Page 1 of Sky Free To Air/View Problems

I`ve got a Sky digital box with a cancelled subscription (17 months ago) Sky card which I use to get the free channels. I`ve noticed problems recently getting certain channels which I would normally get. The main one being channel 620 (Tiny Pop) which my 2 year old loves. I can`t get any channel past 283, it just goes back to 101. If you type a number in it just gives "channel unavailable". I can`t get any TV listings from the sky guide. CH4 & CH5 have disappeared also.
I used to be able to access certain channels (620 included) using the blue "favourites" button, but typing 620 directly resulted in "channel unavailable".
Is anyone else having problems like this? or is my box on the way out?

Many thanks in advance if anyone can help as my daughter is going spare as its her bedtime treat!

If you ring Sky (number is in the Services Section on screen) they will arrange to send you the proper Freeview card (can`t remember what it`s called) which you need to access all of the free to air channels. I believe there is a one off fee of around £10 for it. Not sure.

Have you tried powering it off and then on again? What make model is the box. Some have known faults.

Regarding the reply above, your card should, as it has been act as a `Freesat` card. If it is faulty, Sky will sell you a new one for £20, but that will only give CH4, Five and Sky Three which are FTV, any FTA channel will not require a card.

This item was edited on Thursday, 10th August 2006, 09:32

Thanks for the responses.

I ended up phoning Sky and was put through to a very helpful engineer. He said our box was quite old and needed a software update. We`ve got a Grundig GDS 200/1. To do this we had to:

Unplug the power supply.
Press and hold the "Back Up" button on the box whilst plugging the power supply in.
Continue holding "Back Up" until the TV screen displays "Updating System Software, Do Not Disconnect". This takes about 10 minutes.
When the screen disappears, wait a further 2 minutes. Then press TV then Sky on the remote.

All problems have now been sorted, I hope this is helpful to any others with similar problems.