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tcabw

68 posts

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#318498 24-Jan-2025 13:07
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Our second home is 120km north of Christchurch in the Cheviot area. Sky technicians only visit once a week on a Thursday. There are only two covering the whole of North Canterbury.
Before Christmas I logged with Sky help the issue of fading reception on half the channels between the hours of 7pm-10pm and requested a technician visit. Eventually I received an email to say a technician would visit of 16th Jan. I drove the 120km on the 15th in order to be on the premises as required for the visit.... no technician turned up. Upon complaining, an email arrived to say it had been re-scheduled to the 23rd Jan. The technician eventually arrived at 4pm (his last job and just as I was getting agitated once again) and the conversation with him was quite revealing. 
If you live in the South Island especially in a country location, you can expect at least a month wait for one to visit. There is a disconnect between "The Helpdesk" personnel and the Companies that employ the technicians in so much the helpdesk makes the appointment without consulting the Company as to whether they can schedule it. THAT'S REALLY EFFICIENT! 
Sky says you'll receive a phone call before the visit to check you are home. Mine came 20 minutes before he arrived.  Technician says, no phone call means he's not coming. There'll never be a phone call to say "We're not coming"

 

{sigh} I guess if you are a monopoly company you can treat your customers in such a manner.........

 

The plus side is that the technician was great. He efficiently replace the LNB in 15 minutes almost doubling the reception signal. Apparently Sky tender the technical side each year screwing the price down which means the technician wages are likewise affected.


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Apsattv
2388 posts

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  #3335387 24-Jan-2025 21:11
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Are you a member sky complaints on facebook?

 

Facts are Sky ditched all their regular installers and went with Downers. There is like you say a huge breakdown between installers showing up and them addvising that they wont be able to. They have nowhere near enough installers to do mantenance visits to handle the realignments and lnbf swaps. That some are having to have due the satellite wobble.

 

 

 

 




Linux
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  #3335388 24-Jan-2025 21:21
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OMG don't get me started on this! Sky Booked another tech over 3 weeks ago and they can't come until the 28th of Jan

 

Each evening around 4:45 Sky channels ' no satellite signal '

 

Have had 2 x techs out already in the last 3 months and the issue is still ongoing - lnb replaced & dish alignment the first visit and dish alignment again the second visit

 

I fired off an email to the CEO and paying half price now for 12 months


tweake
2391 posts

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  #3335391 24-Jan-2025 21:40
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tcabw:

 

Our second home is 120km north of Christchurch in the Cheviot area. Sky technicians only visit once a week on a Thursday. There are only two covering the whole of North Canterbury.
Before Christmas I logged with Sky help the issue of fading reception on half the channels between the hours of 7pm-10pm and requested a technician visit. Eventually I received an email to say a technician would visit of 16th Jan. I drove the 120km on the 15th in order to be on the premises as required for the visit.... no technician turned up. Upon complaining, an email arrived to say it had been re-scheduled to the 23rd Jan. The technician eventually arrived at 4pm (his last job and just as I was getting agitated once again) and the conversation with him was quite revealing. 
If you live in the South Island especially in a country location, you can expect at least a month wait for one to visit. There is a disconnect between "The Helpdesk" personnel and the Companies that employ the technicians in so much the helpdesk makes the appointment without consulting the Company as to whether they can schedule it. THAT'S REALLY EFFICIENT! 
Sky says you'll receive a phone call before the visit to check you are home. Mine came 20 minutes before he arrived.  Technician says, no phone call means he's not coming. There'll never be a phone call to say "We're not coming"

 

{sigh} I guess if you are a monopoly company you can treat your customers in such a manner.........

 

The plus side is that the technician was great. He efficiently replace the LNB in 15 minutes almost doubling the reception signal. Apparently Sky tender the technical side each year screwing the price down which means the technician wages are likewise affected.

 

 

sounds like nothing has changed in the last 20 years.

 

i used to do it 20+ years ago and at one stage a commercial tech. right back at analogue sat and the intro to digital.  used to cover a big area. they used to just give you the work, you had 3 days to call and arrange it with customer, and 4 weeks or so to do the job. fitted it in around my own work, ie went to one town did all the jobs in that town. all customers happy, no complaints, i made a bit of money. then they changed it so they organized when you would do it and it all went to crap. getting sent everywhere, different towns, different coasts, 2 guys working the same street at the same time. would be over booked or customers waiting 3 weeks when i had no work for 3 weeks. lots of complaints and i made no money.

 

they couldn't organize a booze up in a brewery. 




tweake
2391 posts

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  #3335394 24-Jan-2025 21:50
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tcabw:

 

 Apparently Sky tender the technical side each year screwing the price down which means the technician wages are likewise affected.

 

 

so they dangle a million+ dollar bill in front of the companies and asked for big discounts. what got discounted is what the tech got paid. they also played companies against each other, so whoever bid the lowest for one type of work got only that work. granted thats a long time ago, not sure how that plays out these days.

 

what also didn't help is the contracting company wasn't good at paying for the work. which meant there was a lot of theft of their product, lots of scams. it turned into an absolute shambles.


tcabw

68 posts

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  #3335406 24-Jan-2025 22:30
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Apsattv:

 

Are you a member sky complaints on facebook?

 

 

No, I don't do Facebook or any social media. I'm a crusty ex programmer who has worked with the internet since 1987. 😬


Goosey
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  #3335494 25-Jan-2025 09:00
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With the upcoming Sat change, we had a tech visit but then couldn’t complete the job because they didn’t wanna handle the officially sky installed amp/splitter/combiner (used to feed to multiple locations in the house with both Sat/UHF). Sighting reasons of “new LNB isn’t compatible with the amp/splitter/combiner).

 

that was two months ago..  and I was told they have plenty of time to sort it out.

 

I actually want to leave sky, but I’d rather they sort this out so it’s not ever a hassle if I want to re join or otherwise.

 

 


Spyware
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  #3335495 25-Jan-2025 09:04
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Goosey:

 

With the upcoming Sat change, we had a tech visit but then couldn’t complete the job because they didn’t wanna handle the officially sky installed amp/splitter/combiner (used to feed to multiple locations in the house with both Sat/UHF). Sighting reasons of “new LNB isn’t compatible with the amp/splitter/combiner).

 

 

Sort it yourself, you'll need a multiswitch/DiSEqC switch to support both orbital locations and use an independent contractor for the second cable run.





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RunningMan
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  #3335499 25-Jan-2025 09:31
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@Goosey, it's getting OT, but start a thread with some photos of the splitter/amp you currently have, and we can tell you whether it will still be compatible, and if not, what needs to replace it.


networkn
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  #3335501 25-Jan-2025 09:40
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Ah, I have been wondering what the hell has been going on with our sky box showing no signal for parts of the day. I'll cancel before I wait 2 weeks for a tech, is there anything I can do myself? 

 

 


RunningMan
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  #3335510 25-Jan-2025 10:09
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@networkn here's the Freeview info that explains it better than Sky. https://freeviewnz.tv/support/technical-help/satellite-reception-issues-at-similar-times-each-day/ 

 

A dish realignment should fix it. If you have easy access to the dish you can DIY it by moving it slightly left/right/up/down to get a better signal.


Apsattv
2388 posts

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  #3335833 25-Jan-2025 20:17
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networkn:

 

Ah, I have been wondering what the hell has been going on with our sky box showing no signal for parts of the day. I'll cancel before I wait 2 weeks for a tech, is there anything I can do myself? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go in your sky box menus and see what your current signals are. Ideally you want 13 or higher

 

 

 

 

 

 


networkn
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  #3335837 25-Jan-2025 20:47
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Apsattv:

 

networkn:

 

Ah, I have been wondering what the hell has been going on with our sky box showing no signal for parts of the day. I'll cancel before I wait 2 weeks for a tech, is there anything I can do myself? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go in your sky box menus and see what your current signals are. Ideally you want 13 or higher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If convenient and you recall, how would I do this?


Oblivian
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  #3335841 25-Jan-2025 21:35
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networkn:

 

If convenient and you recall, how would I do this?

 

 

Believe it varies between decoders. But try this one for size... https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=106&topicid=306090&page_no=1#3097858 

 

/edit actually this suggests its a side menu from settings

 


tcabw

68 posts

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  #3335852 25-Jan-2025 22:02
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Go in your sky box menus and see what your current signals are. Ideally you want 13 or higher

 

 

According to my technician, anything over 10 is good. Mine were around 7.2 when he first measured them and after the LNB change they were around 13.6.
Our installation has multiroom with one new white box and one of the older black ones. As well as replacing the LNB, he did do a slight re-alignment of the dish which is 20 years old and of the large size variety.  Clear clarity reception through 6pm-10pm on all channels now. 😀

 

 


kiwifidget
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  #3335857 25-Jan-2025 22:39
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Spyware:

 

Sort it yourself, you'll need a multiswitch/DiSEqC switch to support both orbital locations and use an independent contractor for the second cable run.

 

 

Just had this done on Friday. Sky dish had to be moved to make way for solar panels, so got a bloke in to do that and run second cable to the matchmaster so now we are good to go for next satellite. He had nothing nice to say about the current situation with Sky techs, which is odd coz he's getting a lot of work out of it!





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