I've spent the past couple of weeks pratting about with my Sky satellite and I thought some of you guys in the UK should know to avoid yourself wasting money with the Sky support at £65+++ a throw. I started getting pixelation (sp?) towards the end of last season and it got steadily worse over the past month or so. I rang the Sky help, (that's a bloody joke!), and various Scottish people there suggested I switch off the LNB's, unplug, then plug back in again and switch back on. Seemed to work the first time so, OK, I thought, that's sorted then. Lasted about a day before it went pear shaped again. Rang up and tried something else... forget what, exactly, but pretty much same story. Anyway, to cut an incredibly long story short they ended up suggesting I send for an engineer at £65 + whatever parts, etc. he needed. The thing is the signal strength is about 70-80% and the quality 50-60%, i.e. about where they've always been... and working for about 4+ years, so everything LOOKS alright. As I'm paying them nearly £600 a year, (about $1000), I baulked at paying ANOTHER £65 when their bloody system went belly up so started trawling around the internet. Found a guy who gave all sorts of advice with horror stories about power supplies failing after about 14-15 months, (i.e. just outside the warranty period), so thought, 'Ah, that'll be it'... and, surprise, surprise, he can sell me the bits. Fortunately I've still got my daughters old digibox to try so tried swapping that first. Good job too because that exhibited exactly the same characteristics as my 'old' one although she only used it for about 4-5 months. Rang Sky back... we'll send an engineer... what's your credit card number? Anyway, eventually I thought 'sod this - I'll get up on the ladder and have a butchers meself. I ain't spent 20 years in the computer security biz to be foiled by a little TV box, FFS'. Hmm... interesting. On the front of the dish, just under the LNB's there's a little spirit level which was showing the dish slightly to one side. Must have been twisted by the winds or something. Used a bit of brute strength and put it level again... whilst up there pushed all the cables and covers home, etc, and 'Hey Presto'... it's fine!!! The point is the signal strength and quality obviously mean buggar all in terms of whether it works OK, (er, isn't that the POINT of the bloody things), by the looks of it. So my advice if you're having Sky digibox trouble, (and I bet this goes for satellite dishes anywhere, actually), is to have a look yerself first. If it ain't working you're not going to make it much worse anyway and at least you'll be happier of you DO have to call them out.
Yeah, I'd been having some trouble with Dish Network and my signal going out in bad weather. Dish said it was normal, but it hadn't happened to me in over three years. Anyways, I did end up calling them and it turned out to be a part of the LNB that had corroded, so even though I had to pay at least they fixed it. Don't get me wrong, I'd never go back to cable, but satellite isn't exactly maintenance-free. It's worth it though for good old FSC and GolTV.
It's hard to fix a problem over the phone and the people in the call centre can only give so much help. If that doesn't work, then all they can do is suggest that you should get the engineer out to look at the problem. I don't see anything wrong with that. You should have known the drill when you signed your contract. Before you ask, I don't work in the call centre.
My argument is NEVER with the poor sods on the end of the phone... it's with the silly sods who devise a system that goes wrong and then expect their customers to pay to fix it. Possibly. But I think it would be fairer of them to suggest that it may be something as simple as the dish having been blown about in the wind which can fixed by almost anyone with a pair of step ladders BEFORE they suggest the customer spends £65+++. Eh heh! So because we normally get crap service we shouldn't complain about... yeah, that makes sense. Which rather begs the question as to why you're contributing to the thread, doesn't it.
I'm not the most satisfied Sky customer either. It costs an arm and a leg, and all for a bit of footy. But I'm holding out with them because they're going to offer HDTV (and I forked out a fortune for projector that has HDMI).