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J
Last reply · posted in DISH Network Support Forum
I am working on a satellite system that is using seven 301 receivers. The system uses two DP34 switches with three receivers connected to each switch. There are switch output cables on the second DP34 that must go to a 3rd switch which powers that last receiver by itself.

A couple of the cable runs are very long, probably somewhere around 250-300 feet between the switch and the receivers. One of these receivers is having trouble switching between the 110 and 119 satellite feeds. I have swapped receivers and tried different switch output configurations with the same results. There must be something wrong with the cable run itself as I have eliminated everything else. The cable run is very difficult to trace given the way it was installed (big high-rise building with components on different floors).

The picture quality and signal strength on all of the receivers seems to be okay.

Is there a way to check the DC switching voltage at the switch? Maybe I'm losing too much voltage due to the long cable run.

I am not a Dish Network technician but I do know a bit about the technology.

Any ideas?
6 Replies · 2922 views
TheKrell
The system uses two DP34 switches with three receivers connected to each switch. There are switch output cables on the second DP34 that must go to a 3rd switch which powers that last receiver by itself... One of these receivers is having trouble switching between the 110 and 119 satellite feeds.
What does "having trouble" mean? Does it ever switch between satellites? Is the malfunctioning receiver the one on this phantom 3rd DP34? Difficult or not, I think you are going to have to locate that 3rd switch and see how it's hooked up. The DP34 has 4 receiver outputs which switch, and 3 passthrough ports which do not. If that last receiver is hooked up to a passthrough port, rather than a switch output port, then that might explain the problem.
J
Dish Pro dosen't use switching voltage that was the Legacy systems, Dish Pro uses band stacked technology to send both odd and even channels down the coax at the same time. Tell us about the 7th receiver and connections on the second DP34. Is this receiver with the problem switching satellites?

Yeah, like I said, I am probably a little behind the power curve as far as the technology is concerned. I have no idea what band stacked technology is but I'm guessing that explains why I was getting a consistant 18 VDC out of the receiver today. I was expecting a lower switching voltage that I did not see.

So back to some troubleshooting that I did today, the one receiver that I am having the most problems with has a 328' cable run between the switch and the receiver. This is connected to a switch receiver output, not the thru cable connections on the second switch. So I tried the receiver with a short cable connected to the switch and it works perfect. It has to be a problem with that cable run. I did check the cable with a Fluke cable checker. With a terminator on the far end, I was getting the 328' length and about 90 ohms of resistance. Still no luck switching satellite inputs when the receiver is connected back to it's original location.
J
What does "having trouble" mean? Does it ever switch between satellites? Is the malfunctioning receiver the one on this phantom 3rd DP34? Difficult or not, I think you are going to have to locate that 3rd switch and see how it's hooked up. The DP34 has 4 receiver outputs which switch, and 3 passthrough ports which do not. If that last receiver is hooked up to a passthrough port, rather than a switch output port, then that might explain the problem.

The 7th receiver is for sure connected to the two thru outputs of the second DP34. I am not sure what kind of switch is used with the two cables going to the 7th receiver because I haven't traced it out yet. The cables are in a dropped ceiling so it's a little time consuming tracing it out. Right now, the 7th receiver seems to be working okay.

The main problem I'm having now is with one of the receivers connected to DP34 #1 or #2 (I've tried them both with different receivers and different output ports). The receiver is 328' away from the switch and is picking up the 119 satellite only.

Side Note - The installation is at a hospital so some of the TVs are in use. It is not always convenient for me to jump in and run checks. The 7th receiver was in that shape today. It appeared to be working fine but I only saw Fox News on the 119 satellite.
Jimmerinwi
Sad as it is to say, me thinks your 328' cable is junk and will need to be replaced. Good Luck! :)
nezerach
328' is a rather long run. recommended by dish of no more than 200' between the LNB to the reciever. that amounts to alot more signal and voltage loss. make sure your connectors are all in good shape and see if you can shorten the cable.
http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/user-guides/installation/DISHPro_InstallGuide.pdf
you may find this doc useful as well
Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68656 Replies · 2680135 views
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FTA4PA
Detroit Rock City - Kiss
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sdfntx
I Care About Detroit - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 34 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 273 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 44 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 49 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.