Oh no... the Sky one reminded me...
They were cabling (sp?) the street and I decided to get on board.

Now, I hate trailing cables and will do anything to keep them out of sight and tidy. So I asked that they leave me some cable and I would fit so that all they needed to do was connect it up outside.

As a complexity, the ex used to love changing the room layout depending on Summer or Winter, so the point of connection would be in either of two places.
Duly, I took up floor boards, ran the cables, chisled the walls, fitted the back boxes, plastered the walls and fitted female front plates for a simple co-axial connection.

On the appointed day they turned up to give me the kit and connect me up.
The Sky monkey said... sorry you have two points and will therefore need two boxes.
I repeated the explanation that I had given the sales bod and said I did not want two boxes in the same room.
He insisted that I have two boxes.
my final words were... "In that case, you can take your equipment and men and get off my property now."
They left.
The whole conversation took less than 5 minutes.

I may not have Sky, but I felt morally strong about it.

(I've just realised that when I read most of the posts that I have done something quite similar... Not only am I a reincarnation of Victor Meldrew, but I have been a Meldrew for most of my life - I'm much humbled now)
(bof, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 13:12, 4 replies)

I solved this one
I had a similar view about cabling etc. So I installed all the cables and aerial points in my house and terminated them at a distribution box in the loft.
Then when the sky monkey arrived I pointed to where I wanted the dish fitted and said I'll poke a cable out of that hole in the soffet fascia in a couple of minutes, just connect it to the dish and you'll be out of here in 5 mins.

He did as he was told and was happy to be able to knock off early.
Result, sky signal to anywhere I want in the house and no more than 50cm of cable visible outside the house.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 13:22, closed)

Sky installers are a bunch of twunts with stuff like that...
years ago when my dad first got it they would not leave the house until the box was connected to a phone line "to complete the setup process". The nearest one was in the hall so my dad got a long phone cable and connected it:

"no mate it has to be permanently connected, and for health and safety reasons we can't let you run that cable across the floor. We will have to rail it along your skirting boards etc, it will cost you 30 quid like"

There were several loud words shouted such as cunts, bastards etc followed by the phrase "get the fuck out of my house before that satellite dish is embedded wholly into your arse"

So i agree with your moral stance.
( Bamboo Steamer, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 13:25, closed)

my installers
were great.
I didn't want the phone line thing, either (TV in one room, phone socket in hallway) and they were quite happy to let me use a temp connection if and when I ever needed it (never have).

I'm not quite as anal as the rest of you about hiding cables, but I'm really pleased that whoever built my house in 1930 had the foresight to put a little rail around the walls that I could tack my 5.1 cables to.....
(greatoldone Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl f'tagn, Wed 8 Sep 2010, 13:30, closed)

Mine have been mixed
Three out of the four engineers we have had have been really helpful, one tried but was clearly a bit new! On the telephone thing the new Sky+HD boxes check for the line periodically (I believe) so you need a permanent line. I got one of those plugin radio phone line extender and it did the job perfectly.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Wed 8 Sep 2010, 14:18, closed)