I got up about 10.30, bummed around on the computer.

I read the instructions on the website for the decoder that won't work. I tried them, it still didn't work.

I called up the place about getting a replacement. The guy was useless. "Bring it in and we'll charge you $30 to fix it". I'm hardly going to spend hours going back to them, to pay them more money, to have them getting it working with something I don't care about.

I took the box inside, plugged it straight into the dish (where it has access to vertical polarity, which is what it needs to work with the crappy channels it's designed for). I followed their instructions. I was able to load the crappy channels, then with some trickery, I managed to get the fox channels on there.

I couldn't get rid of the crappy vertical channels however, no matter what I tried, since you can't do a "tune and rescan" successfully. I thought maybe they woud go away when I put it back in my place, on the horizontal only signal, but nope, they're stil there, they just don't work. So I set them all to "skip" in the menu, but now the first 45 channels are skipped, and it throws all the numbers out of whack (I'm not spending half an hour resorting them, to just have them change back again).

I soldered one of my interfaces into the box, it booted up and worked first go (I was pretty certain it would, after my quick test the other day).

I reordered tivo to match the new channel numbers. I changed it back to my remote codes that I used to use, but they didn't work, this was very strange.. the same remote I captured the codes from runs this box, but the tivo won't. Well, it sort of does, but only like the "4" works, nothing else.

I just put it on the channel I needed it to record, flicked the ir transmitter away, and left it.

I got called up about 2pm, "was I coming up to the shop", "what for?" "there's a switch that needs soldering" etc. I was going to dinner up there anyway, so if I got in there, did an hours work, and charged them for it, it reduces the work they'll expect later in the week.

I said I would be there in an hour.

I mucked around doing something for 1/2 hour (looking on the sat forums I think), then I had a shower, and then I left, about 2.45.

The traffic was attrocious on the way, it took me over 1/2 hour to get there.

I soldered the switch, then I bummed around out the back with wireless stuff.

I had a look at fixing a pc that was in there, but the onboard network doesn't work, so I gave up.

About 4pm I was starving, I went to get something to eat, I just wanted a bread roll, to tide me over until I went to "all I could eat", but there were none left. I bought a big damper thing instead. I ate some of it, then we left the shop.

I went back to my mate's place, he went out to drop off a computer.

I started watching tv, and eating the rest of my bread. There's really nothing worth watching on Aurora, I flicked around for a while, I found a channel showing an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, but the audio didn't work.

I finished my bread, then decided eating it all wasn't such a good idea.

I gave up watching tv. I went and looked on the internet to see if I could find any pcbs available. I need these pcbs, opening and soldering things into these decoders is not an acceptable solution. My mate came back, I continued looking, and chatting to him. I didn't find any pcbs. Gave up.

His wife called about 7pm, we went and picked her up, and then went to dinner.

I went and played the pokies after that, put a dollar in, lost it. Put $5 in, played the first one, won it up over $8. Played it back to $8, pulled it out and went, ooh, a $2 profit.

We left, went back to my mate's place.

We were there for a little while, then all his mates from dinner turned up, we all ended up being there for an hour or so, I got really tired, and when the phones kept ringing, we all decided to leave.

I had a chat to my mate for a few minutes outside before leaving.

I came home, watched some tv. I noticed the decoder was trying to lock on to the signal of one of the dodgy channels that are vertical only.

I made up the remote codes from the proper remote that came with this box, they were different to any of the codes I have for this series of box before. I discovered the remote for the box, and the box, are really strong/sensitive to IR. I can point the remote anywhere in the room, and the decoder will pick it up.

This probably explains why the decoder was on one of those dodgy channels.. the IR blaster in the front of the tivo had reflected off something, and attempted to change the channel, but not worked properly (assumedly trying to change to channel 46, and only the 4 worked).

I captured the new codes, translated them into tivo format, loaded them, rebooted it.. bang, they all work perfectly. Tested every channel twice, and every channel that matters works. (One news channel had a couple of double digits, and ended up on like 556 instead of 56, and similar for some other channel I never watch).

I then decided to watch some tv. I had stuff recorded from the 17th on here. I watched tv until about 1am, then I turned it off and went to sleep.