Old Digibox as Freeview box ??? (limited or broken ?)

I have inherited a Digibox and old Sky card from a friend. I want to use it as a Freeview box as I don't way to subscribe to Sky.
I have a Minidish... I have hooked it all up to the best of my knowledge as I would a Sky box (with the exception of the phone line) and on the first night of usage it worked fine for what I wanted (free channels + radio etc all fine).

Since then I have been unable to receive any channels outside the range 101-130 (BBC1 to SciFi)...

TV Guide doesn't retrieve any other channels outside that range (when it retrieves any at all that is) ???

Is this down to a fundamental problem in what I'm trying to do or a fault with the box ? (which is an Amstad DRX300)

[pjclark1]

My old pace box still works perfectly as a freeview, just watched "The Vault" on 4xx

pull the mains plug out, wait a couple of minutes, see if it works.

Originally Posted by pjclark1

pull the mains plug out, wait a couple of minutes, see if it works.

Aaaahhh, good old fashioned trouble shooting, I will give it a try this evening and see how we get on. (can't believe I haven't tried it already !)

[SamRadford]

You can't use a satellite receiver to receive Freeview from an aerial. The technology is quite different. However, you can use a Sky Digibox as a FTA (Free To Air) receiver or you can use an expired Sky viewing card or buy a FreesatFromSky card (£20) in order to view ITV, CH4 and FIVE as well (Freesat).

Originally Posted by SamRadford

You can't use a satellite receiver to receive Freeview from an aerial. The technology is quite different. However, you can use a Sky Digibox as a FTA (Free To Air) receiver or you can use an expired Sky viewing card or buy a FreesatFromSky card (£20) in order to view ITV, CH4 and FIVE as well (Freesat).

The input is coming from the dish rather than the aerial if that's worth anything

Having said that, I don't think ITV, C4 or Five ever worked (even when all the other channels did...)

[SamRadford]

See http://sam-radford.me.uk/ftv.htm

Nice site Sam, some useful info there.

I will try the power reset tonight, if that doesn't work I'm not sure what else will.. possibly the force upload ?? Signal strength is normally ~70% region..but not sure if this is the cause or indeed the fix...

I can live without Five as well ...tbh

Will update later...

Removing the power from the box totally for half hour seems to have done the trick...

Thanks for that one pjclark

Well, I thought it had done the trick but yesterday afternoon it experienced the same symptoms. Only channels 101-118 remained this time.

Left the power out for a good half hour, popped it back in and bingo... full range of channels for my freeviewing entertainment (?)

Sounds like a digibox problem then to me... wondering about one of the forced s/w uploads as detailed above now.....will probably try if it does it again...