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We've got a Free-sat box on which we can received all the ITV channels, Channel 4, Channel 5, plus various others and all BBC apart from BBC 4. Does anyone know why we can't get this, or how I can find it? When we try it comes up 'no signal' which seems rather strange as we get all the other terrestrial channels without problems. 
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Pierre is correct, the channel only broadcasts in the evening (reminds me of BBC TV in the 50's [blink]). On our Humax, if we try to receive it now, for instance, in the middle of the day, we get the message "the channel scrambled or currently not available". Other decoders perhaps don't give error messages?
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Quick aside, possibly irrelevant, but worth mentioning:

There was a mention on BBC News a few days ago, of a retune being necessary for Freesat viewers, as for whatever technical reasons (I didn't pay attention to what they might be), the channel might disappear from the listing.

It did disappear yesterday and I did have to retune to get it back.

Having said that, BBC3 & BBC4 don't show until 7pm.

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[quote user="Rob Roy"]We've got a Free-sat box [/quote]

What is the make and model number of the box?

Genuine 'freesat' decoders are automatically retuned following any changes of frequency on the satellite.

If you have a Free to air decoder and not an actual 'freesat' box, then you will have to manually retune.

That is the most likely problem if it not a 'freesat' box.

Danny

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In answer to Clair's point,  yes,  things moved round recently;  as part of the BBC's "20% cuts" it was decided to end the rental on one transponder on Astra 2 and cram everything/dump some interactive services into the remaining ones.

Not a good omen,   picture quality is not going to be helped by decisions to reduce carriage capacity.

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[quote user="Jane and Danny"][quote user="Rob Roy"]We've got a Free-sat box [/quote]
What is the make and model number of the box?
Genuine 'freesat' decoders are automatically retuned following any changes of frequency on the satellite.
If you have a Free to air decoder and not an actual 'freesat' box, then you will have to manually retune.
That is the most likely problem if it not a 'freesat' box.

Danny

[/quote]

I'm pretty sure it's only a cheapy decoder - tt is a Fortec Star FS-4200  I've been looking this morning at the rather basic User's Manual and can't see how I manually retune a single channel. I'm a bit wary aboout doing too much in case I muck up all the other channels we do have - my husband would kill me! 

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The manual is found here

http://www.fortecstar.com/user-manuals/fs-4200-e.pdf

page 7

1.3 add channel......onwards

There are many options there.

TP = transponder group of channels on one frequency

For BBC 4

you need to enter:

Satellite - Astra 2 28.0E$

TP - 47

TP Frequency - 10803

Symbol Rate - 22000

Polarity - H

Search - Free (if possible)

then press OK

All channels on that Transponder should now be available including BBC 4. Make sure you scan after 8 pm French time.

Danny

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[quote user="Martin963"]In answer to Clair's point,  yes,  things moved round recently;  as part of the BBC's "20% cuts" it was decided to end the rental on one transponder on Astra 2 and cram everything/dump some interactive services into the remaining ones.

Not a good omen,   picture quality is not going to be helped by decisions to reduce carriage capacity.

[/quote]

Be gentle with us non-techies Martin but does this mean we've all wasted our money on HD sets?

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[quote user="Martin963"]In answer to Clair's point,  yes,  things moved round recently;  as part of the BBC's "20% cuts" it was decided to end the rental on one transponder on Astra 2 and cram everything/dump some interactive services into the remaining ones.

Not a good omen,   picture quality is not going to be helped by decisions to reduce carriage capacity.
[/quote]

Indeed. And there are rumours going around that the BBC is thinking of dumping BBC4 as part of its 20% cuts, "merging" it with BBC2.

How typical, in these days of dumbing down, that the one freely available channel that behaves as though its viewers can think is considered disposable. They wouldn't consider elimination of the tripy BBC3, the chavs would be upset if they couldn't get "Snog, Marry, Avoid"!

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[quote user="Benjamin"][quote user="Martin963"]In answer to Clair's point,  yes,  things moved round recently;  as part of the BBC's "20% cuts" it was decided to end the rental on one transponder on Astra 2 and cram everything/dump some interactive services into the remaining ones.

Not a good omen,   picture quality is not going to be helped by decisions to reduce carriage capacity.

[/quote]

Be gentle with us non-techies Martin but does this mean we've all wasted our money on HD sets?

[/quote]

Last time I looked at the maths I thought the better data compression of HD transmission meant less rather than more bad width was needed. Counter intuative.
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Thanks to everyone for your help, advice and links. One of our sons arrives on Monday for a visit so I think I'll wait and get him on the case - showing him this thread. If he does anything wrong his father won't say a word, if I do all hell will break lose![Www]

Anton, if I have to wait for a visit to the UK for a Freesat Box I'll probably need to buy a hearing aid too, I'll be that old![:D]

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