The Freesat Box Has Expired!

[Fi]

Has anyone had any experience of their Freesat box suddenly ceasing to function for no apparent reason? 

The six year-old was getting his daily fix of Ed and Oucho when the box just died. It is the cheapest Bush 50 quid model.  Jiggled all the wires, replaced the fuse (I am using a continental adaptor with the original UK plug), nothing, rien de tout, nada.  Elle (il?) est mort(e).

I have a bad feeling that the only thing I can do is take the beastly box back to Argos on my next UK trip (fortunately in a few weeks) and get an exchange (assuming I can find the invoice - another conundrum).  Unless anyone has a cunning plan??

And the weather station has stopped receiving messages from the sensor in the garden.  And I have replaced the batteries. And I think I pressed reset (not going to check - it's wet out there!). 

What next I ask myself???

Help!

Fi

[dave21478]

If you cant find the argos receipt - assuming they still sell that model, buy another one and return the faulty one in the new box - Slightly immoral, but should solve your problem. Wont work if the serial number is printed on the box though (unless you have the old box too, then just return the whole lot with the "new" receipt).

[RicandJo]

Dave you can't start one thread banging on about how everybody should be honest law abiding citizens then go on another thread and advocate fraud!

[Chancer]

Hah!

I did exactly that to Argos 24 years ago, its the only time in my life that I ever did it and I have no regrets, I didnt know at the time that it was a forerunner to French customer service.

I had bought a black and decker lay flat hose which was a chocolate teapot and gained so many holes in the first week that it would have been better used as a sprinkler, they refused to take it back as I had lost the receipt despite my having my credit card receipt, it was the only item that I bought from them.

So I went back and bought another, and then returned the original for a refund as unwanted, the new one soon leaked like a sieve but it was a moral victory.

[Pierre ZFP]

Do you get any lights on the Bush box?  If so, try replacing the batteries in the handset,  a similar thing worked for me.

The other thing I did was to get a firmware upgrade for my box, You need to be familiar with serial ports and hyper-terminal to do this but it can work. Just Google for your exact model number and see if there are any updates available.

Failing that I would go back to Argos and explain the situation and if they wont refund/replace just big up and fork out another 30 quid and sleep with a clear consience.

[Fi]

"Do you get any lights on the Bush box?  If so, try replacing the batteries in the handset,  a similar thing worked for me."

Not a thing!  Maybe there is an internal fuse which has blown (forgive me for sounding like a complete mumpher, my knowledge of electronics could be written on the back of the Argos Customer Disservice Manual[:)]).  I think it will have to go back. 

Personally I have no problem with a little dissimulation when returning goods.  I have been on the receiving end of positively illegal practices in the past, so I have no qualms whatsoever.   I know two wrongs etc etc  It is not as though I am lying, it is more having to play the game.  I could be wrong about this, but I think (no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong), that legally, the retailer cannot insist on a till receipt for a replacement or refund. They are supposed to trust their customer. Certainly in my days working as a customer service manager, we tended to give the consumer the benefit of the doubt - after all, we wanted them to come back and spend their money with us and not the opposition!  They had to be nice to us though.  We made life difficult, for rude, shouty, bullies (so professional!).  And no, I'm not saying which company.

The weather station is still having a hissy fit though!

Bon weekend tout le monde!

Fi

[Anton Redman]

I did not think freesat was launched till 2008 although I know BBC went free to air before then ? Have you the model number for the box ?

[Clair]

[quote user="Fi"]... I could be wrong about this, but I think (no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong), that legally, the retailer cannot insist on a till receipt for a replacement or refund.[/quote]

How else would they know where the customer made the purchase?

You could hardly expect Comet or PCWorld to exchange or refund faulty goods from Argos or John Lewis...

[Théière]

If it is Argoose, they have the code identifying the product on the box, proof enough.

An ex-friend used to buy argos stuff a boot fairs and take it back for refund without much difficulty, one of the reasons they are ex-friend.

[Fi]

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Fi"]... I could be wrong about this, but I think (no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong), that legally, the retailer cannot insist on a till receipt for a replacement or refund.[/quote]

How else would they know where the customer made the purchase?

You could hardly expect Comet or PCWorld to exchange or refund faulty goods from Argos or John Lewis...

[/quote]

As I said, a question of believing the customer.  One of the vagaries of English law (commonly referred to as an ass for just this kind of situation!).

Chances are, I will go back to Argos, and, despite certain inferences

to the contrary, I am an honest person, and I'll come clean. You never

know, the dratted receipt may turn up in the meantime, then problem

solved.  Or they might even believe me. Sadly I chucked out the box, so using that as proof of

whereabouts of purchase is not a solution available to me.

A small mis-stitch in the great tapestry of life ....

Fi

[Fi]

I digress from the topic, but why has the completely legitimate/decent/correct alternative word for a donkey been bleeped out?  Are there really such sensitive bunnies out there?  And for what reason?  Surely a question of context?

[Anton Redman]

Depends on the default values of the profanity filter. Middlesex used to fail on one early search engine.

[Pierre ZFP]

and Scunthorpe [:$]

[Fi]

Crikey.  For the other donkey word, presumably American in origin, if brit english you'd need an r sssss.

[Martin963]

"analogue" used to fail the profanity test here on Complete France.

Is your freesat box the sort with an external power supply (ie the mains plug is bulky) or is it an ordinary 13 amp plug?

Just wondered as I have an HD and an SD box and one of them (can't remember which) has the external PSU;  if that's the case it's relatively simple to check if it's simply that that has failed....

[Fi]

[quote user="Martinwatkins"]"analogue" used to fail the profanity test here on Complete France.

Is your freesat box the sort with an external power supply (ie the mains plug is bulky) or is it an ordinary 13 amp plug?

Just wondered as I have an HD and an SD box and one of them (can't remember which) has the external PSU;  if that's the case it's relatively simple to check if it's simply that that has failed....

[/quote]

I also wondered about Ar*senal as in team (in the loosest sense) of overpaid, over-indulged prima donnas.

Anyway it's an ordinary 3amp fuse, 3 pin plug.  No bulky anythings - it's a mystery.

Many thanks for all the suggestions.  My children will be unbearable for the next month (off to UK mid-May).  Gulli really doesn't do it for them!

Fi

[Martin963]

Well I think that I might then consider purchasing a free to air sat box in France for about €60 - for the sake of the children you understand.

I know it's frustrating but -  apart from the convenience of the EPG - any DVB-S box will do the job of a freesat box.   You might have to spend half an hour setting it up but might it not be worth it...?

I hate wasting money,   but it's what I'd do in your circumstances,   then get a replacement freesat box in May and have it as a spare or on a dual LNB for a bedroom...

[Fi]

[quote user="Martinwatkins"]Well I think that I might then consider purchasing a free to air sat box in France for about €60 - for the sake of the children you understand.

I know it's frustrating but -  apart from the convenience of the EPG - any DVB-S box will do the job of a freesat box.   You might have to spend half an hour setting it up but might it not be worth it...?

I hate wasting money,   but it's what I'd do in your circumstances,   then get a replacement freesat box in May and have it as a spare or on a dual LNB for a bedroom...

[/quote]

Without wishing to appear completely dimwitted, where can I get such a thing? What is a DVB_S box in laymans terms? What should I be asking for? I have TNT boxes everywhere (one in each gite, plus mine, plus one that came free with the parabole) - I did try simply plugging the cable from the freesat dish into the TNT box but it didn't work.  Or am I being completely fick?  I do know what an LNB is though!

I will go shopping next week once kids back at school.

Thanks for the advice.

[Martin963]

You're not dimwittet,  the terminology is very complicated.

DVB-S simply means digital video broadcasting - satellite.   It's a "standard" to which both the broadcast operators and the set top box manufacturers adhere.

TNT is the *terrestrial" version of digital TV  (DVB-T) and is largely confined within national boudaries due to the fact it's broadcast from transmitters on the ground (although on high masts of course).

So if you go into a grande surface and ask for a "decodeur numerique satellite free to air"  or "pour les chaines numeriques satellite gratuites" you should get the right thing.   you just substitute it for the freesat box and ask it to operate on Astra 2 (via its menus).    You might or might not have to ask it to do a scan,  and it will then produce most (if not all) the free channels from Britain,   but in a jumbled order.     You can sort the order out (it takes a few minutes) or with children they'll soon learn where to find CBeebies etc.

Avoid any box that says TNT,  TNTsat,   or Canalsat.   They won't to the job.

I'm also a bit puzzled that you say you got a TNT box free with your dish,   you may in fact already have a sat box as it would be a very odd dealer who sold a terrestrial (TNT) box with a parabole (for satellite).   So have a good look at said box,  somewhere on it it should say DVB-S or DVB-T which tells you which it is.   If it says DVB-S then you plug that into the "freesat" dish and ask it to use Astra 2.

Please ask again if this isn't clear.

[Fi]

Martin,

The freebie is a Metronic demodulateur satellite analogique, and it says "permet la reception des chaines satellites analogiques gratuites".  It doesn't say DVB-S anywhere, nor does it say TNT or Canal+ anywhere.  It lists what channels it can pick up via Atlatnitc Bird 3, Astra 19.2 Est and Hot Bird 13.0 Est, but presumably what it picks up is dictated by what the parabole is pointing at?  This box and the parabole only cost 42 euros altogether in Leclerc - I just wanted a cheap parabole for the freesat box so I didn't take a great deal of notice of the other stuff in the box at the time.  Possibly worth plugging it in to see what happens?

By the way, is a demodulateur the same thing as a decodeur and/or recepteur.  Darty have a recepteur satellite which offers the following:

• Programmes : Chaînes gratuites
  (sauf TNTSAT sur ASTRA)
• Type de récepteur : Récepteur satellite numérique

Would that do the trick?  It costs 50 euros.

Sorry to be such a pain, but I would like to get this right.  Husband (who is in The Hague during the week) seems to think the brats should be reading improving texts and drawing pictures (dream on) - I will never live it down if I get it wrong!

Many, many thanks for all your help and advice.  If you need any help with cooking queries, I'm your girl!

Fi

[Martin963]

Ah,  of course,  I see,    they gave you an analogue box with the dish (which is fine at the moment for basic French TV from satellite but no good for what you want).

That box you've found at Darty sounds absolutely fine;   the distinction with TNTsat is correct,   as for TNT sat (which is a sort of duplication of the TNT channels on satellite for those parts of France (like us) who have no terrestrial signal) you need a special box supplied ultimately by Canalsat -  this you don't want as it won't (perversely!) work on Astra 2.

If the children can't (won't!) wait then this box you've found at Darty will get you all the BBC channels,   ITVs,  ch 4,  ch 5,  (but not Fiver or Five US,  but then neither does the freesat box) and all the radio channels.

Substitute it for your freesat box,  and get the English language option menus set up.    Then follow the instructions and choose Astra 2 or Astra 28.2 E.

If you need help at that stage then come back,  any of us are delighted to help,  as it's often the case that some channels get missed off the initial set up,  but can be found subsequently.

[dave21478]

At risk of derailing the topic slightly, yes I believe it is perfectly acceptable to defraud Argos. The simple reason for this is because they think it is perfectly acceptable to do the same to me.

Twice in the past (and at two seperate branches) I have bought a product from them that has turned out to be second-hand. The second time was rather interesting - I suspect they had made a serious error somewhere with their returns procedures and I was sold a pile of useless tat instead of the item I ordered. I returned straight away to the store where I was accused of attempting to rip them off. I talked with the manager who assured me that what I claimed was impossible. I persisted. They refused. I refused to leave. He threatened me with violence. I stood my ground. Eventually he called the police and tried to have me charged with "obtaining goods by deception" I spent a thoroughly miserable afternoon in their shop and in the back of a police car where the officers saw sense and let me go on my way. I never got my money back (£100) or the correct item I had ordered.

So much for the customer always being right.

 

[Fi]

I have been shopping in Conforama.  I have bought a new box for the princely sum of 59 euros, (following Martin's excellent and detailed advice), fiddled around with various leads and wires, taking the opportunity to do something about the spaghetti, labelling all the scart and power leads (sad but hopefully helpful).  Anyway, plugged in the box, selected Astra 28, and found all the channels (and some I didn't see with Freesat - not sure if they work yet though, we've had CBBConly  on so far).  There is an EPG of sorts, so hopefully we are now sorted out.  Just need to get a raccord to link two male fiches so we can choose between tnt and freesat.  My children will watch french tv!

Martin, cannot thank you enough for all your help.  If you were nearer, we'd find you and kiss you.

Now, what to do about the dead freesat box - still haven't found the receipt. Will try the honesty route - you never know ....

Feeling slightly euphoric - so happy it all worked out fairly painlessly. (Apart from going shopping on a Saturday with the monsters in tow!)

Hope you all have a great rest of weekend.  Now if it would just stop raining, I could go and make a start on the newly created veg patch.

Fi [:D]

[Martin963]

I'm so glad you're sorted,  and thank you for coming back to say so - quite a few don't,  and it's really heart-warming when things get sorted.

There are plenty of switcher boxes for Scarts - try and find one that has a row of (normally six) buttons on the front as they are more reliable,   and allow you to say record TNT while watching Sat,  and vice versa. 

You may find that you appear to be missing BBC 3 and BBC 4 TV;   however,   it's just a case of using CBeebies and CBBC in their place - after 7 pm BST the kids channels become 3 and 4.

And you'll have the satisfaction of having technically outwitted your other half if I've understood it correctly  (dives for cover!)

[Fi]

[quote user="Martinwatkins"]

And you'll have the satisfaction of having technically outwitted your other half if I've understood it correctly  (dives for cover!)

[/quote]

You are entirely correct.  There will be much mermermemermer-ing later.  Can't wait.  Nothing like a good gloat to set you up for the day!