H20-600 PARTIAL RECALL BY DTV

[randyk47]

Thanks. I missed that thread somehow....my bad.

 

[dfergie]

Merged...

 

[MikeinBaja]

Got a call from DirecTV this afternoon about a defective receiver they wanted to replace. Well, OK but I thought all mine were working just fine. I was assured that they'd detected a problem with the H20-600 units and were in the process of replacing them. Stayed on the line and the CSR who came on said they'd identified my H20 as part of a defective batch. Hmm....I've had it for a couple of years and it's actually been my most dependable receiver but whatever. At first the CSR said they'd be sending me a brand new H21. I told him I wanted OTA capability so they'd have to send along an AM21. Hmmm....."guess we'll be sending you a rehabbed H20". He didn't seem to mine that I have one of the few truly owned H20's and he confirmed the "new" one will be registered as owned also. Couldn't help but wonder if that had some impact on the switch of the initial H21 to an H20. Oh well......my H20 works just fine so I haven't the faintest idea what's going on.

My H20 was also owned and was working perfectly - although that dude sure ran hot! Sometimes, you couldn't even touch the box - it ran that hot.

The replacement they sent was a new (not reconditioned) H21 with a new remote. Seems to push out a good 1080i picture through the HDMI, and it sure runs much cooler.

Worst part was having to tear apart my entertainment center because the power cords are a different pattern .

Interestingly enough, the day before the new H21 arrived the H20 died, so even if your H20 is running well I'd urge you to do the swap before it dies on you (right before a game you want to watch, of course!).

 

[randyk47]

My absolutely guaranteed H20 replacement for the supposedly bad H20 arrived today. It's on the porch with the return sticker and FedEx picks it up tomorrow. Why? The guaranteed replacement turned out to be an H21 and I'm not even sure it was new. Called DirecTV and after 30 minutes we agreed that they couldn't satisfy my requirement for OTA so the H21 is on it's way back. My H20 that they were replacing? It's running fine so I'll just leave it alone until it fails. It's one of the few truly owned H20 and they even said the H21 would appear as owned but without the OTA it wasn't worth it. Too bad the AM-21 won't work with an H21, that would have been the better solution.

 

[HDinCincy]

Installed my H21 today. It's not as 'pretty' as the old one (which was still working perfectly) but it's fine. I kept my old remote even though it's only a 32 (no RF?) and sent the new one back.

 

[randyk47]

I agree, the black H21 doesn't like as "pretty" as the H20 but once it's stuffed into the component rack it's not a big deal. I've already got a mixture of silver and black components so it really doesn't make a difference. As it turns out I finally upgraded my EDTV to an HDTV this weekend. The old TV was being fed by an H10 so I called DircecTV yesterday morning to order an upgrade. Yep, I'll be getting an H21 without OTA but I can live with that on one TV and will actually swap receivers around so I have OTA capability on two HDTV's, one downstairs and one upstairs. I tried to get them to let me keep the H21 they sent for the now failed H20 swap out but they can't do that, something about two different programs and they can't cross level between the two.

Follow on: Just got a call from a supervisor at DirecTV. They were reviewing the calls from yesterday and decided I'd gotten "jerked" around by the CSR's. Supposedly they're shipping me an H20 today. We'll see........

 

[randyk47]

The adventure with DirecTV continued for a couple of days after my previous posting. The end of the story was that I got two boxes delivered Wednesday. One was an H20 and the other an HR20. I'm assuming the H20 was the swap out for the supposedly bad H20. The HR20 was supposed to be an H21 to replace the H10 but whatever works for them in this case works for me. Getting the HR20 up and running was a bit of a challenge because of the software upgrades but it's working fine now. Total cost was $0.

 

[hdtvtechno]

The AM21 is just for HR21, not H21.
.

how about the R22 ?

 

[MikeinBaja]

Since there have been 3 different folks posting problems with these recalled boxes in the last few days, thought I'd bump the thread up to current.