David Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 We bought a Pace Sky Digibox in 2003 for use in Bressuire, northern Deux-Sevres, through a 60 cm dish, and it has been working perfectly since then.Last June the 10th, 2014, we disconnected it in order to take it on holiday with us in Leucate, near Perpignan. At that time in Bressuire it was receiving all channels, despite the main channels having been moved to the new satellite. On arrival in Leucate it again worked perfectly, but gave a much reduced channel selection with none of the main channels which had moved satellite.About a week later, that is about the 20th June 2014, the Pace box received no channels at all, but it was still working and showing the time, and channel list. However, the channel list was empty. We did not worry, and assumed that this was because the old satellite had been shut down, and we could not receive the new satellite in Leucate. We therefore unplugged the Pace box, and stored it safely ready for return to Bressuire.We duly returned yesterday, the 28th September, and the Pace box does not work now. When switched on it reports that it is searching for channels, then it reports "No Satellite Signal". There is no clock, program table or anything. The Services will show, but I do not seem to be able to get it to reboot.Now we do not know whether something happened to the dish over the summer - unlikely, whether the Pace box has broken down, whether the Pace box needs rebooting after such a long shutdown, or whether it is because the satellite has changed. We feel that if it were the satellite, then the box should pick up the new satellite as it was showing the main channels, which had already moved, when we were last here in early June.We do hope that you can help, as the Mrs was looking forward to curling up in the evenings to catch up on her programs. A winter here without UK TV would be rather depressing, and we cannot change to internet TV as we are at the end of a 5 kilometre above ground telephone cable, and internet reception is very slow indeed.Many thanks in anticipation,David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lehaut Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 I had the same type of problem with a Sky HD box. I changed the dish, the lnb and checked the cable. Sometimes it would work, other not. Sometimes the same error message came up in the middle of watching BBC. IMO the box is dead. I bought an Amstrad box off Amazon.fr. Gets all the the FTA programmes and HD. Small, cheap and simple. As its made in Turkey and Amstrad was started by Lord Sugar, does this make it a turkish delight??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 30, 2014 Author Share Posted September 30, 2014 Thank you very much for your reply. That makes a lot of sense, and gives me a place to start. I would prefer that, than call in a local professional due to cost. Unfortunately I cannot check the dish or LNB box myself as I am in a wheelchair.Would it be possible for you the tell me which Amstrad box you bought, whether you can use your old viewing card, and what connecting leads are supplied with it. We have an old cathode ray tube TV, which does not have any new-fangled connections such as hdmi, usb, etc, just a good old fashioned scart connector.I have been checking the Amstrad boxes on Amazon UK, and there seem to be several, they also do not say what cables come with the box.Once decided on the right box, I will order from Amazon France.Thank you again for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 [quote user="David"]Once decided on the right box, I will order from Amazon France.[/quote]David there are loads for sale at really good prices.This Amstrad for example at 24€31: hereWe bought our Thomson DVB for 25€ and it has been excellent, the picture quality is superb on our samsung tv.There are a few to choose from here.Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lehaut Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 David, the box I bought would not suit you. We are all HDMI leads, no scart output listed on the box (Amstrad MD 19700HD). Also its just for FTA channels (free to air). We don't have a card for any paid channels, and do not need one for the FTA channels.If Sue's Thomson DVB has scart and you don't use a Sky card, that may be a better bet. I tend to buy from Amazon because of their excellent return policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Lehaut"]If Sue's Thomson DVB has scart and you don't use a Sky card, that may be a better bet. [/quote]It does and we don't have a card either.I too prefer Amazon but it just depends where you find what you want/need.Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Personally I would use a Humax box. OK it is a little more expensive but as it has Free Time you can go back in time to watch a missed program without any need to record it. They also have very good tuners which 'pull in' the picture better than Sky boxes as I have discovered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Quillan"]Personally I would use a Humax box. OK it is a little more expensive but as it has Free Time you can go back in time to watch a missed program without any need to record it....[/quote]To use 'Freetime' you do need to be able to access a UK internet connection. So, therefore in France some kind of access to a UK VPN would be necessary.Freetime is only available on the latest Humax boxes.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Danny"][quote user="Quillan"]Personally I would use a Humax box. OK it is a little more expensive but as it has Free Time you can go back in time to watch a missed program without any need to record it....[/quote]To use 'Freetime' you do need to be able to access a UK internet connection. So, therefore in France some kind of access to a UK VPN would be necessary.Freetime is only available on the latest Humax boxes.Danny[/quote]You use Smart DNS directly on the Huax box and it works fine (it is what I have). I had assumed the OP was going to buy new as people are talking about buyng from Amazon. I see they are selling the 500mb twin LNB boxes £175 now which is the model I have as they only make 1 and 2tb storage machines now. Have to say after 9 months I have only managed to use about 11% of my 500mb disk space. The version with no recording ability (but has Free Time) is of course much cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 1, 2014 Author Share Posted October 1, 2014 Thank you all very much for your kind help.At the moment I am looking for a very cheap box as a diagnostic tool, as I still do not know that it is the box that is faulty. If I find out that the cheap box works, then I can consider whether to buy an expensive Humax or not. I do not want to buy an expensive box and find that it does not work.Thank you Lehaut and Suein56, I had not realised that there were so many boxes available, or at such a cheap price. I have never used ebay, so I think that I will combine your advices, while being careful to make sure that the box has a scart connection.Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Quillan"]You use Smart DNS directly on the Huax box and it works fine (it is what I have).....[/quote]Does that mean this?https://www.smartdnsproxy.com/PreSignUpDanny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="David"]Thank you all very much for your kind help.At the moment I am looking for a very cheap box as a diagnostic tool, as I still do not know that it is the box that is faulty....[/quote]David,Is there no possibility of borrowing someone else's satellite box to test your setup?Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Danny"][quote user="Quillan"]You use Smart DNS directly on the Huax box and it works fine (it is what I have).....[/quote]Does that mean this?https://www.smartdnsproxy.com/PreSignUpDanny[/quote]Thats the sort of thing. You need to be carefull as some, like the one you linked to, do not support all the UK channels (on yours Channel 5 is missing).One that does is https://vpnuk.net/services-smart-dns.html and there are others which are cheaper than this. Many offer a 14 day trial so you can try before you buy.There is a trick however to setting up the Humax box. You need to disable the DHCP server and do a factory reset on your Humax box. Because it can't find the the IP address it will go to manual setup mode and you can enter an IP address and the Smart DNS address. You re-enable the DHCP server on your router afterwards. If you don't do this the Humax box does not go into manual setup mode and you can't get into it to change the DNS settings. Sounds a little complicated but it isn't really and only takes a couple of minutes. If you do the same on your tablet (the Smart DNS address is always the same whatever device) you can use all the 'Players' on your tablet. It works on most 'Smart' Tv's as well. Much better (and faster) than using VPN's.I cannot however take credit for finding out about this service, I think it was a post by Another some time back that put me on to it. If it wasn't him then I appologise to however it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 [quote user="Danny"][quote user="David"]Thank you all very much for your kind help. At the moment I am looking for a very cheap box as a diagnostic tool, as I still do not know that it is the box that is faulty....[/quote]David,Is there no possibility of borrowing someone else's satellite box to test your setup?Danny[/quote]Or take you decoder to another persons house who has a dish for UK TV? If you lived near me I would be happy for you to try mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 1, 2014 Author Share Posted October 1, 2014 Danny, a great idea to borrow someone's box, but unfortunately we cannot do this as this is a very rural area and all our friends have given up and gone back to the UK.Quillan, thanks very much for the offer. During the summer we were quite close to you being in Leucate, but we did not know we had a problem then. Now we are in North Deux-Sevres, about a 7.5 hour drive from you.I think we will just have to buy a cheap box with scart connectors, and see what happens. If that does not work then we will have to find a satellite installer and check the dish, LNB, etc.Thanks again for all the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkyNewall Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 I have a similar issue. We have a dish and a sky/Thomson box, but it states on all channels that no signal is being received. Someone told us we need a new larger dish???? Is this correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 I think that you have a different problem to me, and that it is probably correct that you need a bigger dish.You should read the Astra 2E/2/F Technical Thread below. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 Well, I finally bought a cheap new box and tried it out. Hey presto - it worked! Congratulations Lehaut for an accurate diagnosis.Unfortunately the new box does not receive all the UK channels, so now I wish I had bought a more expensive box.However, I will be grateful and stick with this one.Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre ZFP Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Not getting all the channels is probably not an issue with the box but you just need to do a full re-scan and you will get more than you know what to do with. Most boxes let you select these ino a 'Favourites' list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Some more detail would be useful.What make and model is the replacement box?Which channels are you not receiving that you expected to get?Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 21, 2014 Author Share Posted October 21, 2014 Hi Danny & Pierre,I posted to thank the people who responded and helped me, and I am very happy with the result. However, there are some channels which are not present on my new box which is a Listo-sat 168 box.The missing channels are BBC3, BBC4, ITV3, and others such as movies for men, more than movies, and several of the plus one channels.I have done two full satellite searches, and I plan to do a last one when the weather is good with clear skies, rather than the heavy cloud that we have now. My dish is a small dish and signal strength is just over 70%, so the system is at it's limit. I am just not sure what time of day would give the best results.Again, thanks everyone for your very kind help.David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Movies for Men is on the wide beam so you should definitely get that. I think you might find a new LNB might be the answer. They don't wear out but the elements do take their toll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 [quote user="David"] I am just not sure what time of day would give the best results.Again, thanks everyone for your very kind help.David[/quote]If you can get CBBC and Cbeebies, you should also receive BBC 3 and 4 as they share the same frequencies. You probably need to scan after 8pm France time though as they are evening channels only.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 I did another scan last night and now have all the main channels, including BBC 3 and 4, which are up in the hundreds numbers. There are hundreds of channels, so I have not yet found all the programs, but movies for men, 4seven and more than movies seem to be missing.However, I am more than happy with the channels we have, and will now try to get to grips with moving the channels we want to the favourites section.Many thanks to all those that have helped.David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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