DISH is Electrifying!!!

stardust3

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Welcome to the forum. Yes I've seen this many times. There is wiring problem in your electrical system. These aren't easy to find. Take a polarity checker and start checking ALL your receptacles. If no problem found start turning off breakers until the voltage on the coax disappears. It could be many things but is a process of elimination.

The receiver feeds low voltage dc current back to the lnb thru the coax. This voltage your seeing is more than likely feeding from the ground on the plug itself.
 

kwindrem

SatelliteGuys Pro
May 5, 2006
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Be VERY careful.

Are you sure your meter's reference is really ground? Safety ground is the outlet's U-shaped pin. Neutral should be the longer of the two and close to the same voltage as the U-ground. The shorter pin should be the hot lead and you should see approximately 115-120 volts from both U-ground and the long neutral pin.

If you are referencing your meter properly, you have a potentially serious and life-treatening situation that needs to be addressed immediately by a professional.

For safety reasons, you should, hire an electrician and tell him you may have a safety ground that may to be connected to a hot lead.

Until that happens, I would tape off the coax and the outlet you were using as a reference to avoid shock/death/fire. If you can identify a specific breaker putting line voltage where it doesn't belong, turn it off and red tag it until the problem can be fixed.
 
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dishdude

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Hot and neutral on the receptacle are probably reversed. Do you have one of these?
61-500.jpg
 
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. Raine

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Welcome to SatGuys!

As others have said, be very careful. Probably the potential voltage is there, but not the current, but that can change any time and be a dangerous situation. Could be a polarity issue, ground issue, wire against a pipe somewhere, something wet causing a path, quite a few different things. If it isn't something simple, best to get a electrician to look at it.
 

stardust3

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Watched his other videos posted on YouTube. He clearly thinks this is Dish's fault. Also in 1 of them the hopper was unplugged from the receptacle. Voltage is being introduced into the coax via ground without a doubt.

He's got a serious situation that needs addressed immediately. The 1 thing that blew me away is when he let a young girl hold the metal end of the voltage tester while he touched the hot lead to the cable. She was getting shocked.....this is not how you test for voltage with a human ground!!!!
 

Skytrooper

SatelliteGuys Pro
Nov 5, 2012
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Baden, Pa.
Yep, the OP has some serious issues. When I moved into my home, the neutral and hot were reversed in my bathroom. Turned off the breaker to do some work. Light went off and I thought I was good to go. Anyhow, touched ground and the still hot wire and bzzzzz. I lit up.

I rewired my home since then. But every time I turn a breaker off to do some work, I double check since that experience.
 

dare2be

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This reeks of a troll post to me. First post, no specific question or asking for help. Just looking like a ploy to get more hits to his video(s).
 

stardust3

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On an upgrade within the last year I had 120 volts across the stinger and jacket at the dish. 2 lnb's & 3 fried receivers later plus a few more grey hairs. Here's what I found.

The house had an old 200 amp fuse panel. Someone, probably the homeowners deceased husband removed a 220 volt baseboard heater. In its place he installed a standard 110 volt receptacle. However the wiring in the fuse panel was NOT changed and left like it was for the baseboard heater leaving 220 volts at the receptacle. Everything in that place was a potential shock hazard and a wonder the house never burned down.

I've seen dangerous voltage many times on coax cable. This is just the latest incident. This is not Dish's place to fix your fried TV's rather your homeowners or renters insurance based on what caused this. I feel pretty confident in saying the dish system didn't fry anything.
 

EPritt

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Oct 9, 2015
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Childress, TX
Thank you for all you replies...I have had electricians out here on 3 occasions since all this began. They have checked the outlet, the house ground, other outlets on that circuit, AND the other circuits that other Hoppers and Joeys were plugged in. They have replaced the wiring on the leg that feeds that outlet nearest the video location, other legs have been recently (within 5-10 years) with various additions and upgrades in the house. As far as Dish Network being at fault or not....we don't know where the voltage is coming from, but we do know, and Dish admitted it was a bad install with no ground for any of the equipment.

We have removed all DISH gear....as a preventative measure, for fire, etc....and continuing to try and track what might and apparently be an electrical issue.

My issue with DISH over this is them denying this could ever happen, and apparently DOES happen, and would have been nice to know of the issue earlier. So far, no fires, no one seriously shocked, etc... Just a loss of some replaceable hardware.

Again Thanks for you responses, and I will update you further as we get further into the electrical issue.
 

stardust3

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If you're getting voltage on the coax with the dish receivers unplugged the dish system has to be grounded somewhere unless there's a hot wire physically touching the dish.

Nothing can be ruled out as far as where this is coming from including appliances and anything that uses electric. It could be coming in from the power company's distribution as well.

This is just my opinion but I think it's a waste of time and money to start replacing stuff until the known cause is found.

The very 1st thing I'd do would be to start shutting off circuits 1 at a time until the voltage disappeared. At least that way you'd know which circuit was the issue and could go from there. Like I stated earlier it's a process of elimination.

I hope you figure it out and would be curious to know the cause. I'm sorry if I sounded offensive earlier, just seen this to many times and know how these systems work. Keep us updated.
 
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dishdude

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Thank you for all you replies...I have had electricians out here on 3 occasions since all this began. They have checked the outlet, the house ground, other outlets on that circuit, AND the other circuits that other Hoppers and Joeys were plugged in. They have replaced the wiring on the leg that feeds that outlet nearest the video location, other legs have been recently (within 5-10 years) with various additions and upgrades in the house. As far as Dish Network being at fault or not....we don't know where the voltage is coming from, but we do know, and Dish admitted it was a bad install with no ground for any of the equipment.

We have removed all DISH gear....as a preventative measure, for fire, etc....and continuing to try and track what might and apparently be an electrical issue.

My issue with DISH over this is them denying this could ever happen, and apparently DOES happen, and would have been nice to know of the issue earlier. So far, no fires, no one seriously shocked, etc... Just a loss of some replaceable hardware.

Again Thanks for you responses, and I will update you further as we get further into the electrical issue.

This isn't an issue with Dish hardware, this is clearly an electrical wiring issue within the structure of your house. If you have multiple receivers/hoppers/joeys, the coax connects multiple circuits together at the grounding block, LNB and node. In a house that the wiring is correct on, this isn't an issue. If you have a receptacle along the way that is reversed, it can create an issue. The wood paneling in the picture is almost always a sign that someone did it themselves, and did it wrong.

Stardust is correct, anything plugged in to any circuit is suspect. The Dish equipment is not the cause, just the symptom.
 
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