Over the last week I've had interrupted or no signal on TV via Sky. It's become unwatchable.

Have called Sky and they offered to send out engineer at cost to myself so I've cancelled it and now need to replace it.

Any advice on that please?

The thing I most enjoy is the pause and record function but I expect that I'll have to live with it. Kids don't live at home any more so only watch a few channels - hasn't really been worth £23.99 a month for some time.

Any help is good xx

Some obvious questions....
What do you want to be able to watch?
What is your budget?
Do you want satellite or terrestrial (Freeview)?

Also as regards the "interrupted or no signal" was the cause established?
i.e, was it the box itself or something as simple as the dish being out of alignment, or maybe the LNB or the cabling?

BTW the Sky box is yours anyway and, if not faulty, will still give basic functions and free channels

For a Freesat box then the HDR1000s is a very good choice. You can record, pause, rewind etc and also has the main on demand players.
The only thing though judging from your post could be that you may need to get your dish looked at as you could very well have a faulty LNB, misaligned dish or even water in the cables which could be causing the interrupted and no signal issues.

A 'Grade A' as-new box from Humax is £129 but not in stock at the moment
http://humaxdirect.co.uk/Direct/Prod...1-542d25d28a13

http://www.trustedreviews.com/humax-...Top-Box_review

However, other things may need to be sorted out first and more info is required from the OP

And to add to the final question...

Do you have a terrestrial aerial cabled to the TV to allow you to receive Freeview?

Thinking about it a bit more. The No Signal could be being generated by the TV due to a faulty HDMI lead from the box. If that is how the OP has the two connected. So there is a possibility the dish, LNB and cabling are OK and a substitute satellite receiver (Freesat PVR for example) could work fine and just a couple of quid on a new HDMI lead need be spent.

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Thanks for your reply.

Budget is as low as possible.
Don't care if satellite or Freeview but then again, no idea, as I've had Sy for 14 yrs now and last time I looked Freeview it was at my parents years ago and it didn't work well.

Cause of fault can't be established they said without engineers visit. They got me to try resetting box and asked if 2 signals were locked and the answer to that was no. Sorry I'm a bit lost on all this unless its switch it on and sit n watch it.

There is an aerial the other end of the room

Which one is HDMI lead

It is the lead between Sky box and TV. May look something like this

http://cpc.farnell.com/productimages...AV23748-30.jpg

The plugs are just under an inch wide. Used on the Sky HD boxes to connect to a HDTV. If you don't have a HD box then you are probably using SCART.

TY. Don't have HD, am using Scart

Those HDR1000s look good but are too pricey.
Any other options?

The problem is that unless you can establish the cause of the issue that is affecting Sky putting in a Freesat receiver may not solve it. You could end up with an equally rubbish Freesat signal (after all Freesat and Sky use the same signals from the satellite on those channels common to both).

If the fault is in the Sky box or the cable between Sky box and TV then swapping the Sky box for a Freesat box could well solve the problem.

An easy way to check the cable is to swap it for one that you know works. For example if you have a Blu-Ray or DVD player that uses the same type of cable simply swap the cables over. If the Sky box now works perfectly and the disk player has problems you know it's the cable. If the Sky box still has problems but the disk player is fine then you know it is not the cable.

Swapping the Sky box may be more difficult if you don't have anything to swap it with. Unless there is a family member or friend willing to try their box on your dish or let you use your box on their dish (either should work to tell you if the box works OK or not) If another box is fine on your dish and/or you box is faulty on another dish then you know it's your box. If another box on your dish has the same issue and your box on another dish works fine you know your box is OK and it's likely to be the dish or cabling to the dish.

At that stage you may need to get someone in to chase the fault down further. But as I say you need to make sure the dish etc is fine before you invest in an alternative satellite receiver.

Have you tried plugging the telly into it to check it works? Assuming the telly has Freeview built in of course.

Might still be the SCART. They are well known for playing silly b's. They can look plugged in but in fact are partially pulled out and making intermittent contact. Always worth giving the plugs each end a firm push to ensure they are securely connected.

TV doesn't have Freeview. But presumably that would show TV is working on external aerial and thus exclude TV from issue?

Oh deary me. I haven't!! I will do that now. I just assumed it was Sky box because signasl not locked and receiving poor signal

If the aerial works then that would at least allow you to watch Freeview on the TV. And with a suitable Freeview PVR record and pause live TV as well, much as you can do on Sky.

If your TV does not have Freeview built in then you could beg steal or borrow a Freeview box and plug that into the telly to check the aerial point. There is no reason why an aerial can't go on working for years but obviously if you haven't used it for a while you won't know if anything has happened to it since you last plugged a telly into it.

The only issue might be that as your TV doesn't have Freeview built in you will have to use an external box which might not necessarily solve the problem you have with Sky if it turns out the SCART socket on the TV is faulty or the TV itself is faulty.

That is the problem. You've got so many points of failure, dish, LNB, cables, Sky box, SCART lead, TV, that working out which one is actually at fault could take some doing. And if you don't find the faulty bit in that chain you may end up no better off.

Tried, no change.

Did another health check while I was in front of TV and it came up with numbers, meaningless to me but also asked iI wanted to reset LDR (?) In for a penny, I said yes - now have no picture on TV and screen says no signal.

It depends on whether the Sky box itself is generating the No signal message or it's the TV. It should be easy to tell as whenever I've seen a Sky box pop up a no signal message it has been a message box headed "For your information" or similar wording on a blue background with the info banner for the channel you were watching along the bottom of the screen. So fairly obvious it's the Sky box producing it.

If it's the TV then it may just say No Signal with nothing else visible.

Yes it was a Sky message

TBH and I know it's not much good saying this after the event but for what it's worth........
There are so many things that could be wrong with the Sky box and/or dish/LNB/cabling that the OP may as well have paid the Sky call-out charge(£65 I think), had everything put back in working order and then cancelled the contract.
At least there would then be a working dish and box giving access to the free-to-air channels.

Afterthought is a wonderful thing

Isn't it? And I still have that option, it's 30 day cancellation they insisted on.

Firstly though my thought was that I'd had Sky for long enough, the boys no longer live at home and they were the reason I got it 14 years ago. It's costing me £250+ a year when really I watch only a few channels.

Secondly I asked on here about other options. I thought people would talk me through merits of Freeview, Tivo etc. I thought it was just a case of taking the Sky cable out of my TV and replacing it with something else.

Thirdly I had a signal issue about 5 years ago and they just posted out a new box and that was it. It seems like the same thing and that's what I thought they would do.

Fourthly....I am just really cheesed off after paying for 14 years and NOT leaving Sky that they don't enable customer service people, who are there to retain customers, to actually waive the charge..

Fifthly they did offer new box but had to come with an additional monthly charge for a family package. So I get to pay more, have more channels I don't want to watch AND presumably sign up for a new contract which means I can't dump them a month later if I choose?

Actually it's 31 days notice, and has been for some years.

Picky!

So far we have established that.....

the dish/LNB cabling may or may not be faulty
the Sky box may or may not be faulty
the aerial may or may not work
that your budget is "as low as possible." and the Humax Freesat "look good but are too pricey."

If you got any Freesat box the dish etc. would need to be in working order
If you got a Freeview box the aerial would need to be in working order
Failure on either (depending what you decide upon) will incur expenses.

As far as Sky retentions are concerned some people seem to be offered everything others (next to) nothing - luck of the draw I guess.


Which is why I think my comments about paying Sky a call-out charge may well have been the cheaper option - they, at least. offered to send an 'engineer'
At least you would have been left with everything working and still have been able to give 31 days notice of cancellation