Hopper 3 install report and key learnings, tips, tricks

bookworm370

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 11, 2009
1,157
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Columbus, Ohio
Well, amazingly all up and running like a greased pig! The tech (Dave) called and arrived just in time. It was his 'very' first H3 install so I told him that I was pretty versed, told him about sat guys, showed him the diagrams and as an EE I could help with the internal swap-outs while he did the hybrid LNB swap.

A few key learning's for new installs.
  • Do NOT hook up (you can connect but do not power on the Joey's) before the H3 has completely downloaded all it software and it's up and running. While they connected, they showed a guide but no picture. He had to do a Hard reset on all the Joey's to get them to download the current software again. That's what took the most time and was vexing until we figured it out. So on an upgrade, Hopper3 first, make sure all is working then install (or if wired) plug in the Joey's so get them to redownload the new software. Each of them went through the complete download. Now they work great.

  • If you have your current Joey 1's in place they haven't changed the power connector which was a good thing for me as 2 of them were rater convoluted. That was nice.

  • I downloaded all the timers I could on my old 40.0 remote and after pairing the new 52 remote I paired the old one and went into the remotes option. Behold there was a separate section for restore remote. I pressed it and it, YES, it loaded all the timers, even started to record on that what close to being started and has already scheduled out the new recordings out as far as I can see. BUT: Caveat, if you restore the remote it will cause the H3 to restart. This sort of put a crimp on the install of the Joey's as defined above. Just keep it in mind that when you restore your timers the H3 will reboot.

  • By default it will want to connect via WiFi, I have a direct 1G eithernet cable so you have to go into the network settings section and tell it to use the top (we used the top eithernet port) and do a network reset. Once it was done we had a great connection

  • They finally got wise and replaced the cheap plastic bases on the Joey's to metal on the Joey 2's. Those things put out heat and I used to have a USB fan blowing across each of them. With the metal bases the bases act as heat sinks to keep it cool. Only an engineer like me would notice, but when I picked up the old one and the new one I new exactly why they chanced to metal bases. An under the cover fix possible Joey issues. So if your installer doesn't want to use the base because he says you don't need one or use the existing base on your Joey 1, don't let him do it. Insist regarding on orientation that the metal base is installed.
PQ is super nice and again, channel changes are very fast. While I don't have 4K, I do have the Samsung 67 inch Plasma PN TV. Had to tell during the day but to me it looks better.

I'm still going though all the settings and getting used to the new UI, not as bad as I thought and especially the remote but everything (tiles, schedule, etc) totally populated before we even checked if they were there. I have to go through my Denon AVR tweaks for dynamic volume, EQ and the rest to get optimum results but for now all is well.

But I really do wish they kept the red recording light, I know it's too late, but you can't tell unless you go through the menus to see if anything is recording if you want to do a power pop restart.

More as I find other tips.
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I thought I heard that the Joey 2.0's used the same type of power plug but were not necessarily using the same power? Might want to check the wall wart of an older Joey versus the Joey 2.
 
I thought I heard that the Joey 2.0's used the same type of power plug but were not necessarily using the same power? Might want to check the wall wart of an older Joey versus the Joey 2.
I would assume they are the same. On one of our Joeys, the wall wart cord was ziptied to the tv mount. The tech unplugged it, plugged the Joey 2 in and we were off to the races.