Thread: 922 4DTV Receiver Broke???

Have you checked the voltage of the lnb in on the back of the 922? It sounds like it's not putting out any voltage to the lnbf. You may have damaged something inside the 922 when swapping cables. Did you unplug the 922 before swapping cables?

Originally Posted by photoman76

Have you checked the voltage of the lnb in on the back of the 922? It sounds like it's not putting out any voltage to the lnbf. You may have damaged something inside the 922 when swapping cables. Did you unplug the 922 before swapping cables?

I haven't checked the voltage, but I think you're probably right. I was doing a lot of cable swapping over the weekend. I have a weather-proof box on the outside of the house where I make connections from my dishes to the receivers inside. I took a TV out with me and was trying different cables to try to solve my pixelation problem. I was turning it off, with the remote, and then swapping cables without going inside. My guess is I forgot to turn it off one time. I didn't think it was necessary to actually unplug a 4dtv when swapping cables. Am I wrong about that?

I believe voltage is still supplied to the lnbs even when the 922 is off. I've swapped cables with the 922 plugged in as I'm more worried about the 922 rebooting properly after unplugging and plugging it back in. But there is always some chance of damaging something when swapping cables when the are energized.

I came across something interesting yesterday. I was getting ready to box up my 922 and send it to ATS. It had been unplugged since last Friday, so I thought what the heck I'll give it one more try. Over the weekend I set up a vbox to move my dish and connected it to my Coolsat and a PC with a A/B switch. I pointed the dish at Galaxy 15 with the Coolsat and tuned in the California channel. I slaved the 922 to the Coolsat and was shocked to find that I could pull in Classic Arts just fine. Then I pointed it over to transponder 3 and pulled down the channel maps without problem. Next I used the Coolsat and pointed the dish over to G3, and was able to pick up the NPS muxes on the 922. At this point, I was starting to become a pretty happy boy. Unfortunately I came back to earth very soon. After using it with the Coolsat, I reconnected the 922 directly to the dish and was back to signal 10. It looks like the 922 can tune channels just fine, it just can't energize the lnbf's.

I'm going to do some more experimenting, but thought I'd post this update in case some one smarter than me had an easy solution.

I hate to step into this discussion with the real experts (I call someone when I need to fix things), but I think you are right. If the Coolsat receives a good signal, but the 4DTV does not, it is probably the voltage to the LNB.

I had the reverse experience. My Coolsat (which is slaved to the 4DTV) could receive C band signals, but not KU. The 4DTV received both.

It turns out that there was no voltage powering the LNB from the Coolsat and Coolsat replaced the unit (as it was new and within the warranty period).

I think what was happening was that the 4DTV voltage was sufficient to receive C band, but not KU band. But, the 4DTV was not strong enough for KU band.

When I received the Coolsat back, I forgot to turn on the voltage. I still received C band, but not KU. When I turned on the voltage, I began receiving KU channels as well (except at 87 and 85 degrees).

It sounds like you may have a similar problem because when you slave to 4DTV to the Coolsat, you get signal.

Well guys, I may have to admit to something really stupid here. I'm not doing so yet, but I thought I should post this follow-up in case anybody else made the mistake that I did. Here's what's happened since I last posted to this thread:

I sent my 922 to ATS for repair. It took them a while to get to it as they are really backed up, but when they finally did they hooked it up and it worked great for about 2 weeks. They couldn't reproduce the problem. They gave it the once over replaced a couple of components that can be common sources of problems for a 922 but otherwise never found anything wrong. When they sent it back to me I plugged it in and immediately experienced the same problem I'd had before.

Needless to say I was less than impressed. I decided to just be sure everything was hooked up correctly, as I've been using a vbox and PC card with my BUD the last few weeks. I first took the VBox out which solved nothing, and then I realized that I also had a diseqc switch in line. I just took it out and now the 922 is working perfectly for me too.

I think what must have happened is when I first put in my new lnbf, I was swapping wires around some without turning off the 922 first. Yeah I know in hindsight not a particularly smart move. I think I must have given it a short that caused it to get confused for a while. When I let it sit for several days and then slaved it to the Coolsat, it must have had time to dissipate whatever charge had hosed it up in the first place. The problem then was that I'd already put the diseqc switch in and forgot about it being there. That's the only thing that makes sense to me, as when I had it slaved the Coolsat could talk to the switch and pass a good signal to the 922.

Oh well, I guess now I at least have a 922 that's like new again. When ATS had it they checked it out completely and it passed every test except for a capacitor that was a little out of spec. which they replaced. I'm going to e-mail Tom at ATS and see if he can confirm that I was stupid with the diseqc switch, but I suspect that one or more of my Satelliteguys friends will probably confirm this long before I hear back from Tom.

Mike