No sound from satellite receiver's 'Audio Out' sockets

Last week I replaced my Sky Digibox with a Freesat receiver (the Humax Foxsat). I've always had my satellite receiver connected to my amplifier so it can be used as a 'tuner' for the radio stations. I use a cable with RCA plugs at either end. I connected these plugs to the Foxsat and it worked - satellite radio on my hi-fi speakers. Today, I unplugged the TV and the Foxsat and re-plugged them into a 4-gang surge extension lead. Then I took out the RCA plugs from the Foxsat simply to tidy up the wires. Now, when re-connected, there's no sound getting through to the amplifier.

I'm mystified - can anyone suggest what's happened? If I touch the tip of the RCA plugs (the ones which should be in the Foxsat) with my finger the speakers hum gently. If I touch them to the casing of the Foxsat's RCA sockets the speakers really hum and crackle. But insert the plugs properly and - nothing.

Many thanks.

THe hum tells you the leads are fine, and your amplifier is fine, so the problem is defintiely with the sat receiver.

Either the internal audio output stage has co-incidentally failed when you've disconnected either the mains or the audio leads - in which case it's a repair or replacement job, or

Disconnection of the mains has caused the reset of some internal setting that switches the audio outputs on and off. Grab the remote, and access 'Menu', 'Settings' or similar....

The damndest thing... Used the cable this morning to see if it would carry a signal from my CD player. It did. Reconnected it to the Foxsat and everything's hunky dory!

But thanks for the suggestion, GRC.

I looked up you unit to see if audio could be switched off and I was very impressed. My free to air is a cheap unit £40 and very basic I would love to hear how you find your unit.
What is the EPG like and other than loss of channels how does it compare with Sky.
I note the 1W stand-by which is a major complaint with Sky boxes with 15 to 20W on stand-by.
Not that I can get rid of Sky my wife likes SiFi too much and I like UK Gold but my son-in-law wants to get a new box and wants to watch turk-sat and Astra and I note twin in-puts so likely he could connect both dishes to same box?

Hi ericmark. There's no doubt the Foxsat is a great piece of kit. It cost me £250 from Argos. I went Freesat because I have no interest in buying movie/sport etc channels. To get the 'ordinary' channels from Sky on a Hard Disk Recorder (their Sky+ box) still costs £10 per month. Ridiculous. The downsides to the Foxsat Freesat box are (in my view):
The EPG lists only about 6 channels at a time. Much of the screen space is wasted.
The remote control and the various functions could be a LOT simpler than they are.
The non-Freesat channels (all the weird stuff) are available in a different 'mode' and recording them at the same time as the Freesat channels is not possible.
There isn't a full EPG for the non-Freesat channels - just 'now and next'.

I don't see why you couldn't connect two dishes to it. There are a few good forums dediciated to satellite/freeview etc - go and hunt them down. I'd start here:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27

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