I used to have Sky + for years, but was fed up with paying for so many channels that I didn't watch, plus I couldn't go a couple of years, without reception problems and calling out the Sky engineer.

In October, I decided to get a Foxsat HDR and was extremely happy with it, until a week ago, when the picture started going and now every channel comes up with a No or Bad signal messaged and major distortion. I plugged in my Sky+ box and there is the same problem there.

I'm no expert, have no ladder etc, so would have to fork out for someone to come out and look at the dish and I'm not sure how much that would cost and if I'd have to have it looked at every couple of years, which wouldn't be good enough really.

Would I be better off with another box, getting Freeview through the aerial?

A properly installed dish should give several years of trouble free service.

I still have my original Sky dish with a single feed from it and it must be 10 years old and still works (I also have a lower level dish as they will not touch one on high chimneys now).

Unless you live in somewhere with very stormy weather or have trees growing in the way I would go for a new dish installation from a reputable independent aerial installer.

Cost just over £100.00 normally.

Automan.

If you have not actually used the dish for a while (was there a long time between getting rid of Sky and getting the Freesat box?) then that leaves the LNB unpowered and without that little bit of incidental heat that stops condensation and corrosion of the electronics and connections. So a new LNB could be all that is needed. But first double check the downlead and room-end connections for damage and being properly made (no stray bit of shielding braid causing a signal short for example). The very act of unplugging the lead from the Sky+ box and plugging it into the Freesat box could have been enough to cause an already dodgyy connector to finally give up the ghost.

For some strange reason, I turned the HDR off for a couple of hours and when I turned it back on, the signals have all returned to their original settings, so I'm hoping that was a brief blip, but I won't hold my breath.

Cheers for the replies.