Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Just a quick question.

I'm having Sky installed on Wednesday, what they put inside? Does the cable come in directly from the dish or is there some sort of box installed inside like NTLs white box which the external cable goes into?

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

No box, cable straight through the wall.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

they drill a hole thru the wall and run the cable , now if you wanted to be clever then you could put a coax point in and ask them to wire to that and then run a fly lead to your box :)

edit :- dammit you were quick :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Thanks for that, I don't have a coax point. :D

Another question, do I have to have an aerial hooked up to receive BBC, or does it come through the dish and get unscrambled by the viewing card?

Sorry about the dumb sounding questions. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

BBC comes through the dish and is not scrambled, works without having the viewing card inserted.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

all the channels come thru the dish , of course if you have an aerial as well then you can record from that as well as watch sky or vice versa :)


edit :- beaten again , i must up my typing speed :D :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Fingers crossed I can get a signal from where I want the dish installed, then there will only be a short run of cable. :D

Can some one rep paulyoung666 for me please, I can't do it got to spread the karma to others first. :D

I've also green repped ianatruth as well. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

you will have to put with where the installer wants to put the dish i am afraid , it has to be line of site to the satellite with no obstructions , you should be able to get an idea of where if you look at neighbours dihes , if there are any about of course :erm: :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

I have always found Sky installers very good at putting the dish where you want it, providing it has line of sight of the satellite as Paul said. They have also always run the cable where I wanted it, usually having the dish near a downpipe and running the cable down behind the pipe. If you treat the installers in the right way and ask in the right way they will usually comply with your wishes.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

tea / coffee and choccie biccies helps ;) :D :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Helped me no end. :D :D :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Crap got no biscuits. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

We have a dish and no aerial (rotten analogue terrestrial reception in our area and no freeview). All was fine and dandy until last night when the Old Firm Scottish FA Cup derby was due to come on ... and the Beeb terminated the broadcast, with a testcard message saying this programme is not available on all digital services, and to view it we should switch to analogue BBC1. So much for the digital revolution. :( Just as well I wasn't particularly interested in watching the game!

Of course this is because the BBC only had the rights to broadcast the highlights in Scotland and satellite does not respect borders. It will not be a long term problem because the Beeb has already stated that it will take this into consideration when negotiating such rights in future. That said, they lost '24' to Sky principally because they are now broadcasting unscrambled and therefore beam their entire schedule for free across the whole of Europe - not necessarily a good thing from the point of view of American programme makers who may want to sell rights separately in each country.

So, if you want to guarantee that you can see every single programme on the main five channels, get an aerial as well. Also useful if you want to video one programme and watch another, of course.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Got my installation time an hour ago, between 12 and 3. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

They arrived soon after 12, installation went without a hitch about 20 minutes and they were done. :D

Now the fun of cancelling ntl tv tomorrow. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

did you manage to get the dish in stalled where you wanted it ????????? , and was it a neat job as well ?????????? :)

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Yes I did manage to get installed where I wanted, didn't even have to ask them. :D

Yes it was a neat job. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Welcome to the world of proper DTV. :p:

Wake up that red button finger & tell him he's not redundant after all! :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Had a look at the interactive, I'll probably use it when "24" premiers at the end of the month. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Do the mute and volume buttons actually work on the sky remote?

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

I switched to Sky Digital from ntl about 8 months ago, there is no comparison.

For Sky
Red Button works quickly
Better picture quality
Has never gone offline
Excellent TV guide that works quickly
One remote does pretty much everything

For ntl
No dish

I also have Sky+ now, which is quite simply fantastic. If you are going for Sky get this when you have the first install as it is relatively expensive later on. Still worth every penny though. Pause live TV, rewind Live TV. Record two premium channels at the same time.

We still have BB and phone with ntl, and the overall cost was little different.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

do you mean to work your tv ?????????? , if you do then you need to look here , this should get you set up for your sky remote to control your tv , albeit in a basic form :erm: :D :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Ok, but the code for my TV isn't listed its a LODOS X28, is there a compatible code on that list?

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

i might be wrong but hitachi springs to mind :)

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Its worth checking the manual that came with your TV, you might find the code in there, as they are industry standard codes.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

dont think so , you need the code that works the tv using the sky remote , it is a bit of a guessing game unless you do a bit of googling , for instance my pacific from asda uses phillips codes :)

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Ok I'll have a play tomorrow. :)

Counting LEDs sounds fun. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Had to do this too - luckily I was pleasantly surprised as there's a code for our Blue Sky TV we bought in France several years ago.

Installing Sky took about 5 minutes (we'd already got a dish on the wall... a leftover from previous owner :D ) - haven't looked back since.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Hi all,
Getting my Sky+ installed 2 weeks today, just a couple of questions, firstly - how big is the hole they drill in the wall? That sounds - well - nasty.... (I have thick sandstone walls.)

Do you think they could instead drill right through the very bottom of the window or something?

Also mentioned was a coax point, is that instead off the Analogue ariel, as in disconnect that - connect the sky instead?

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

The installer put our cable through an existing hole in the wooden window frame, which I assume was there from a previous aerial (there was nothing at all on the roof when we moved in). This was good because we have a wooden house, so drilling the walls for any reason should not be undertaken lightly for fear of letting damp in, but not so good because we will eventually want the window frames replaced for double glazing ... d'oh!

The installer should come through the wall wherever you ask him, within reason. Unlike NTL they don't put a box on the inner wall, it's just straight through the wall and into the STB. If you have a coax point on the wall already you might get them to wire the cable from the dish to it but they would have to disconnect your roof aerial from that at the same time. If you really want to have a box on the wall, you had better install one yourself before he arrives. Won't be difficult to do as you won't have to wire anything up to it, just fix it to the wall ... but check to make sure he is happy to wire up to it before you go to the trouble of installing it!

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Hmm,
Well i dont mind him using the existing Coax, that would be a brilliant solution in fact, problem is that im in a block of flats and im not sure if there is one Ariel for each flat - or - each flat has its own ariel.

Other than that, i have double glazing, with a wooden Frame so i think i will get him to go through that, rather than a 30cm deep Sandstone block.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

the hole will be no bigger than 3/8" of an inch , i dont see why they wouldnt go through the frame if you want them to :)

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

I had to check the ruler to see what 3/8" was :D

Sounds like a plan though - BT did it round the back with the phone line so, should be OK round the front.

Ta

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

old school baby :D :D :D :D

about 8-9 mm if you must go metric :disturbd: :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Im surprised you can remember at that age :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

:redcard: :fit: :knock: :PP: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Just an update nearly one month, all I can say is that Sky is bloody brilliant, interactive top notch, great picture, only once or twice I've a pixellation and the picture break up, but that was only on the adverts so no great loss there. :D

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Hopefully my Sky installation today goes a bit better than yesterday.

Guys came had a look at where the cables were to go and a nice clear pathway the upstairs was prepared for them. They took one look and said they couldn't do it. The only way they would run it was externally (black cable on a white painted house...)

So after a bit of umming and awwing they agreed to come back today if we had arranged draw cables for them. All they need to do now is mount the dish and drop off the Sky boxes.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Oh well that was one of the most torturous afternoons I've experienced in a long time. :(

After the crew appeared they thought all the wiring had been done and all they had to do was drop off the boxes. When they found out that they still had to do the wiring and dish install they weren't happy and tried to get a new date to do it. :td:

Eventually they agreed to do it and I ran in the cables from the outside to the house while they mounted the dish in the wrong place... After spending a couple of hours yesterday trimming back trees so the dish could be mounted further back from the front of the house and confirming this with them they go ahead and put it where they wanted to in the first place.

Finally after that they left the Sky+ box showing BBC1 england and missing most of the other channels. The guy shrugged and said it shouldn't do that so phone Sky. :mad:

On the plus side Sky answered the phone very quickly and diagnosed the problem within a few seconds. A couple of minutes later and BBC1 Scotland is showing in all its glory :tu:

Now to continue playing with the Sky+ box. It does have a nasty habit to appear as if it isn't responding to the remote and then do 5-6 commands at the same time :(
Still that seems to be a known issue with the Amstrad boxes and the majority of the time its V. fast going through the menus. :)

Now just to learn the channel numbers again :erm:

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

I am going to beg for a Pace box, given what i've heard about the Amstrads its worth the humiliation.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

If you sign up there is a 50/50 chance you'll get a pace.

The first lot of people yesterday had all paces in their van and said thats all they have been getting for the last few weeks. Todays installers had only amstrads.

They did say it looked as though Pace were going to be getting more of the installs from now on.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

YAY!

Im gonna refuse it if its an Amstrad, tell them i'll wait until they have one in if necessary (and i mean it).

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Later in the year I'm going to upgrade to Sky+, so Amstrads are best avoided then? It was the same when Sky Digital was launched the amstrad boxes were crap then, I was one of the fist to sign up for Sky Digital, but cancelled because there was a 5 week delay.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Well, first screw up by Sky - they haven't sent me my card, I phoned up yesterday thinking, i'm sure they said something about a card, to check and they said that they would send me one out - but that it will take 3 to 5 days.

Given that it gets installed tomorrow, i'm gonna have sky for a few days and not be able to watch it. :mad:

Something tells me this aint gonna be a smooth install. (Special heights team req etc..)

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Hopefully it will arrive in time but if it doesn't there are plenty of channels that don't need a viewing card inserted although most of those may probably not appeal to you.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Hmm,
I was told that you need to have a viewing card inserted to see anything.

So i presume i can still see the freeview type channels - BBC etc...

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

You can see the Free to Air channels but not the Free to View. Just Gopogled a site that appears to explain this at http://www.wickonline.com/fta.htm

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Here's another complete list:

http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

You can receive any FTA (free-to-air) channel (listed in 'raffle ticket yellow') without a card. You will need a card to watch any of the FTV (free-to-view) channels - notably ITV1/2 and Channel 5.

You don't need a Sky system to receive the FTA channels - any digital satellite receiver will do. If you have a hunt around Lyngsat you'll find plenty more FTA channels from other satellites too.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

Nice one fellas.

Well, thats at least something.

Ta.

Re: Sky being installed on Wednesday
 

:mad:

Knew it was too good to be true, Sky changed the install date from Today until the 5th of March without letting me know.

And i cannot make that date as i wont be available, and she cant change the date because its a specialist heights team thats booked, so they need to send an e-mail to another department to change the date which could take upto 7 days before they reply to me.

So i dont have a clue whats going to happen now.

NTL were never that bad.