Replacing Q box with older sky box but not getting satellite signal.

[watcher1300]

My father has decided to cancel his Sky subscription and has to send back his Q box. I wanted to replace it with an old Sky box of mine (drx890wl-z) and use it as a freesat box so he still has a decent number of channels he can watch instead of the stingy amount he'd get through the aerial.  Unfortunately, when I swapped the boxes around it says there is no satellite signal.  I know it's not the box because I can hook it up in a second room in the house and I get a satellite signal. 

There is also another sky box already in the house (drx595l-c) which is used in the second room but when I transfer that one with the Q box, I get the same result - no satellite signal.  When I hook the Q box back up, the satellite signal reappears.  All the boxes work and I get a satellite signal in both rooms but when I try to swap the older boxes with the Q box, I get no signal.  Any help would be much appreciated.

[TimmyBGood]

@watcher1300 

A Sky + / Sky+ HD box cannot get a usable satellite signal through a dish fitted with the default Q LNB.

If it works on a satellite cable in another room, that suggests a Q 'hybrid' LNB is on the dish with the cable pair in the primary location only usable by Q.

Simplest workaround is to change cables over at the LNB, if that's reachable.  To have Sky+ in both locations the LNB would need replacing.

[nigea99]

hi @watcher1300 

Edited : as I missed the bit about the other box working (& thus probably having a Hybrid LNB)

Edit2: If Freesat is required in both rooms - probably 2 options 

1) buy a new Feesat 4K box which can work with the Wideband outputs of the LNB (as used by SKY Q) or2)  get a local Satellite Installer to change the LNB back to a multiple output Universal LNB  

As @TimmyBGood says if Freesat is only needed in 1 room the cables at the LNB could be changed over 

[watcher1300]

Thanks for your help.  I don't have the knowledge to start messing about with the cables so I guess the best option would be to buy a 4k Freesat box.  I was hoping I it would be an easy swap (the downstairs Q box has a Sky subscription for now but the upstairs Sky+ HD box doesn't have a subscription and just shows the basic channels which is what I wanted for the downstairs room.). 

I'm not sure how ethical this is but if I bought a Q box from eBay would it work or is there some fancy technical stuff that would stop it from working as they are about a third of the price of a brand new Freesat box.

[nigea99]

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@watcher1300 wrote:

Thanks for your help.  I don't have the knowledge to start messing about with the cables so I guess the best option would be to buy a 4k Freesat box.  I was hoping I it would be an easy swap (the downstairs Q box has a Sky subscription for now but the upstairs Sky+ HD box doesn't have a subscription and just shows the basic channels which is what I wanted for the downstairs room.). 

I'm not sure how ethical this is but if I bought a Q box from eBay would it work or is there some fancy technical stuff that would stop it from working as they are about a third of the price of a brand new Freesat box.

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SKY Q boxes require an active SKY Card  so don't work without a subscription - any boxes on ebay are effectively stolen property as the boxes always remain the property of SKY

There is an option 3 which is to reduce the subscription to SKY Essentials which is Freesat via SKY Q but personally I think it is an expensive option 

[oldfella]

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@watcher1300 wrote:

Thanks for your help.  I don't have the knowledge to start messing about with the cables so I guess the best option would be to buy a 4k Freesat box.  I was hoping I it would be an easy swap (the downstairs Q box has a Sky subscription for now but the upstairs Sky+ HD box doesn't have a subscription and just shows the basic channels which is what I wanted for the downstairs room.). 

I'm not sure how ethical this is but if I bought a Q box from eBay would it work or is there some fancy technical stuff that would stop it from working as they are about a third of the price of a brand new Freesat box.

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Hi @watcher1300 

Afraid any Q boxes on sale from anyone apart from Sky ar potentially stolen.   All Q boxes are owned by Sky and rented to Costomers for the duration of their subscription.   They must be returned to Sky when subscription ceases.

[Laing1]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

@watcher1300 

A Sky + / Sky+ HD box cannot get a usable satellite signal through a dish fitted with the default Q LNB.

If it works on a satellite cable in another room, that suggests a Q 'hybrid' LNB is on the dish with the cable pair in the primary location only usable by Q.

Simplest workaround is to change cables over at the LNB, if that's reachable.  To have Sky+ in both locations the LNB would need replacing.

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@watcher1300 there is another option and that would be have an dependant satellite engineer come round and swap the LNB on the dish to a 4 way standard LNB so that both the older boxes will work