"Help my Sky box is getting no signal" - buy a new box say the cowboy installer...but easily solved with a quick phone call

I get many emails and phone calls from people all around Spain, asking for help and advice. It is nice to feel appreciated and that people trust my advice that I can give them. This is highlighted by the many "It's a shame you dont work in our area" comments I receive.

In a recent case, my advice highlights what some other installers will do just “to make a sale” and not really care about the clients.

I received a telephone call from someone in the south Alicante area. They had had a power cut and, no matter what, they could not get their Sky digibox to start up, always getting the dreaded “no satellite signal is being received” messages. Assuming the worse they called a “satellite tv engineering company” in that area to see if they could diagnose the problem, and propose a solution.

The “installer” arrives, and, according to the client, took a look at the box, didn’t even turn it on, and proclaimed the box was dead and that they would need to buy a a new Sky box. "Luckily" he had a "second hand" Sky+HD box in the van, which could be theirs for 400 euros – in addition to the call out charge of 50 euros!

(The clients did not really need the more expensive Sky+HD box, as they only wanted the "free to air" channels, and with no Sky subscription would not be able to take advantage of the hard drive recording functions of the Sky+HD box!)

The clients asked the installers if the signal was OK, and the installer said yes, everything is fine with the signal from the dish. The client was a bit confused as the installer had done nothing to test the signal from the satellite dish and LNB at all.

Being overcautious, the client said OK they will have to think about the new box, as it was a bit more than they would have like to pay, paid the 50 euros call out charge, and the “installer” left.

The client found my website details from a quick Google search, and called me for advice.

After about the first 2 minutes of our conversation, they commented that “I had already told them more than the installer had told them”.

A few questions and the Sky box was turned on, and I talked them through the routine to change the Sky box’s default transponder frequency.

This process they knew.

However, they were still using the frequency of 12.129. Since May 2012, it has been impossible to boot a Sky box up using 12.129 as thedefault transponder frequency setting.

So I advised them of a few alternate frequencies to use, such as 12207 and 12051. Within a minute of doing this process with this revised default transponder frequency, they were watching their favourite UK TV channels via Sky TV digibox again.

Which just shows that the so called “installer”, whom I have heard of prior to this incident, was totally bullshitting (sorry but there is no other word to describe it) about the sky box being broken, will say anything just to try and make a sale, and has no problems in ripping off fellow expats. Businesswise...maybe. Morally...wrong.