To make a Sky remote to control a Sky+ box.

December 1, 2009

Follow this sequence:

Press TV

Hold blue and select untill the red light flashes twice

Press 2

Press Select

Press Sky
Now the sky remote up and down channel buttons change the channels on a sky+ box.

To revert back, enter this sequence again but press the ”0″  instead of “2″.

Sky Cards

August 31, 2009

There is a huge amount of confusion surrounding the new Sky card issue. According to Sky the project will be completed by the end of September, by which all subscribers will have been issued with new cards which should not need to be activated
For “£20 card” holders it’s not quite so straightforward if you bought your card from Sky after 1st May 2006 you are entitled to a new card for free (but you have to apply for it).
All the information and options are to be found on Sky’s dedicated Replacement Card site.

Adding ITV regions to your Sky box

July 19, 2009

To add ITV regions

  • On the Sky box go to Services > System Setup > Add Channels 
  • Enter the following details:
    • Frequency: from the list below
    • Polarity: from the list below
    • Symbol rate: 22000 (22.0Mb)
    • FEC: 5/6
  • Go to Find Channels, highlight the required region(s), and press the yellow button, then Select.
  • then press the backup button repeatedly to exit
  • To view the channel go to Services > Other Channels, and select the channel.

Sadly this does not add the channel to the program guide and there is no way do so

Freq: 10758 Freq:10832 Freq: 10891
Polarity: Vertical Polarity: Horizontal Polarity: Horizontal
London Central South Border
Granada Central East Tyne Tees
Anglia North Wales Meridien South
Central west West Country West Meridien South East
West Country South Anglia South
Border England Yorkshire West

BBC region numbers on your Sky box

July 19, 2009

Although your Sky box puts only one region for BBC, the other regions are available and here are the channel numbers:

BBC1
971   Scotland
972   Wales
973   Norhern Ireland
974   London
975   NE & C
976   Yorkshire
977   Yorks & Lincs
978   North West
979   West Midlands
980   East Midlands
981   East (E)
982   East (W)
983   South East
984   South
985   Oxford
986   West
987   South West
988   Channel Islands

BBC2
990   Scotland
991   Wales
992   Northern Ireland

Turn a Sky+ remote into a standard Sky remote

April 17, 2009

Press TV,

Hold Yellow+Select until LED flashes twice,

press “0″,

Press “select”

Press “ Sky”

(To revert back, enter this sequence again but press the “1″ button instead of “0″)

(thanks for the edit Jed!)

Plasma or LCD…… Which TV should I buy?

March 7, 2009

As ever the answer to this question is  “that all depends”. This page gives a fairly good answer

Sky Box Auto Standby

December 27, 2008

In the interest of saving the planet Sky has decided to add  “Auto Standby” to the latest software update. This puts your box onto standby if you don’t use the remote between 11.00pm and 4.00am.

You’ll be pleased to know that the function can be disabled thus:

press the services button, select option 5 and change “auto standby” from on to off.

JOB DONE

Can I have more than one box?

November 28, 2008

Yes, of course you can  

BUT 

You will need to install a multi-output LNB on your dish (you’ve probably heard people talking about “quad LNBs”). The replacement of a single LNB with a multi-output one is straight swap.

Having installed the new LNB on your dish you then need to check the signal (See “how to fix your own dish”) then simply run cables from your new LNB to your boxes and your kids can watch Cbeebies while you watch the news. 

Why can I only 1 box on an LNB?  (a bit techi) 

At it’s most basic level it’s because the LNB is not a simple areal it actually does some quite clever things.The digibox and LNB should be regarded as the reciever because they inter-react with one another

 

The signal from the satellite is polarised, that is to say it is transmitted in either a horizontal or a vertical plane, this means that 2 different programs can be transmitted on very close frequencies on horizontally and the other vertically, thus making very efficient use of the available frequencies. This is why the skew angle of the LNB is important when you are installing your dish

The LNB can be switched by the digibox to receive either horizontal or vertical transmissions, to achieve this the digibox sends 13volts to the LNB to receive vertical transmissions and 18volts for Horizontal

 

The signal from the satellite is in 2 frequency bands, 10.7-11.8Ghz(Lo band) and 11.6-12.6Ghz(Hi band) the LNB switches to Hi Band when it receives a 22Khz frequency signal from the digibox….

 

So if you if you do connect 2 boxes to on LNB and select a program that transmits on  Hi band/vertical (22Khz/ 18volts from the box) on one, that is going to override any other selections on the other and in the worst case scenario if one box is trying to access a Hi Band/Horizontal channel(22Khz/13volts) and the other box is trying to access a LoBand/Vertical (0Khz/18volts) then neither box will get receive the correct signal

 

(Actually you can get multi-output LNBs which in effect have 2, 4, 8 or even 16 LNBs in one casing so you still have one box per individual LNB)

 

 

Channel 5 is now available free

November 3, 2008

Adding “Five” to your Sky box

  • On the Sky box go to Services > System Setup > Add Channels

  • Enter the following details:
    • Frequency: 10773MHz (10.773GHz)
    • Polarity: Horizontal
    • Symbol rate: 22000 (22.0Mb)
    • FEC: 5/6
  • Go to Find Channels, highlight “Five”, and press the yellow button, then Select.
  • To view the channel go to Services > Other Channels, and select “Five”.

Adding “Five” to your French digibox

If you have a “brico” box, if it does “blind scans” then it’d be worth doing a complete scan as quite a few channels have moved in the last couple of months.

If your box does not do blind scans then you will have to create a new transponder with the details above and then scan that.

How to programme your Sky remote to work with your TV

November 2, 2008

The Sky remote can be programmed to opperate many TVs and it’s easy to do.

If you have a Sony TV, it should work automatically. Otherwise:

First turn on your TV and your Sky box. then on the remote control:

  1. Press the “interactive” button

  2. From the menu that now appears select option 5, “Customer Services”
  3. You now have to wait a few moments,
  4. When the menu appears scroll down and select option 5, “Programme Your Remote”
  5. Now follow the on screen intructions.

If your TV does not appear on the list, then it may be worth trying a few codes from the same manufacturer.

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