Need to book a sky

[bcjnpatel]

I need to book a sky engineer 

[Mark39]

You're unlikely to be able to book an engineer with Sky for Sky+. What problem are you having?

[bcjnpatel]

My sky lead is broken

[Mark39]

There are at least 4. Which one? Where is it broken?

[Jon5]

I need to book a Sky engineer too.  I have a Sky HD+ box. It has worked fine for many years. Over the last year, input 2 signal has intermittently failed, ruining my recordings.  I have assumed that it was a dish or LNB problem so I have paid an aerial/satellite company to fit a brand new dish and brand new LNB.  Signal strength is now close to maximum when I go to Settings, Signal.  But the problem persists. I have disconnected and reconnected the cables. No improvement. Random recordings failing because of "no signal".  I tried ringing Sky to book an engineer. I think you can guess how that went.  After being asked how my day was going and other similar small talk, I was told that all the engineers are busy, none are available, why am I not upgrading to Sky Q?  I explained that I would then lose all my existing recordings on the Sky HD box. I was told that's true, but we no longer make the Sky HD box so I should upgrade to Sky Q.  So my question is, assuming that Sky are unwilling to repair HD boxes even if you pay them lots of money, can anyone recommend an independent Sky box repairer in the North West London area?

[Mark39]

@Jon5 Sky have never repaired Sky+ boxes. If a hardware fault develops, they have simply replaced it, but that's no longer possible. Did the installer check both cablies from the dish? That's the more likely remaining cause of the problem.

[Jon5]

I have replaced both cables with new cables I've bought from Amazon.  The general advice that I've seen is the vague advice that if dish/LNB/cabling doesn't solve the problem "there may be a problem with the box". Does anyone know whether this type of fault indicates a need to replace something specific within the HD box?

Obviously I'm disappointed that when phoning Sky they spent all their time trying to persuade me to upgrade to Sky Q.  I'm sure my problem of having too many valued recordings on my Sky Box is my 'fault' but many other people are probably in a similar position and if Sky wanted to solve it they could make it possible for people to access their Sky HD recordings after upgrading to Sky Q.

[Mark39]

Presumably the fault,is somewhere within the tuning circuitry. You could try swapping the cables over at the box end. If the fault remains on the same dish input it would suggest the fault is indeed with the box.

Recordings were only ever intended to be for time shifting purposes rather than an archive, which I imagine is one reason why Sky haven't developed the means to make them available after upgrading etc.

Bear in mind that when the hard disk fails, as it eventually will, you'll lose your recordings anyway. Even the most recent Sky+ boxes are at least 8 years old, so the disk is likely to be approaching end of life.

[Jon5]

Thanks.

When my Sky HD Plus box fails, I will try to find an independent satellite TV retailer who can repair the box or sell me a replacement one. I don't have any need for Sky Q.   I am much more likely to subscribe to Virgin or some other provider, than to upgrade to Sky Q and put up with Sky's unsatisfactory service and continual price hikes.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Jon5 wrote:

I'm sure my problem of having too many valued recordings on my Sky Box is my 'fault' but many other people are probably in a similar position and if Sky wanted to solve it they could make it possible for people to access their Sky HD recordings after upgrading to Sky Q.

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No, because the hard drive is there to permit time-shifted viewing as a limited exception to copyright law: it's never been intended or even permitted as a media archive (despite all of us using it that way ; )

[TimmyBGood]

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@Jon5 wrote:

  I am much more likely to subscribe to Virgin or some other provider, than to upgrade to Sky Q and put up with Sky's unsatisfactory service and continual price hikes.

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Remember that without an active Sky subscription on a Sky+ box the hard drive content on that box becomes unreachable anyway: it cannot be used for playback once the subscription covering the hardware ceases.

[Jon5]

Of course. But the scenario is when, in future, my Sky HD+ box fails and the recordings cannot be watched anyway, and it is deemed to be non-repairable even by a third party engineer. In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

[GD1]

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@Jon5 wrote:

Of course. But the scenario is when, in future, my Sky HD+ box fails and the recordings cannot be watched anyway, and it is deemed to be non-repairable even by a third party engineer. In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

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Your options would be Sky for Pay TV or Freesat (Only Free to Air channels)  there isnt another Pay TV Satellite operator in the UK

[TimmyBGood]

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@GD1 wrote:

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@Jon5 wrote:

 In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

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Your options would be Sky for Pay TV or Freesat (Only Free to Air channels)  there isnt another Pay TV Satellite operator in the UK

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Not since November 1990 when Sky ate them ; )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Satellite_Broadcasting 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Jon5 wrote:

In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

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Subscription ('premium') satellite television is typically monopolistic in any given region because it's incredibly expensive to provision a rival service: for one thing a different orbital platform is typically required, which necessitates additional dishes pointing in another direction to those of the established provider.  Some countries have more than one premium satellite solution but that needs a much bigger population of potential subscribers to sustain them than the UK can offer.

Freesat broadcasts from the Astra 28.2E cluster which also carries Sky channels.