I have had my Humax freesat box for less than 2 weeks, I have checked all connections done all the tests, the box keeps telling me everything is fine great signal ect, I have lost count of the times I have re booted, re set to factory setting, even the Humax customer services have now given up and advised me to exchange the box.

Faults include irregular access to on demand services, no sound, unit freezing up, this is not a great advert for Humax, I am not impressed, wake up and smell the coffee.

Oops, thank you also grahamlthompson (did the copy then didn’t paste – doh!)

JoeFonebone – 7 minutes ago  » 

Have a squint round the back, are the two cables on the outer connections with the centre one with no cable. If not with the box powered down correct the connections (11mm spanner) and repeat the reset.

Thanks for taking the time out to advise bigpaul.

The connections are as follows – Sat 1 on the wall socket to Sat 1 on the Unit and Sat 2 on the wall socket to Sat 2 on the rear of the unit. LNB1 OUT, the middle socket, has not been used at any stage.

When doing a freesat detection after the factory reset I get the following messages:

‘Antenna signal detected. (DiSEqC A)‘

This is followed by;

‘Antenna signal detected. (One Cable)‘

This seem quite definitive – only one cable is detected.

I’ve just called the company who installed the Sat /TV /Radio socket and there is another engineer (this’ll be the third one) arriving on Monday.

Things are about to get interesting as the installation company now states that if the fault is not theirs, that’s to say they can show that both the signals are there, then they are going to charge me. This means of course that I am effectively gambling on there being nothing wrong with the Humax unit. If I’m wrong and the unit is dodgy then it is going to cost me money and Humax will be advised accordingly…

Watch this space.

Somethings amiss there should be no mention of a diseqc switch, unless of course you have one.

What does Menu/System/Diagnostics say your two tuners signal strength/quality are.

If one is zero connect each cable in turn to tuner 1 in boot the box and check Menu/System/Diagnostics to see if you have a signal from each cable.

If you have signals from both re-connect the cables reboot the box. Enter the setup menu. Press RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE GREEN YELLOW BLUE in succession this should open a menu.

Check Antenna Setting says Fixed Antenna, Check Connection Type says TwoCables(same). You can try entering the correct settings to see what happens.

JoeFonebone – 16 minutes ago  » 

Oh, and I’ve no idea what a ‘diseqc switch’ is.

For future reference a diseqc switch allows you to connect two lnbs to one input. Typically for instance you might have one pointing at 28.2/28.5E for the Freesat channels and one pointing at 19.2E (Very popular this year because the German channel RTL has live coverage of Formula 1). The tuner knows which channels come from which satellite and switches the switch to select the correct lnb. Basically it’s an automatic c/o switch.

For future reference a diseqc switch allows you to…

Thanks for the explanation. Still none the wiser I’m afraid – sorry. If a diseqc switch is anything to do with the satellite dish / ariel then that’s 5 floors above me on the roof.

JoeFonebone – 54 minutes ago  » I still strongly suspect that it’s the wall sockets

So why automatically assume it is the Humax box at fault?

I don’t know for 100% fact that it’s the wall socket. I’m 99% sure but not 100% as I din’t have a device to test the line. Suppose it isn’t the wall socket and I call out the engineer – I’m £50 down and the 30 day warranty for the Humax would be borderline – I could end up totally screwed. I’ll buy another HDR and that will have to be, in effect, my line tester. I know it sounds a crazy state of affairs but I currently feel like the situation is an exercise in wallet damage reduction at the moment.