Is my beloved Hopper 3 dead?

TheKrell · Jul 20, 2019

Jim5506 said:
3 GHz is required due to the band stacking that allows so many channels to be used at once.

Required? I have an awful lot of RG6 in the Hopper system. What I installed from roof to attic is from Monoprice and is about 15 years old. The main line that I fished from attic to basement was dual cable (with ground) I recovered from a cable installation and is much older. Where are the nice charts of the bandstacked frequencies?

glynnp · Jul 20, 2019

TheKrell said:
Required? I have an awful lot of RG6 in the Hopper system. What I installed from roof to attic is from Monoprice and is about 15 years old. The main line that I fished from attic to basement was dual cable (with ground) I recovered from a cable installation and is much older. Where are the nice charts of the bandstacked frequencies?

IMO, the requirement is the equivalent of DISH "lawyering up" and doing CYA.

Installers should probably take heed and do the same but it doesn't mean user on rg-59
should rush out and get it replaced.

HipKat · Jul 20, 2019

TheKrell said:
Required? I have an awful lot of RG6 in the Hopper system. What I installed from roof to attic is from Monoprice and is about 15 years old. The main line that I fished from attic to basement was dual cable (with ground) I recovered from a cable installation and is much older. Where are the nice charts of the bandstacked frequencies?

HipKat · Jul 20, 2019

glynnp said:
IMO, the requirement is the equivalent of DISH "lawyering up" and doing CYA.

Installers should probably take heed and do the same but it doesn't mean user on rg-59
should rush out and get it replaced.

Actually, it does mean that. If you've not had problems, you're lucky, but you're not a tech, so you don't know how many times I've had to go out and replace the cable from the Dish to the Hopper because people were having signal and/or tuner issues with less than the required cable specs, and I don't meant to sound harsh, but as a seasoned tech who has poured himself into being the best he can be at his job, which includes learning as much about the technology and nuances t hat go into every aspect I can expose myself to, I take it personally when a customer that only has to deal with his singular system dismisses and refutes the information I put out.

dweber · Jul 20, 2019

HipKat is absolutely correct. I still remember all the problems I had in February 2018 when my Dish was relocated. I kept losing signals. The first two Dish techs replaced the LNB’s. The third Dish tech replaced my DPH42 switch. Each time the problem would reoccur after 1 day. After the 5th visit the Dish tech discovered that the short cables that went from the grounding block outside to the switch in the basement were the original cables from my Dish 500. Once that section was replaced I have not had any more problems. It took 5 visits to find the cable problem since the rest of the cabling was brand new. Also keep in mind that my Hopper3 receivers worked with the bad cable for over a year. The failures started occurring when the Dish was moved and the cable length was longer. Yet the short section was less than 10 feet.

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TheKrell · Jul 20, 2019

HipKat said:

What I was hoping to see was the band for each of the 16 channels that are all bandstacked on the hybrid. We know that the Joey doesn't use any of those LNB frequencies, so the "Hopper/Joey" in the diagram is seriously misleading. That makes me wonder what other things the artist got wrong.

HipKat · Jul 20, 2019

TheKrell said:
What I was hoping to see was the band for each of the 16 channels that are all bandstacked on the hybrid. We know that the Joey doesn't use any of those LNB frequencies, so the "Hopper/Joey" in the diagram is seriously misleading. That makes me wonder what other things the artist got wrong.

That chart was made by PPC

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

HipKat said:
Actually, it does mean that. If you've not had problems, you're lucky, but you're not a tech, so you don't know how many times I've had to go out and replace the cable from the Dish to the Hopper because people were having signal and/or tuner issues with less than the required cable specs, and I don't meant to sound harsh, but as a seasoned tech who has poured himself into being the best he can be at his job, which includes learning as much about the technology and nuances t hat go into every aspect I can expose myself to, I take it personally when a customer that only has to deal with his singular system dismisses and refutes the information I put out.

The 150 foot cable was underground inside a garden hose. 25 feet were routed through
crawlspace under the house. It had been there since 1990. I wasn't about to tear up
almost 30 years of landscaping and bury a new cable so I could watch TV. I asked the tech
to hook it up to the H3 and it worked just fine and did so for more than two years.

It DID NOT fail because it wasn't rated for 3 ghz. It failed because it stopped passing a
signal. I imagine water finally found it 's way through. It usually does.

You said I'm not a tech and that is correct in the sense I'm not a seasoned DISH tech
like you. I was trained by the US Navy in component level troubleshooting and repair
of search radar, comm and navigation, and aircraft carrier final approach radar systems.
Hundreds of hours of intense classroom training. In the civilian world I migrated to high
end computer graphics and printing systems.

It seems I insulted you and apologize for that. It wasn't my intent.

Bobby · Jul 23, 2019

glynnp said:
The 150 foot cable was underground inside a garden hose. 25 feet were routed through
crawlspace under the house. It had been there since 1990. I wasn't about to tear up
almost 30 years of landscaping and bury a new cable so I could watch TV. I asked the tech
to hook it up to the H3 and it worked just fine and did so for more than two years.

It DID NOT fail because it wasn't rated for 3 ghz. It failed because it stopped passing a
signal. I imagine water finally found it 's way through. It usually does.

You said I'm not a tech and that is correct in the sense I'm not a seasoned DISH tech
like you. I was trained by the US Navy in component level troubleshooting and repair
of search radar, comm and navigation, and aircraft carrier final approach radar systems.
Hundreds of hours of intense classroom training. In the civilian world I migrated to high
end computer graphics and printing systems.

It seems I insulted you and apologize for that. It wasn't my intent.

Hmm, 150 feet inside a buried garden hose. I worked in underground utility design for for 25 years. You do know that once the ground is open schedule 4 PVC conduit is very cheap, maybe as cheap as that hose. That hose will deteriorate over 25 years, probably sooner. The PVC will outlive you if you have a good seal on the joints.

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

Bobby said:
Hmm, 150 feet inside a buried garden hose. I worked in underground utility design for for 25 years. You do know that once the ground is open schedule 4 PVC conduit is very cheap, maybe as cheap as that hose. That hose will deteriorate over 25 years, probably sooner. The PVC will outlive you if you have a good seal on the joints.

Because of the way the property was landscaped it wasn't really feasible to dig it up and
run new cable in PVC. It would have been an expensive dig to just be able to watch TV
So I hooked the cable to the Hopper 3. No regrets on that.

The new cable is on top of the ground. We won't be here long as we're selling the house
and buyer doesn't want to have satellite. I'll roll up the cable for use at new residence.

Everything worked out OK

TheKrell · Jul 23, 2019

Isn't 150' just about at the limit for RG6?

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

TheKrell said:
Isn't 150' just about at the limit for RG6?

Probably depends on who you ask.

300 feet is allegedly on the low end of the good range.

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

Signal strength at the Hopper is 75 which was the same when on rg59...no clouds.

When on rg59 the system could see through rain and snow, would expect
same with rg6.

JSheridan · Jul 23, 2019

glynnp said:
Probably depends on who you ask.

300 feet is allegedly on the low end of the good range.

200ft is what DISH says is the maximum cable length.

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

JSheridan said:
200ft is what DISH says is the maximum cable length.

I've always been a little squeamish at 150. Too many variables and unknowns.

Because of trees and property layout there was no choice but to put the dish
in a small area at 150ft.

HipKat · Jul 23, 2019

glynnp said:
The 150 foot cable was underground inside a garden hose. 25 feet were routed through
crawlspace under the house. It had been there since 1990. I wasn't about to tear up
almost 30 years of landscaping and bury a new cable so I could watch TV. I asked the tech
to hook it up to the H3 and it worked just fine and did so for more than two years.

It DID NOT fail because it wasn't rated for 3 ghz. It failed because it stopped passing a
signal. I imagine water finally found it 's way through. It usually does.

You said I'm not a tech and that is correct in the sense I'm not a seasoned DISH tech
like you. I was trained by the US Navy in component level troubleshooting and repair
of search radar, comm and navigation, and aircraft carrier final approach radar systems.
Hundreds of hours of intense classroom training. In the civilian world I migrated to high
end computer graphics and printing systems.

It seems I insulted you and apologize for that. It wasn't my intent.

I'm not going to argue with you. I'm a 6 year Dish Installer with a reputation for being very knowledgeable about the specs and technology in most of the things we do. You are a customer. The Hopper 3 requires 3Ghz RG Cable to accommodate band-stacking 16 tuners correctly. Anything else is not within code and apt to fail. Yours failed. Replacing the old cable with new, 3Ghz cable fixed it.

'nuff said!

HipKat · Jul 23, 2019

glynnp said:
Probably depends on who you ask.

300 feet is allegedly on the low end of the good range.

Dish limits the length to 200', unless you have RG11

glynnp · Jul 23, 2019

HipKat said:
I'm not going to argue with you. I'm a 6 year Dish Installer with a reputation for being very knowledgeable about the specs and technology in most of the things we do. You are a customer. The Hopper 3 requires 3Ghz RG Cable to accommodate band-stacking 16 tuners correctly. Anything else is not within code and apt to fail. Yours failed. Replacing the old cable with new, 3Ghz cable fixed it.

'nuff said!

Yes, I'm a customer and the customer is always right. I guess they didn't teach you that in DISH
installer school. I didn't expect to get into a penis measuring contest but you won.

My DISH installer is a pretty nice guy

Jim5506 · Jul 23, 2019

The customer is always right, but the customer is not always smart.

TheKrell · Jul 23, 2019

HipKat said:
Yours failed. Replacing the old cable with new, 3Ghz cable fixed it.

Yes, it failed after working fine for decades. Just because it wasn't tested out to 3GHz doesn't mean that it didn't pass 3GHz for all of that time. If the H3 really requires the bandwidth you posted all of the time, then I think it did indeed pass 3GHz.

Is my beloved Hopper 3 dead?

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