free to air - unable to receive bbc 3 and 4

I hope someone can help because my mother is driving me up the wall with this!!!!
She cancelled her E300+ per year UPC contract earlier this year and had a free to air satellite system installed in June along with the saorview box.
At first she received bbc3 and bbc4 as well as all the BBC radio channels. In august I recall returning the channels and again 2 weeks ago when they all disappeared. I rang the installer who told me BBC never advise when frequencies change. This evening my mother tells me the channels never came back. She refuses to ring the installer, instead rings me, I can do nothing but raise my blood pressure hearing all about it - again!!
Has she any comeback from the installer? She swears she told him she wanted all these channels.
Another thing, she cannot record one prog while watching another. This whole system sounds rubbish. e1500 incl. A new tv was a major outlay for something so disappointing.

HMC said:

Has she any comeback from the installer? She swears she told him she wanted all these channels.

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I wouldn't think so, the box works ok, it just needs to be retuned.These channels seem to be moved around regularly.

The only way to avoid this in the future is to swap out the box for a Freesat box like these.

Hoagy, thanks a million. Can't understand why she didn't get a free sat box at the outset. She's in her 70s and can't cope with this carry-on!

Not being able to watch one channel while recording another is standard for satellite systems - you need to double up on the wiring from the dish to a box in order to do it (which the sky+ system does).

HMC said:

At first she received bbc3 and bbc4 as well as all the BBC radio channels. In august I recall returning the channels and again 2 weeks ago when they all disappeared.

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It's not such a big job to tune in channels. You can get the latest frequencies here
and here.

HMC said:

Has she any comeback from the installer? She swears she told him she wanted all these channels.

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Absolutely not! The installer provided said channels as contracted. He is not responsible for what the bbc do in terms of frequency changes, etc!

HMC said:

Another thing, she cannot record one prog while watching another. This whole system sounds rubbish. e1500 incl. A new tv was a major outlay for something so disappointing.

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Everything is possible if you plan and arrange accordingly. If you want that type of functionality, then you need a dual tuner sat receiver and 2 x sat feeds coming from the dish/lnb.

The satalite might have shifted ever so slightly. Go into the memus and check the signal strenght and quality, if it seems low just get on a ladder and move the white box on the arm of the satalite dish slightly around and see if the quality improves.

For some reason some channels are effected more than others if the satalite is slightly out and we lost the BBCs but not the C4s and the ITVs

-We use freesat though so maybe you have a different problem

BBC moved pretty much all of their channels on FTA satellite to new frequencies/transponders last month. You will need to retune to the new frequencies to get BBC3 & 4 as well as any others that are missing.

As others have said, the least faff system out there is Freesat which is available from Amazon or Argos in the North. Freesat automates the retuning process and you therefore don't even have to know or realise that a channel may have moved transponder. Works perfectly with an existing, correctly aligned satellite dish in Ireland.

I can give better help if you tell me name of the satellite box and the tv? 1500 is a gross amount of money and should come with a 12 month guarantee and a guarantee on the installation. for that money I would make sure it was perfect. say location roughly as well.

Dear Noah, thanks so much for the offer but my mother and I live at opposite ends of the country so I don't have the information to hand. TBH I don't want to discuss this much further with her as it is so annoying and we just go round in circles. In the meantime, through a friend, she has found a local tecky with expertise in tv and satellite systems so hopefully he'll be able to install a Freesat box for her (as recommended on here) and the need to re-tune for BBC channels (which she refuses to do for fear of causing more problems) will be gone forever. Happy days.

A skybox would do it either

My mother opted for FTA to avoid another monthly bill. Thanks anyway for the suggestion. I cannot believe the tripe she was receiving from UPC and nearly fell over when she told me it was costing E300+ a year.

you can plug a skybox in and itll give you the free channels without subscribing