OTA signal came back after Hopper 3 reboot. Why?

JeffN9

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2007
300
124
Oregon, WI.
My guess is it's the OTA dongle going bad.

That was one of my guesses as well. I have the AirTV(white) dual tuner. Has anyone else had one go bad? Were you able to get AirTV or Dish to replace it?

CyberSpock which one do you have? There was a picture of the black Dish model in your first post but it looked like an ad.
 

JeffN9

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2007
300
124
Oregon, WI.
I had an Airtv adapter go bad after about 3 months. I called AirTv and they sent me a free replacement which turned out to the Dish version in black.

What kind of problems were you having with it? I'm not sure how long I've had mine but it's probably close to a year. I will give AirTv a call to see what they say.
 

CyberSpock

SatelliteGuys Pro
Feb 8, 2017
419
350
US
I've heard the OTA adapter can get hot, so I bought a USB fan and attached it to the adapter. Once I found the fan plug came out and it had been that way for some time. It was not hot. With the fan running ever since the behavior of it has not changed.

However it occurs to me that the microfan could be a magnetic field one might not want near. But again, I see no difference in behavior with it running.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 

thomasjk

SatelliteGuys Pro
Pub Member / Supporter
Jan 10, 2006
2,443
860
Charlotte, NC
What kind of problems were you having with it? I'm not sure how long I've had mine but it's probably close to a year. I will give AirTv a call to see what they say.
It stopped working. The Hopper wouldn't recognize it.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk
 

n0qcu

Supporting Founder
Supporting Founder
Sep 7, 2003
5,092
1,876
Earth
I've heard the OTA adapter can get hot, so I bought a USB fan and attached it to the adapter. Once I found the fan plug came out and it had been that way for some time. It was not hot. With the fan running ever since the behavior of it has not changed.

However it occurs to me that the microfan could be a magnetic field one might not want near. But again, I see no difference in behavior with it running.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
That WAS the old dual OTA adapter made by Haupaugge that got hot.
 
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell

CyberSpock

SatelliteGuys Pro
Feb 8, 2017
419
350
US
That WAS the old dual OTA adapter made by Haupaugge that got hot.
And the one I pictured in the first post is not? There were comments on the Amazon page that it did get hot. That is why I applied the fan. If I don't need it I can take it off and free up a plug.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 

JeffN9

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2007
300
124
Oregon, WI.
I called AirTV to see about getting the dongle replaced. Once the Cust. Svc. person found out I was using it on a Hopper she refused to help saying that it was only meant to be used on AirTV products. I then called Dish but they would only cover $40 of the $59.95 cost. I said no thanks. I really didn't want to be out of pocket $19.95 to replace a possibly defective part I just purchased 6-8 months ago. I also talked to a Dish Tech. person who said that it could be the USB port. I will try flip flopping my OTA dongle and EHD to the opposite USB ports to see if the problem goes away but I suspect not.
 

sam_gordon

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 21, 2009
2,512
1,414
Lexington, ky
I called AirTV to see about getting the dongle replaced. Once the Cust. Svc. person found out I was using it on a Hopper she refused to help saying that it was only meant to be used on AirTV products. I then called Dish but they would only cover $40 of the $59.95 cost. I said no thanks. I really didn't want to be out of pocket $19.95 to replace a possibly defective part I just purchased 6-8 months ago. I also talked to a Dish Tech. person who said that it could be the USB port. I will try flip flopping my OTA dongle and EHD to the opposite USB ports to see if the problem goes away but I suspect not.
I wouldn't expect a warranty replacement on electronics after longer than 30 days. I would suck it up and get the $60 part for $20.
 

JeffN9

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2007
300
124
Oregon, WI.
If I knew for sure that's what the problem is I would pay the $20. I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some type of software glitch with the Hopper.
 

TheKrell

A mighty and noble race originating on Altair IV.
Pub Member / Supporter
Jan 4, 2007
38,807
46,440
Fairfax, VA
If I knew for sure that's what the problem is I would pay the $20. I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some type of software glitch with the Hopper.
  1. I am not seeing this on my H3.
  2. I first bought the hot dual-tuner adapter from another member here, and then I bought the $30 AirTV adapter as well. If that dies on me, I can always go back to the hot USB adapter.
 
Last edited:

JeffN9

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2007
300
124
Oregon, WI.
I still have my old single tuner dongle and thought about trying that but I really need at least two tuners right now. If one of my wife's shows didn't record I would never hear the end of it.
 

CyberSpock

SatelliteGuys Pro
Feb 8, 2017
419
350
US
Nope, thats the newest one made by Lark (same as the AirTV one)
I bit my tongue...

I removed the fan and the OTA adapter got hotter than I could touch. You can't tell by looking at the picture I posted what is inside. I went by the reviews I had read on Amazon.

So with as little cursing as possible I reattached the fan...

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 

allargon

SatelliteGuys Pro
Aug 2, 2007
1,642
26
Austin, TX
My guess is it's the OTA dongle going bad.

Everyone's OTA dongles aren't going bad all at once. I have a single-tuner. Others report the problem with dual-tuner modules. (Those have always had some sort of issue.)

Everyone's also running it on the H3. What about the HWS and the original Hopper? There's likely a bad software update that happened this year or late last year that caused this.
 

sam_gordon

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 21, 2009
2,512
1,414
Lexington, ky
Everyone's OTA dongles aren't going bad all at once. I have a single-tuner. Others report the problem with dual-tuner modules. (Those have always had some sort of issue.)

Everyone's also running it on the H3. What about the HWS and the original Hopper? There's likely a bad software update that happened this year or late last year that caused this.
If it was a software update from last year or earlier this year, the problem should have happened then.
 

Foxbat

Addicted to new HW
Supporting Founder
Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
Nov 25, 2003
20,754
14,528
Michiana
You should go directly to the AirTV site here: Products | AirTV and bypass the "helpful" CSR. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the dual tuner ATSC Tuner Dongle which is only $29.99:
AirTV-DualTuner.png

That's what I did last year after I gave up on Dish ever fixing the single tuner OTA dongle glitches on my Hopper 3. The AirTV Dual-Tuner has been one of the best reasons to be a SatelliteGuy; I would never have found this without this site!
 

Ganthet

SatelliteGuys Pro
Mar 29, 2006
340
117
Just spotted this thread.

I've been getting a lot of loss of OTA with 100% signal error messages the last 3-4 months. It has happened on just about all of my OTA channels.

I'm seeing something on my H3 w/dual tuner dongle. When I go to an OTA channel use the recall function I get a "attempting to acquire signal" screen that shows the signal strength at 100%. If I do a channel advance to another OTA channel it comes in fine and I can then do a channel back and it comes in just fine. Same things has happened when going to OTA channel via the guide. Entering the channel number directly has yet to cause issues.

I've rebooted the H3 and removed/replaced the OTA dongle. (have not tried any bagels yet)
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)