Bad day with my satellite dish.

[MikeD-C05]

Last week I came home from work and my wife said my boy's sat receiver was searching for a sat signal since that morning. I went through all my usual tricks to get it to work . The reboot, the check switch check, with out the sat coax hooked up and then with it on his 211k. Switched the 211k from the boy's room to my bedroom and checked the sat connection and the receiver worked in the bedroom . My wife's 211k did NOT work in the boy's room . So it wasn't the receiver that was bad.

I went outside and checked the dish. I have a clip on terk 44 antenna for ota and I had one port already damaged from Hurricane Ike so I only had three ports to choose from. So I went and changed the coax from one port to the other and still no signal. So I deducted it must be the antenna needing replacing. Just to make sure I would replace all the coax as well. So I bought another antenna online from Amazon.com and went to Radio Shack and bought 100 of quad shielded coax. That was Wednesday.

Friday the terk 44 replacement was shipped . Today on Saturday I got up and unhooked the old antenna and hooked up the new one. I tried to see if the coax that was there would work with the new antenna. No go . No signal. So I climbed under the trailer and reran new coax all from my boy's room on the opposite end of the trailer, to the other end to the 1000.4 sat dish on the pole. I also cut and pulled all the older coax that was not being used and threw it in a pile . I hooked it all up and checked and still no signal . I even changed the ground block it was hooked to. So finally I took the sat line from my bedroom and hooked it to my boys line to his room from the ground block. Finally sat signal. But now NO signal to my bedroom.

So now I finally took the lnb off and ran my sat meter to port 1 and checked to see if I had a signal. NO signal at all but signal on port 2 and three of the lnb. SO I finally figured out the lnb was bad and ordered another one online today . Then went out and buried all the coax that I had to dig up to add the new line. Needless to say it was a very frustrating day and I wasted a lot of money to figure out the lnb was going out. So my advice to anyone out there who likes to do their own installs , CHECK the lnb FIRST before you replace the line and the coax, etc.

Days like this make me wonder why I like to my own sat installs as a hobby.

 

[HIFI]

Good to hear ya got it figured out. We all have days like that, even those of us doing this job day in and day out overlook things that just kill us on time and effort.

 

[TheKrell]

Yup. Usually I go for the active or most complicated parts first. But there are always the exceptions. I wasted a week at work on a dang SATA cable with an intermittent connection. Drove me nuts until I swapped it out. I had swapped everything else out at least once with very confusing results.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Unfortunately all week has been like that. At the prison where I work, I missed the obvious in your face stuff and spent more time on the stuff you couldn't see. In particular ,I work at the back gate of the prison and my main job is to keep contraband out . So I search this big fat truck driver and his huge cab & trailer of his rig. I find the cell phone , the knife, the perscription meds, the tobacco ,all contraband items inside the unit. I missed the obvious blue tooth on his ear. I must of thought it was a hearing aide since he wore sun glasses and a hat and I just didn't notice it. To top it all off ,the warden and asst. warden were the one to see it ,when he went to metal fab industry inside to deliver his load. So I got wrote up for sub standard duty performance for missing the obvious. :Luckily this is the least charge you can get and only involves a letter of instruction or a couple of months of probation at the most. I guess this is a week of not seeing the forest for the trees. I only hope next week will be better.

 

[papalittle]

I always check for voltage at the LNB first, if no voltage then at the receiver. If voltage at LNB I just replace LNB, if voltage at receiver but not at LNB then replace ground block and or cable from receiver to LNB. Saves a lot of time.

 

[Arcade]

Mike, sorry to hear about the bad week.
Hopefully things will get better.
I drive past that prison all the time. I guess if I ever need to sneak something in I should use the back gate huh? lol.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Mike, sorry to hear about the bad week.
Hopefully things will get better.
I drive past that prison all the time. I guess if I ever need to sneak something in I should use the back gate huh? lol.

Smart Ass.

It was something very small and I haven't had a cell phone going on three years now . I don't even know what a blue tooth device looks like up close. Like I told the Warden, the cell phone was turned off and locked up in the box at the back gate and he couldn't have used the blue tooth to call even if he wanted to. I have heard from others that the blue tooth only works a few feet from the phone and it has to be turned on to use it. AT least it wasn't a gun like at another Texas prison you might of read about a year or so ago. The inmate had a gun in his diaper and was in a wheel chair, and was being transported to my prison from a Huntsville area prison. He pulled the gun out of his diaper and stood up and pointed the gun at the two bosses and made them drive to Baytown , pull over and lock themselves up in the back of the van ,after they freed him. He stayed on the run for a few days before being caught. THat was a LUCKY day for me, because I was at the back gate waiting for him on my medical chain list. So blue tooth vs Gun , NO CONTEST.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I always check for voltage at the LNB first, if no voltage then at the receiver. If voltage at LNB I just replace LNB, if voltage at receiver but not at LNB then replace ground block and or cable from receiver to LNB. Saves a lot of time.

I checked everything and I mean EVERYTHING except the lnb. I learned the hard way on this one.

 

[dishcomm]

Last week I came home from work and my wife said my boy's sat receiver was searching for a sat signal since that morning. I went through all my usual tricks to get it to work . The reboot, the check switch check, with out the sat coax hooked up and then with it on his 211k. Switched the 211k from the boy's room to my bedroom and checked the sat connection and the receiver worked in the bedroom . My wife's 211k did NOT work in the boy's room . So it wasn't the receiver that was bad.

I went outside and checked the dish. I have a clip on terk 44 antenna for ota and I had one port already damaged from Hurricane Ike so I only had three ports to choose from. So I went and changed the coax from one port to the other and still no signal. So I deducted it must be the antenna needing replacing. Just to make sure I would replace all the coax as well. So I bought another antenna online from Amazon.com and went to Radio Shack and bought 100 of quad shielded coax. That was Wednesday.

Friday the terk 44 replacement was shipped . Today on Saturday I got up and unhooked the old antenna and hooked up the new one. I tried to see if the coax that was there would work with the new antenna. No go . No signal. So I climbed under the trailer and reran new coax all from my boy's room on the opposite end of the trailer, to the other end to the 1000.4 sat dish on the pole. I also cut and pulled all the older coax that was not being used and threw it in a pile . I hooked it all up and checked and still no signal . I even changed the ground block it was hooked to. So finally I took the sat line from my bedroom and hooked it to my boys line to his room from the ground block. Finally sat signal. But now NO signal to my bedroom.

So now I finally took the lnb off and ran my sat meter to port 1 and checked to see if I had a signal. NO signal at all but signal on port 2 and three of the lnb. SO I finally figured out the lnb was bad and ordered another one online today . Then went out and buried all the coax that I had to dig up to add the new line. Needless to say it was a very frustrating day and I wasted a lot of money to figure out the lnb was going out. So my advice to anyone out there who likes to do their own installs , CHECK the lnb FIRST before you replace the line and the coax, etc.

Days like this make me wonder why I like to my own sat installs as a hobby.

as a tech, I always tested the system from end to end making no final diagnosis before deciding on THE problem.
This actually takes a bit longer in the short run ,but saves time and effort in the long run.
Most times, the obvious is not THE problem.
I cannot tell you how many times on service calls where I told a customer "I found a problem, not THE problem....

 

[dishcomm]

Unfortunately all week has been like that. At the prison where I work, I missed the obvious in your face stuff and spent more time on the stuff you couldn't see. In particular ,I work at the back gate of the prison and my main job is to keep contraband out . So I search this big fat truck driver and his huge cab & trailer of his rig. I find the cell phone , the knife, the perscription meds, the tobacco ,all contraband items inside the unit. I missed the obvious blue tooth on his ear. I must of thought it was a hearing aide since he wore sun glasses and a hat and I just didn't notice it. To top it all off ,the warden and asst. warden were the one to see it ,when he went to metal fab industry inside to deliver his load. So I got wrote up for sub standard duty performance for missing the obvious. :Luckily this is the least charge you can get and only involves a letter of instruction or a couple of months of probation at the most. I guess this is a week of not seeing the forest for the trees. I only hope next week will be better.

so a truck driver cannot get into the facility with a bluetooth device?....I don;t get it. Why is it prohibited for a truck driver to have a bluetooth?

 

[digiblur]

Guess they think someone is going to talk on the bluetooth inside the prison and coordinate something.

 

[MikeD-C05]

so a truck driver cannot get into the facility with a bluetooth device?....I don;t get it. Why is it prohibited for a truck driver to have a bluetooth?

Cell phones , blue tooth devices , tobacco products/cigarettes , liquor, weapons, guns, all considered Contraband within the prison walls. Don't want inmates having access to any of those things. Our prison among others in the state of Texas and other states across the country, suffer a real cell phone contraband problem. We at my unit have found hundreds of phones , but mostly they are coming inside the unit through officers and others who mule them inside their butts and or the female's cooters. They are worth about $600.00 on the black market inside. So a blue tooth device qualifies as a cell phone component. By the way I got my disciplinary today from one of my wardens and got just 2 months probation. So it could of been worse and if had to be two months probation ,at least it was the shortest month of the year: February & March. Started today on 1/31/11 and ends 3/30/11.