1 min read

Sky+ in the UK when you’ve only got one satellite feed

So I recently moved flat and used to have Sky+ in the old flat. Sky+ (which is the same as MySky in NZ) needs two feeds from the satellite dish, so you need a dual LNB. I have one feed coming down from what I think is a communal dish on the roof of the building. I have actually quit Sky because it’s too expensive, but it’s still running till the end of the billing month so I may as well use it.

But, oddly, not all channels will work. I rang up Sky and they are going to resend the codes or whatever to authorise the smart card, but it hasn’t worked (yet).

The odd thing is that the channels that don’t work (I get a message telling me to call them to upgrade my subscription on channels like Sky Sports and even Five) can record using the Sky+ feature, and I can play them back as well. Doesn’t make much sense to me.

I imagine though that it has something to do with polarity. The channels that don’t work are horizontal. But some channels that are horizontal do work.

It’s very odd, and I don’t really mind seeing I am getting rid of the subscription, but I thought I’d write something here to see if someone else had a similar complaint and maybe someone will offer a solution. I might get a splitter and some more cable and plug the cable into both inputs on the back of the box. It may well fix the problem, but both LNBs will only be able to see the same polarity anyway, so that could just break everything. We will see!

UPDATE: Once the card was reauthorised, it worked properly. So obviously nothing to do with polarity.