2nd Sky box wont work with my card

[Supra-Brett]

Hmmmmm, just upgraded to Sky HD.

 

I got the engineer to leave up the old sky dish so i could reroute it into the bedroom for Freesat.

 

The old sky box is now plumbed in the bedroom and works without a sky card to recieve freesat. It didnt have channel 5 and FIVER (not sure why but apparently its like that with all sky boxes with no card) but i knew how to add them via the add channels section. I needed to take the sky card from downstairs, upstairs so i could actually add the channel 5 and FIVER channels and that worked fine, but for some reason my normal sky channels wont work on the upstairs box when i put my downstairssky card in it.

 

:search:WHY?

[creative]

arent skycards now tied to the boxes?

[MrRalphMan]

Yes they are..

[creative]

Yes they are..

 

wohoo I got something right!

[Shane]

Freesat and free channels via sky are not quite the same thing. However, as mad as it seems in today's world of saving money and being green etc, both services are transmitted simultanously via Astra @28.2 degrees E. Sky do not currently have the rights to transmit Ch5 along with a couple of other freesat channels as a FTA channel (ie for you to receive on a skybox without a card). Its something that's been going on for years and in time will probably change, like most rights issues. However, if you dont want to go out and buy a proper freesat rx, there is a way you can still get Ch5 on your skybox by using the "add other channels" option. It wont appear in the Sky EPG as you would think it should and using once done you have to go to either the channel number allocated or "other channels" to get to ch5. You need to do this:

 

Press SERVICES on your remote control

Select 4 SYSTEM SET UP

Select 4 ADD CHANNELS

Change the frequency to 10.773

Change the POLARISATION from　 V to H

Change the SYMBOL RATE to 22.0

Change the FEC to 5/6

then select FIND CHANNELS

 

When the new channels are found, highlight FIVE, press the Yellow button then press the SKY button

To watch channel 5, select SERVICES, then 6 OTHER CHANNELS then select FIVE

 

Once you do this you should make a note of these instructions as if the box is left unplugged for any period of time it will probably lose the extra channels and you will need to do it again. Let me know if you havea problem and I can try and help.

 

Also worth mentioning maybe, is that yes the cards are paired with the boxes, but on a standard receiver you can use the wrong card if it's active in the wrong box for all but the channels with level 2 or 3 encryption. These are basically sports and movies. All the rest will show in the clear once you cancel the "this is the wrong card for this set top box" tyoe of message by pressing back up. Once you do this you can then watch all the other old yad like discovery, sky1 90% of music channels etc. If your main box is now a sky HD, I am pretty sure it wont work in your bog standard RX in the bedroom. I will ask one of my guys to confirm this later today and get back to you.

[d-_-b]

Wow that was some reply! Nice work Shane

[Shane]

Ok we just stuck an active hd card into a basic box and it works fine on all channels except high encrypted stuff like sports movies etc once you cancel the incorrect card prompt.

[Supra-Brett]

Ok we just stuck an active hd card into a basic box and it works fine on all channels except high encrypted stuff like sports movies etc once you cancel the incorrect card prompt.

 

Thanks for the replies shane. I knew the channel 5 stuff and had done that already by using the add channels function to add five and FIVER etc, but interestingly, i couldnt add channels without a valid card inside. The valid card was from my HD box downstairs, and the bedroom box is my old non HD box. However, although the card was valid it displayed the message you mentioned, but i never tried pressing backup to check if i could get sky 1, discovery etc. I will have to try that.

 

One other question i have is why scy cards are going for twenty odd quid on ebay. Im assuming these are old cards, not working etc, so i cant see why anyone would need such a card if all the freesat channels can be added via the add channels function. Why buy an old sky card?

[Shane]

You might benefit from carrying out a forced download on your second box as I am sure that yu can add channels without a card in it, well you could when I last tried it.

 

When/if you cancel your sky sub you can request that they don't delete fta access on your card so you can use it for free channels. This type of card is not paired with the box as such as no high level encryption channels are being processed by the box. People then will pay for these cards as they can be taken out of the country and used elsewhere, quite a big market for these from ex pats.

 

Things are changing rapidly though and Sky are being gradually forced to stop this being possible. Just recently all the folk with Solus FTA cards who had their cards replaced with G3 cards FOC by sky were paired and more recently there where some transponder changes which meant the footprint of the muxes carrying BBC1 Ch4 etc become a lot weaker over mainland Europe, field strengths in the UK where pretty much unaffected however.

Thanks for the replies shane. I knew the channel 5 stuff and had done that already by using the add channels function to add five and FIVER etc, but interestingly, i couldnt add channels without a valid card inside. The valid card was from my HD box downstairs, and the bedroom box is my old non HD box. However, although the card was valid it displayed the message you mentioned, but i never tried pressing backup to check if i could get sky 1, discovery etc. I will have to try that.

 

One other question i have is why scy cards are going for twenty odd quid on ebay. Im assuming these are old cards, not working etc, so i cant see why anyone would need such a card if all the freesat channels can be added via the add channels function. Why buy an old sky card?

[Supra-Brett]

You might benefit from carrying out a forced download on your second box as I am sure that yu can add channels without a card in it, well you could when I last tried it.

 

When/if you cancel your sky sub you can request that they don't delete fta access on your card so you can use it for free channels. This type of card is not paired with the box as such as no high level encryption channels are being processed by the box. People then will pay for these cards as they can be taken out of the country and used elsewhere, quite a big market for these from ex pats.

 

Things are changing rapidly though and Sky are being gradually forced to stop this being possible. Just recently all the folk with Solus FTA cards who had their cards replaced with G3 cards FOC by sky were paired and more recently there where some transponder changes which meant the footprint of the muxes carrying BBC1 Ch4 etc become a lot weaker over mainland Europe, field strengths in the UK where pretty much unaffected however.

 

Thanks Shane. i dont really know what that last bit meant im afraid, but im interested in the forced download. How do i do that?

 

On another note, BBC1, ITV, C4 and C5 have now completely dissapeared, and FIVER etc are innaccesable. HELP

[Shane]

Thanks Shane. i dont really know what that last bit meant im afraid, but im interested in the forced download. How do i do that?

 

On another note, BBC1, ITV, C4 and C5 have now completely dissapeared, and FIVER etc are innaccesable. HELP

 

Disconnect the box from the mains, be that at the wall socket or by just removing the figure of 8 lead at the back, then press the "BACK UP" button on the front of the box (not the remote), then while the button is being pressed re-apply the mains and keep the button pressed down until you see all the front led indicators on the box come up. At this point it's then ok to release the button. You may get a message on the screen saying that a download is taking place, but you may not, depends on the type of box and also how it is connected to the screen. But, after a while sometimes up to 15 mins the lights will alll go out and after about a minute of them going out you will be able to use the box.

 

Let me know how you get on. One thing not to do though, is to remove either the power or the signal (from the dish) while it is in the ota download state (all the lights on), they dont like it up them and if you do the box is pretty much scrap without loads and loads of mucking about.