811 OTA Single Channel Reception Problem

[barryp]

Hello All,

I have had Dish HD for a few weeks now and have been attempting to receive OTA digital stations for the past week - I'm playing with antenna locations, amps, two different antennas. I have an 811 in the basement and a Terk HDTVi antenna in the attic on a homemade rotator - I'm a bit geeky... I can pull in ABC (2 stations), NBC, FOX, CBS, UPN and a local independent digital station.

The problem is with the UPN station. I get 70-75% signal strength when setting up the station from the the DTV section but if I select the station from the guide afterwards the picture flashes from good to black at about a second rate. If I let this go for a few seconds the 811 usually locks and reboots. The strange thing is that UPN worked fine for the first two days (last week). All the other stations work fine.

Generally, the DTV setup section seems to be very buggy. I have had many locks, the guide disappears, the keyboard naming of the DTV station during the "save" process seems to do nothing. Does any of this ring a bell?

Thanks for any input to theses issues, especially the UPN problem mentioned.

BTW, Dish is sending me a replacement receiver...

Barry

 

[douweb]

What is your location, where are the stations from?

 

[barryp]

I live in York, PA. The stattions are located in Harrisburg, York, and Lancaster. I point the directional antenna to them with a rotator. One of the Lancaster stations is giving me the trouble. It is 27 miles to my east.

 

[jjnemoiii]

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Did you check on the antennaweb site to see if your antenna was good eneough? My preliminary check leads me to think maybe no? not sure...

 

[caesar gdi]

I would try another antenna... I have heard that Terk Antenna's are POS. I have also been told not to buy any antenna that claims to be an HDTV antenna.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

I have a Turk Antenna on the roof, I have same issues, one station bounces in and out, until I fiddle with the selctor back and forth, it finally comes in at 85-90 percent and stays. I think Turk's suffer multipath problems. I have since added Zenith Silver sensor antennas, $19.95 from Buy.com and I pick up all my locals now.

 

[barryp]

From some other posts it seems that the 811 has some known problems similar to my flashing from video to black to banner. Dish tells me that an upcoming software update is going to address this problem. I will keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Technojunky]

I checked this web site for the bearing on the stations I want to receive. I have trouble with WFLX and as it turns out, it is located at 186 degrees, and ABC is at 235 degrees. I can't be pointed optimally for both. I wonder if the trouble I have with WFLX lockig up on me, could be caused by a poor signal? The receiver doesn't tune for each channel, it has a common signal strength bar for all at once. I'm not sure how they are doing it. I wrote to WFLX and told them that I have trouble receiving them to see what they suggest. Joe

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Did you check on the antennaweb site to see if your antenna was good eneough? My preliminary check leads me to think maybe no? not sure...