Staying in on a stormy night to catch up on missed TV is one of life’s great pleasures. While the weather may mean you lose your live TV signal, have you ever had trouble with recorded programmes?
Last winter was one of the stormiest in the UK for at least 20 years and the wettest since 1910, according to the Met Office. And every gale and downpour of chubby rain stopped my Sky dish from receiving a signal.
So what? You might say. Unless an engineer is on standby over my dish with a brolly, what do I expect? Well, it’s not the dish cutting out that bothered me, it was being unable to access the programmes I’d recorded on my Sky box.
We still need a signal
At the time, Sky’s set-up meant that if you couldn’t receive a signal, it must mean you’d stopped subscribing to its services. Sky+ boxes store recordings, but still require a recent satellite signal to let you access them. And signal outages can last hours.
This meant that your cosy evening plan to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones could be ruined by any outbreak of winter weather. Seeing as it was windy and rainy rather a lot last year, I spent quite a few evenings changing my plans.
We’ve also found that 68% of Which? members with Sky TV have experienced reception problems during poor weather. Heavy rain affected 76%, but snowfall (36%), strong wind (33%), thick clouds or fog (13%) and even normal rain (6%) are also problematic.
We’ve seen improvements
This year, Sky upgraded its system so that Sky+HD boxes allow access for up to 12 hours without a signal. Older boxes can access recordings for up to an hour.
Unfortunately, I still have one of their older boxes and as with a typical British winter, it’s pretty likely that it’ll rain or gale for longer than an hour. However, it’s still a big improvement and a move in the right direction.
Are you with Sky and have had difficulties accessing your recorded programmes? Do you think it’s unfair that you can’t access recorded TV in bad weather?
Loading ...
