I have a HR20 now for about a month. I am having a problem with my ota. I have basically a powered set of rabbit ears. The picture for the most part is great. However on my local CBS station I get a message saying searching for signal on the off-air tuner....(771) The only way I can get rid of the message is to go to another ota station and then go back and it will be gone for a while and then it comes back. Again there is nothing wrong with the picture. However when you go to the menu that uses a PIG that picture is blank. Like I said this is not a major problem, more a nuance then anything else. If any of you have any ideas I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks in advance.
D* OTA problem
- Thread starter cwbuckley
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It sounds like you need to adjust your antenna some to see if you can get a better signal or possibly move it, being an indoor antenna makes it more difficult.
IF you can give us your zip code we can get a better idea of what you may need.
check out this site, it will tell you where and how far away your towers are, if they are aways away I would suggest an outdoor antenna, if they are close you can get by with a good indoor one...
Most reccomend the Zenith Silver Sensor for an indoor antenna.
AntennaWeb
Jimbo
zip is 79936. I do have an outdoor antenna. My H20 has a line coming into the house and is hooked up to it. When the installer came out to hook everything up, he would not run an extra line from the antenna to the HR20, so I used the power indoor antenna.
There may be a simple solution.
Try splitting the coax from the outdoor antenna feeding the H20. You don't need another home run of coax cable from the outdoor antenna.
You'll need a coax splitter similar to this one.
You'll also need 2 short lengths of Coax with connectors. Put the coax cable from the antenna on the single input and then with the other short cables, one to the H20 and one to the HR20 OTA inputs.
You shouldn't need any type of amplifier for the split.
I'm feeding 5 D* boxes and 3 TV tuners without a problem.
Try splitting the coax from the outdoor antenna feeding the H20. You don't need another home run of coax cable from the outdoor antenna.
You'll need a coax splitter similar to this one.
You'll also need 2 short lengths of Coax with connectors. Put the coax cable from the antenna on the single input and then with the other short cables, one to the H20 and one to the HR20 OTA inputs.
You shouldn't need any type of amplifier for the split.
I'm feeding 5 D* boxes and 3 TV tuners without a problem.
CW,
You do not want to do what is mentioned above, you cannot split a sat signal before it gets to the rec.
Diplexing use to be the way to go, but since the new 5 lnb set ups, most are running a new line as they cannot share a line anymore, however, there are ways to diplex, that should work, but I do not have the link to send you to, some of the others may have it, hopefully they will chime in.
They do have a fix for this problem but it is not out available to the public yet.
Jimbo
Diplexors probably won't work.
They are not designed for the splitting of the OTA signal, They're designed to combine dtv and OTA signals into one cable feed.
They are not designed for the splitting of the OTA signal, They're designed to combine dtv and OTA signals into one cable feed.
Correct, that has always been my understanding, but I thought I had read that there was a workaround for it.
Probably should wait for the SWM I was trying to mention in my previous post
Jimbo
Thanks guys for your help. I am thinking, for now, that I am going to leave things the way they are because I have not had the searching for signal message in 24 hours. I still don't understand why I am getting the message, as there is nothing wrong with the picture. No pixelating. Just a real good picture.
Diplexers can work with the HR20 and the 5lnb dish. But not in the normal configuration.
I'm going to assume that you have the one HR20 and two cables coming directly from the dish to the two BBC dongles on the back of the HR20. If you have a multiswitch to feed additional receivers, the procedure is different.
1) Find a spot INDOORS but close to the dish where you can bring a new cable from the dish to a diplexer input. Failing that, you are going to have to figure out how to weatherproof one of the BBC dongles and the diplexer.
2) Remove one of the BBC dongles from the back of the set. Connect the cable to the "combined" side (the single input side) of one of the diplexers. You probably want a "DC block" on the OTA output.
3) Take the other diplexer and the BBC to the point close to the dish. Attach the cable from the dish to the BBC input, and the BBC output goes to the sat input of the diplexer. (the BBC is now between the dish and the diplexer sat input).
4) Take the OTA cable, and a "DC Block" and connect them to the OTA input of the diplexer. Attach the combined output to the cable running into the house.
5) Go back into the house and connect the OTA output of the diplexer to the OTA input on the HR20 (or to a splitter and then to the OTA input). Connect the diplexer sat output to the sat input of the HR20.
Code:
dish -- BBC --| |------------ SAT
diplexer ----- diplexer
ant --- DC Blk| |--DC blk -- OTAThe only caveat is that the distance between the BBC and the HR20 should be a short as possible. 50 feet is thought to be OK.
Note: DirecTV does not support this configuration.
Check the signal strength of the problem channel (it's under antenna setup). If it is less than 70 or so, occasional problems could be expected. I have gotten a decent picture for short periods at ~30, but it is not reliable. I am about 10 miles from a couple of stations but have problems even with an outside antenna (fortunately these are carried via satellite, but one of them wasn't until early this year and I was pretty much stuck with SD).
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