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Sounds like a bad install , bad dish peaking,or other problems with your receiver . Try this:

1. Unconnect the coaxes to your satellite IN ports on the back of your receiver. This will cause the picture to go black.

2. Run a check switch with no coaxes connected. This will cause the receiver to count down 1 of like 38 or so. Let it finish till it says no satellites in the matrix and hit save.

3. Then reboot your receiver by unplugging it. Allow it to stay unplugged for a minute before replugging it back in.

4. Now reconnect the coaxes to your satellite in ports and rerun another check switch. This should add all three sats back in to your check switch matrix. Hit save and let the receiver download the guide till the screen comes back.

If you have any more problems with your receiver call DISH and get a tech out to check your install , receiver etc. You can add the dish insurance for $6.00 a month and the tech visit will only be $15.00 . You can drop it after a couple of months . If you try to cancel the first month you will get a $25.00 cancellation fee .

Good luck.

Something doesn't seem right... I want to guess either a corroded fitting or bad tuner/LNB... This kind of issue calls for a technician visit because it won't get fixed over the internet or over the phone. Switching television providers is a rather extreme solution if we haven't even looked at the setup you have. Get a tech out and if the problem isn't fixed call again. You do have a 60 day warranty period from the day the technician shows up so if it wasn't resolved we'll keep coming back until it is.

Thanks for the advice - this thing is driving us crazy.

I will give the unplugged reset a try.

magnum2066 - I can see what you mean. I am leaning towards bad tuner or LNB. The system was installed brand new in November 2008, so it has not been in place that long. This is the second receiver...maybe third. The only thing that would make me lean away from a bad LNB is the fact that I have seen this behavior on channels served from two different satellites. That would implicate two LNBs, which should be less likely.

Here is a little more data from last night:

We were watching NBC from 129 and simultaneously recording it - just watching what we were recording, and staying caught up with live TV. Just hitting mute on the commercials. Might as well have been 1990....

We had been watching the broadcast from the beginning - actually from before recording started, and it was flawless.

When a commercial came on, my wife switched over to start the recorded stuff that we had just watched live to check if the recording was OK: The recorded show that we had just been watching was completely pixellated and unwatchable.

She switched back to the live program - it was also unwatchable, though 10 seconds before, before we checked the recorded version, it was great. We went through the check signals routine, and all was well on the live version.

Next commercial, we switched from watching it on the satellite feed to watching the same channel from the OTA tuner. Flawless OTA.

Switched back to the satellite feed of the same channel (10 seconds before, it was perfect), and it was unwatchable! Went through the check signals routine, and it came back.

Next commercial, we recorded for a few seconds, went to check it, it was OK. Came back to live, and the channel was shot. Check signals fixed it again.

Sorry to rant here - I am sure I come across as a whiner. But this thing is really frustrating.

I am wondering how to explain what is going on to a CSR - often they have no clue about how things work, and I can talk to three different ones, and get three different answers. They will first say "turn if off for 30 seconds, power up and let a check switch run", which in this case seems kind of useless. In the end, they will either send out a technician (the last one did not really even want to get out of the truck - they were running really behind that day, and a high-level supervisor was supposed to drop by their shop, and they were all in a panic), or send me a new receiver. I have been told to cut 3 different trees to improve LOS on 129, but even now, with no leaves, the best I can get is about 41....

From the looks of it the installer picked a poor location for the dish antenna which doesn't help anything at this point. I'm leaning towards a defective receiver or possibly a power outlet issue although that is very uncommon... If it were me I'd have a technician do a better site survey for the best line of sight solution for the antenna.

I am thinking cable/fitting issue. What your experienceing is one tuner with low signal. when you run check switch, it is coincidentaly switching your viewing back to the good tuner. when you are recording something, it is using one tuner, and what you watch live is coming off of the other tuner. if your live show looks good then the recording is crap and vice versa. This could be caused by improper cable (RG59 over any distance, will make the high frequncy tuner have low signal) or a bad fitting or barrel (crapy terminations or barel fittings will cause problems with either the high frequency tuner or the low freq tuner but usaully screws up the low signals) if you look at the signal meters and switch from tuner one to tuner two on the same sat and transponder, you should have almost equal signals if one is lower than the other, you have found your problem. as far as dish location, if you look at the signal for any satellite and it is steady but low, your dish may need adjustments. However if you look at the signal meter and it is fluctuating up and down, you most likely have a tree issue and need to break out the pruning and/or chain saw or relocate the dish.

Hope this helped.
Chip