Magnum replays on M&Motors.
If it's a yellow house card then it should work fine.
If a card hasn't been used for a while then the FTV channels (ITV/2/3) will take about 24hrs to be re-enabled again. BBC is transmitted FTA (unencrypted) so no problems there.
I would say leave everything plugged in for a day and see what happens!
You won't get E4 because it's a subscription only channel, part of the deal that C4 did to get on satellite I think.
edit: Let's check here, are you talking about satellite or Freeview? Freeview is the terrestrial service accessed through your rooftop aerial, satellite is through the dish (with Sky running the whole thing). Using satellite without a subscription doesn't have a name as such, Sky have a "freesat from sky" deal where they will set you up for £150 (or £20 for just the card) but it's not that well known.
Gareth
>> Edited by g_attrill on Tuesday 13th September 00:35
If a card hasn't been used for a while then the FTV channels (ITV/2/3) will take about 24hrs to be re-enabled again. BBC is transmitted FTA (unencrypted) so no problems there.
I would say leave everything plugged in for a day and see what happens!
You won't get E4 because it's a subscription only channel, part of the deal that C4 did to get on satellite I think.
edit: Let's check here, are you talking about satellite or Freeview? Freeview is the terrestrial service accessed through your rooftop aerial, satellite is through the dish (with Sky running the whole thing). Using satellite without a subscription doesn't have a name as such, Sky have a "freesat from sky" deal where they will set you up for £150 (or £20 for just the card) but it's not that well known.
Gareth
>> Edited by g_attrill on Tuesday 13th September 00:35
it's freeview OTA digital and cable etc, but not satellite.
if it was on freesat then sat viewers would be able to watch it too.
byff - I had this problem when I sorted my girlfriend out a digibox - as her subs had been cancelled, nothing would come down the dish, not even the freesat channels. The way I sorted it was to do the following:
Menu, 4, 0, 1, Select - that should put you into the engineering menu then, plug the box into the phone line, put the card in etc and select "new installation" - follow the on screen prompts and it will make a courtesy call to sky to check the status of the card. If you subs have lulled (and you've paid for all the dodgy late night porno "press red to watch" type things) the card will be enabled as a FTA card, and you can then unplug the box from the phone line and enjoy the FTA channels...
www.digitalspy.co.uk has a great satellite forum - that's where I found the above info
if it was on freesat then sat viewers would be able to watch it too.
byff - I had this problem when I sorted my girlfriend out a digibox - as her subs had been cancelled, nothing would come down the dish, not even the freesat channels. The way I sorted it was to do the following:
Menu, 4, 0, 1, Select - that should put you into the engineering menu then, plug the box into the phone line, put the card in etc and select "new installation" - follow the on screen prompts and it will make a courtesy call to sky to check the status of the card. If you subs have lulled (and you've paid for all the dodgy late night porno "press red to watch" type things) the card will be enabled as a FTA card, and you can then unplug the box from the phone line and enjoy the FTA channels...
www.digitalspy.co.uk has a great satellite forum - that's where I found the above info
Just to clear things up, I'm using a sky digibox to access the free channels via a dish. My card worked fine until I phoned sky to try and get E4 then it went off. It wont even scroll through the menu, just goes upto ITV2 then straight back to 101BBC1 again.
Dave, you might have hit the nail on the head - my box isn't connected to the phone line, so I'll give your suggestion a go.
Dave, you might have hit the nail on the head - my box isn't connected to the phone line, so I'll give your suggestion a go.
Now I've only got the normal terrestrial channels, it's going bad to worse.
Tried your fix dave, but after menu, system set-up, I don't have a 0 option. I tried system test, but it just say's telephone connected.
I'll leave it plugged in overnight, see if it sorts itself out otherwise it's a phone call to sky, they can't make it any worse - can they?
Tried your fix dave, but after menu, system set-up, I don't have a 0 option. I tried system test, but it just say's telephone connected.
I'll leave it plugged in overnight, see if it sorts itself out otherwise it's a phone call to sky, they can't make it any worse - can they?
UpTheIron said:
Tried your fix dave, but after menu, system set-up, I don't have a 0 option. I tried system test, but it just say's telephone connected.
The '0' option doesn't appear on screen - just go through the selection - 4, 0, 1, select and another menu will appear.
Got it, tried it, didn't work. Bugger, wish i'd never phoned them up now.
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