Two down. Or not. Yes it is! Or is it?

The answer is a resounding: maybe.

By about 2 yesterday, I was becoming increasingly sure that the Sky Guy wasn't coming. And, to be fair, there was justification for that - the previous team had said that the job couldn't be done on a wet roof, and it had been raining hard when I left in the morning. But, much to my surprise, I received a call just after half two, and off home I went.

An hour later, the team arrived, and an hour after that, the installation was done. They wired up the system, checked that the key functions were all working (I could see Sky 1, Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies Premier, could record, playback, and view one programme while recording another). All in all, it looked good. And so off they went, and all was well with the world.

For about ten minutes.

After a while, I chanced to flick across to Sky 2, to be met with the message, "No satellite signal is being received." Sky 3 was the same, as was Virgin 1, and a number of other channels. But Sky 1 remained intact, as did the others I had been able to view.

So, I called technical services, and the guy there took me through retuning the box, and a few other things, but to no avail. We'd need to book in a visit to have the system looked at. And so I was put through to yet another guy.

And, of course, the next available appointment was next Monday.

But, just before signing off, the guy did mention one trick: if I set the system to record a channel, and then tuned to a channel I couldn't otherwise see, that would force the system to use its other input, and might help. Which, indeed, it did. (At this point, a suspicion emerged - there had been a wire already connected to the pre-existing dish, and it had been reused for this installation. So, perhaps I had one 'good' wire, and one that needed replaced?) Anyway, in light of this, the guy suggested unplugging both wires and switching them over. And then the call was over.

When I switched the cables over, the problems disappeared entirely. All channels are now available, and I can record two of the previously-bad channels simultaneously without issue. It's entirely possible that the root cause was nothing more than a loose connection, that has now been fixed, and won't be coming back.

So... I'm going to leave the appointment in place until Saturday evening. If I don't have any further problems by then, I'll call and cancel - no point getting a team out to a system that is actually working, and I can do without the hassle.

It will be good if this really is the end of the matter. The past three weeks have actually shown quite clearly that Sky (and, actually, TV in general) really isn't something I'm all that dependent on, especially once I'm no longer 'current' on the shows I'm watching. However, it was always something that I 'should' have been able to get, and having the constant battle to actually get it installed was a real source of stress.

And now, all that remains is for the broadband to get switched on, hopefully on Thursday.