Just a little warning about how things can go wrong. Friends of mine out in a village in the country bought a freeview digital box fitted by sky. They bought the basic package costing around 130 with access to a few extra channels. The main reason they did this was because of the poor reception of c4 and 5 on analogue tv.

The first year things worked well, but after about 13 months it suddenly coundnt receive a signal. We have tried everything including phoning freeview, who went through some proceedures with us on phone but we could still not get it to work. This means no c5, no extra chanels and poor reception on c4. Every so often, and for very little time the services comes back on then goes off again but never for long. We have phoned sky who said they will send an engineer out for 65 plus costs for bits. It is obviously a problem with the signal. This cost is disgrace the service is a disgrace. BE WARNED.

I don't think that Sky ever warranted to your friends that the set up would work forever. I think Sky probably just sold the equipment to them and installed it and told them they would be responsible for maintaining it. If they bought a TV they would not be surprised to have to repair it eventually. A dish which sits outside is more susceptible to being damaged by storms/rain etc.

Another way to look at it is that if your friends paid 130 up front with no monthly rental, then for that cost they really can't expect Sky to turn up to fix it. And if it were so, how long would the obligation on Sky to fix it last? Repeated visits over 5 years, 10 years, forever? All for 130?

They are better off calling a local engineer to fix it though since Sky is bound to be more expensive.

Sale of goods act certainly wouldn't apply after 13 months!

Good job you dont live in the country then. I'm sure this has happen to many more people and digital tv is coming for everyone. If this happened to everyone out in the country there wouldnt be enough engineers to keep it going. Like i said every so often it comes back on so it must be a signaling problem. What if sky have had to alter the direction or angle the signal comes from? Everyone has to pay 65quid to get it working. I see your point about about how long should it be covered but surely it should be longer than 13 months!!

Well if the 130 is meant to pay for the Sky box, the dish, the cable, and installation of the whole thing, as well as a profit margin for Sky and the shop that sold it, then I doubt very much that there is the budget for any return visits after the first installation. Of course if it was sold with any sort of warranty then things are different, but it would be difficult to do that I think. Perhaps they offered an extended warranty that your friends turned down?

This is not digital TV by the way. Digital TV is broadcast from the Earth and is received with a conventional aerial (which may need to be increased in size or turned around to face another direction). Presumably in the country they don't yet have digital TV and so they have chosen to buy a package from Sky.

The Sky dish gets the signal from a satellite and satellites are in geostationary orbit, they don't move :-)

The simplest explanations are often the best though. Have your friends tried wiggling every bit of wire from the dish to the box and from the box to the TV to see whether it is just a loose connection? Otherwise I would get a local shop to pop round and have a look at it.

Was there a satisfactory resolution to this Kivver?

420p target now sell,

Stan - NO!!!!!! still no extra channels, and of course a bad reputation about these so called freeview boxes. All the neighbours are not going to buy them until there is better news. Come on Branson there are opportunities for a EXCELLENT broadcaster because its hard to find one at the moment.

Friends of ours have Freeview (We, being posh, have Sky+ naturally :-)))
They suffer from poor reception at times and have been told that the signals will suffer during periods of high weather pressure. The last time it happened was about 3 weeks ago.

this is freesat ,not freeview, it sounds like you may have water ingress at the LNB connection on the dish especially if no plastic tape or cover fitted to cable. sat engineer