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Just as an update to the above. I bought a new SG2100, a new diseqC switch, and 1000' of new copper coax. I thought that this HAS to fix the thing.
I put the new motor up, and installed the new diseqC switch, but decided to try it out before running the new coax. DIDN'T WORK. Took the motor out of the loop, just going through the diseqC switch...... NO SIGNAL. At this point, I was really confused. Only thing left was that with the long coax run, I didn't have enough diseqC signal to run the switch, but that didn't make sense, so I decided to try a different receiver. So instead of running the thing off my Diamond 9000 STB, I connected it to my TeVii USB receiver. Darn thing worked! At least through the switch (didn't try the motor). So I figured that the steel core coax must be stopping the low freq diseqC signal. So today, I ran the new 264' of copper core coax. Hooked everything up. DIDN'T WORK!?!?! Bypassed the motor. Didn't work through the diseqC switch. Bypassed the switched. GOOD SIGNAL. Switched over to my Genpix receiver. Worked with the switch. Switched to the Diamond... didn't work.
So it seemed like my Diamond was messed up, whereby, it can't send signal to control the diseqC switch, even though it worked OK to move the motor, which is also diseqC. I looked at the DC/diseqC with my Channel Master meter while connected to the Diamond, and it was jumping all over the place, DC was going on and off on/off/on/off. Anyway, I was about to pull the Diamond receiver out, and put my Coolsat 8100 back in, but tried the Diamond once more, just to get some voltage readings. Thing popped into lock, and has been working ever since.

I am real confused, but it seems like my Diamond is just working some times and not working other times. I may still replace the thing with my Coolsat, and open it up and see if there are any capacitors leaking or something, as it seems to be power related, but I need to get the dish aligned for a program I want to watch tomorrow and another one on Thursday, so I'll probably put that off.
But anyway, I'm startig to make progress diagnosing the problems anyway.
Neat about the new coax. I've always been a bit unsure of exactly how long my coax runs were, just estimating. But this new coax has length markings in feet every couple feet, so I got the whole thing accurately measured, so next time I can just measure out the right length of coax, and not have to pull little by little off the roll, and/or I can measure out and pull 2 lengths at the same time. The new copper coax has about 1/2 the resistance of the old stuff.

progress

That's a whopper of a cable run bj, more than double any of mine. I guess I would expect problems with anything that far, but I know it's not a record at all for some of our members. You have the best coax for a long run now so it's probably not the length. Sounds like flaky receiver with the diamond. I hate those intermittent problems the most, if something is going to tear up, I'd rather it just blow up so I can toss it!

That IS a long cable run for RG-6. RG-11 might be better for such a long run, but the stuff isn't cheap. The fittings are very expensive as well, and require a special tool to terminate the cable.

BJ; I used to have anomalous problems with my setup (long runs, copper clad coax) until I went to bandstacked lnb's and powered switches. Pendragons posts on using and modifying powered switches is excellent. I use a pair of powered DP34's and a SW22 on my Azbox and it runs cool as a cucumber. IMHO most FTA receivers don't have the power supplies to run a lot of stuff before choking. Another added benefit is the lnb's are always powered, less drift.

Well, I was just about to re-open my FIRST wierd failure post, because I just had another one today. I have to think that in some way this multitude of problems I've run into in the past month or so have to be related. But first to this response...
I do prefer, when possible to have the LNBs powered all the time, although that does make the use of any 22KHz switch I've used impossible, just because I've only used cheap switches that don't have enough isolation between the two ports to keep signal from the unused but powered port out. I'm sure it would work with high quality switches though. But I used to keep my C/Ku system powered via analog receiver, up until I had the weird failure of the Ku band coax for no apparent reason, so I've been running my C/Ku BUD off my Azbox using one coax and a diseqC switch for the past month or so. I DON'T, however like the idea of switching to anything bandstacked. With my long run, I think I'm lucky to get the 950-1450 band down my coax, let alone trying to get the higher band down. I think I'll eventually get my BUD back to having both LNBs constantly powered eventually, once I get my coax situation stabilied, but doing that with my motorized Fortec dish won't be quite as easy, but it might be possible with the proper powered switches since I'm using a QPH-031 that has 2 linear and 2 circular ports, so I could have 2 13V and 2 18V ports feeding the switch. However right now, one of my linear ports seem to not be working well, so I don't think I can do it right now.

However, on to my latest weird problem. As mentioned above, since my first weird failure, I've had the following configuration:

BUD---C/Ku/Fixed Primestar ====DiseqC switch---------------splitter--Azbox and PC receivers (power via Abox).
90CM Fortec --linear/circular/Fixed Primestar ====DiseqC switch -----splitter Diamond 9000& PC receivers (power via Diamond)

Ie two linear QPH-031 ports on Fixed Primestar/AMC-21 go to both BUD and Ku diseqC switches.

Since moving my 90CM and moving/replacing my Orbitron with a new SAMI, I had coax cables running all over the ground out by the dishes, which was not going over very well with the wife. So yesterday, I dug some trenches to bury conduit to put the coax into. Basically, the coax came out of a conduit where my 90CM used to be located, so I dug a trench from there over to my fixed Primestar, then from my Primestar over to our garage where the 90CM is now, and I also have conduit going from the Primestar over to the new SAMI BUD.
Fishing the coax to the 90CM wasn't going to be a problem, but to run the multiple wires going to the BUD was going to be difficult, since there was a big ribbon cable and a new run of RG6, and the ribbon cable had both polarotor wires and actuator power and sensor wires in addition to coax, all of which were up in the air, and would have to be disconnected to fish them through the new conduit.
So I decided NOT to disconnect ANY of the wires going to the BUD.
To do this, I ran a circular saw down the several engths of conduit, which was 2 1/2" schedule 40 conduit, cutting a slot through one side of the conduit. The kerf of the cut wasn't wide enough to slip coax or ribbon cable through, so I had to expand the slot using a pry bar, slipping spacers into the slot to hold the slot open wide enough to get the wires in. I had to put the spacers every 8 or 10", because the conduit was very rigid, and tended to close back up everywhere that there wasn't a spacer. Yesterday, I got the cable into the conduit leading to the Primestar, and everything was working fine. Today, I back filled that trench, and ran the two wires through smaller conduit over to my 90CM, which required disconnecting the main coax, and the coax running from the diseqC switch to my Primestar. Everything STILL working OK after I back filled THAT trench.
THEN, however, I again used the kerf in the conduit technique to get the wires going from the area of the Primestar over to the BUD, ie ribbon cable and RG6. I spent about a half hour slipping the cable into the conduit, then coiled up the excess to make it neater to make the wife happy. Went inside, thinking I was done, only to look at the TV, which HAD been playing PBS coming from the diseqC switch on the BUD, and the signal was gone! Confused, since I had never disconnected this line, I tried both C and Ku and Primestar Ku, ALL were dead. Pulled out my meter to check power coming out of the Azbox, and it was showing the proper voltage. Went out to the dish, checked the voltage there.... NOTHING. FOOEY I thought, I figured that I must have crimped one of the coaxes in the very tight kerf ot the conduit. So I switched to the spare coax I had just run out there. Still NOTHING!?!?! Went inside, checked voltage at Azbox again.... proper voltage there. Only other place that seemed likely was a barrel connector that I had in my basement near my computers, that connected the coax from the dish to a short 10' jumper that went upstairs to my Azbox. Checked that, and NO VOLTAGE. Connected the line from the dish to my Twinhan down there, and it worked fine.
So I replaced the 10' jumper coax with a new one, and everything was working fine again!

Anyway, it was really weird that this setup has been working in this configuration for over a month with no problems, but I go outside and do nothing but slip the wires into a conduit, and the I get a complete failure, not of the wires out where I was working, but inside next to my Azbox!

The ONLY thing that I can figure out that makes sense relates to one thing I didn't mention above, and that is, that when I went to connect the coax from my Primestar to the diseqC switch on the 90CM fortec, that it wasn't quite long enough once going through the conduit, so I didn't re-connect that line. So what I was thinking was that perhaps there was a bad ground in the coax jumper to the Azbox, but the Azbox was getting it's ground via the Primestar, which was connected to both the BUD system AND the 90CM system, but when I removed the coax to the 90CM, perhaps I was removing the ground for the Azbox????
Anyway, that's the only explanation I can come up with. Now, with the new jumper wire, everything is working better than ever, my wife is happy with the way the yard is looking with most of the wires buried, and life is back to normal. But I have to wonder if somehow that bad jumper wire might have somehow been related to some of my other problems. I'm trying to remember where that jumper was located when I first started moving my dishes around, but I have so many runs of coax here that I'm not sure what I had connected to what.