Install scheduled.

[jokeworm]

Well - the time has come for me to jump back to the dark side.

I just gave Direct a call ...

Got the AAA discount (10*24)- $18 off for year one regular promo - 1 year free Showtime - 3 months free starz, and $50 referral discount. They are due out here on Thursday ....

Gain some stuff - lose some stuff - price works out overall for the channels that i need .. pretty much the same as i was paying with dish ... but i gain marginally more than i lose - so I'm happy.

Question ... want to make sure that I am getting the best signal possible with the install as the last time we tried this i had the guys back out three times before they got it right ...

Is there a way to check the signal strength that i am getting while the guys are here .. and what levels would be "acceptable" and "good" I'm due to get a HR-20 (if they have one) or most likely a HR-21 ..

Also - I was thinking about telling the guy up-font that if he is willing to spend a little bit of time making sure that the signals he locks in are better than the norm - I'll make it worth his while ... Does this seem reasonable ? And if so - what would be a reasonable amount to drop the guy if he is able to go the extra mile ?

 

[charper1]

Use the signal strength meter in the unit; and don't sign off till you have check it to your satisfaction.

I say shoot for no less that 89. 92 is my lowest, but most are 97/98 and a few 100s. Some should be really low or zero as they are not for your area (make sure you get all your channels).

I would not mention anything about making it worth his while up front for doing his job as expected; if you care to tip about $20 afterward because he did it right the first time and in a timely manner; then great.

 

[Jimbo]

Well - the time has come for me to jump back to the dark side.

I just gave Direct a call ...

Got the AAA discount (10*24)- $18 off for year one regular promo - 1 year free Showtime - 3 months free starz, and $50 referral discount. They are due out here on Thursday ....

Gain some stuff - lose some stuff - price works out overall for the channels that i need .. pretty much the same as i was paying with dish ... but i gain marginally more than i lose - so I'm happy.

Question ... want to make sure that I am getting the best signal possible with the install as the last time we tried this i had the guys back out three times before they got it right ...

Is there a way to check the signal strength that i am getting while the guys are here .. and what levels would be "acceptable" and "good" I'm due to get a HR-20 (if they have one) or most likely a HR-21 ..

Also - I was thinking about telling the guy up-font that if he is willing to spend a little bit of time making sure that the signals he locks in are better than the norm - I'll make it worth his while ... Does this seem reasonable ? And if so - what would be a reasonable amount to drop the guy if he is able to go the extra mile ?

Checking signals ???
Sure, once he set it up , he'll use his meter, don't worry about what his meter is saying, if he's telling you that stuff as the meters do not read the same as the boxes.
Once he has the rec. set up you can go into the Signal Strength menu and check them while he's there.

Menu > Set Up > System Setup > Sat and Antenna > View Signal Strength.

The majority should be 80 - 100, there will be a few that will read lower, a few that will read zero, those are once that are not in your area.

Make sure you have strong signals on the 101 and the 103c (b, in some instances) , but you should really be up there on the majority.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Jimbo

 

[jokeworm]

Thanks Guys

bad storms here today and tomorrow - cloudy on weds ... perfect clear skies on Thursday - looks like he is not going to have any excuse not to get a decent signal

 

[jokeworm]

everything installed ..

101 shows pretty much everything at 96-100.
110 = mid 80's
119 = mid-high 90's
103(c) = 87-92

does this sound about right ?

Very clean install .. they took down my dish LNB's for me to save me wrestling with everything, and they even cleaned up a bit of the wiring that was looking rather untidy.

Two guys came out .. both looked as though they had been doing this for a while .. one may not be 100% familiar with Directv setup - but seemed to know his way around the wiring and everything else - so i suspect he was a defect from Dish just brushing up on the directv install procedure.

Took them about 2 1/2 hours to setup and install for one room.

Nice guys.

Gave them $20 which should get them lunch. They seemed more than happy with that.



Am happy so far. Picture does not look quite as sharp on a couple of channels .. (HD Theater?) but looks great on the majority.... certainly on par with dish - if not slightly better on most.

One thing I have noticed is that the screen flickers gray - then block (searching for signal) before locking in and loading the channel .. is this because I am using HDMI connection from HR-21 to the samsung plasma ? Would component connection give a smoother picture change (asking before i pull out the tv to get behind it)

 

[raoul5788]

everything installed ..

101 shows pretty much everything at 96-100.
110 = mid 80's
119 = mid-high 90's
103(c) = 87-92

does this sound about right ?

Very clean install .. they took down my dish LNB's for me to save me wrestling with everything, and they even cleaned up a bit of the wiring that was looking rather untidy.

Two guys came out .. both looked as though they had been doing this for a while .. one may not be 100% familiar with Directv setup - but seemed to know his way around the wiring and everything else - so i suspect he was a defect from Dish just brushing up on the directv install procedure.

Took them about 2 1/2 hours to setup and install for one room.

Nice guys.

Gave them $20 which should get them lunch. They seemed more than happy with that.



Am happy so far. Picture does not look quite as sharp on a couple of channels .. (HD Theater?) but looks great on the majority.... certainly on par with dish - if not slightly better on most.

One thing I have noticed is that the screen flickers gray - then block (searching for signal) before locking in and loading the channel .. is this because I am using HDMI connection from HR-21 to the samsung plasma ? Would component connection give a smoother picture change (asking before i pull out the tv to get behind it)

Those numbers should be fine. They could be slightly higher, but not much. How about 99? What are your numbers there? As to the channel changing speed, do you have the display set to native on or off? Off gives faster changes, IIRC. HD Theater is still mpeg2. When they change it to mpeg4, which should happen when D11 is up and running, you will see an improvement.

 

[jokeworm]

How about 99? What are your numbers there? As to the channel changing speed, do you have the display set to native on or off? Off gives faster changes

Number on 99 are in the high 90's for the most part ... 96,97,98

Just found the media player in the menu's .. awesome ! - i will use the media player almost as much as i will use the regular DVR.

The change is done in a reasonable amount of time - However it appears that on each change - my TV does a "search" for the HDMI signal which adds a second or two to the change - will hook up to component and see if it is any smoother.

So far - i'm impressed with the programming - the quality and the DVR's "shortcomings" v's the 622 have not yet become too apparent for me ... sure you have to do things slightly differently ... but its certainly not the "night and day" nightmare that some people here try to present.

For me - the fact that the box is also a Media player already puts this box three steps ahead of the 622

 

[Jimbo]

Thanks Guys

bad storms here today and tomorrow - cloudy on weds ... perfect clear skies on Thursday - looks like he is not going to have any excuse not to get a decent signal

None of these are a reason for bad signals, I prefer they set up under bad weather, this way you can see what your readings will be in inclimate weather ( I didn't say the middle of a storm)

Jimbo

 

[Jimbo]

Number on 99 are in the high 90's for the most part ... 96,97,98

Just found the media player in the menu's .. awesome ! - i will use the media player almost as much as i will use the regular DVR.

The change is done in a reasonable amount of time - However it appears that on each change - my TV does a "search" for the HDMI signal which adds a second or two to the change - will hook up to component and see if it is any smoother.

So far - i'm impressed with the programming - the quality and the DVR's "shortcomings" v's the 622 have not yet become too apparent for me ... sure you have to do things slightly differently ... but its certainly not the "night and day" nightmare that some people here try to present.

For me - the fact that the box is also a Media player already puts this box three steps ahead of the 622

The fact that you are using HDMI may cause the slower times as well, the TV and Rec have to do a handshake each time it's changed.

Jimbo

 

[Shipsnake]

I think i am going to call Plasma concepts tomorrow and set up D* as well.

 

[jokeworm]

switched to component connections - shaves the time it takes to switch channels a little more .. no noticeable difference in picture quality

 

[raoul5788]

switched to component connections - shaves the time it takes to switch channels a little more .. no noticeable difference in picture quality

:up

 

[jokeworm]

Hit my first problem last night - skipping through the channels and noticed that i got a 771 "searching for signal" error ... error showed both searching 1 and searching 2 on different channels.

In total - i lost 7 channels. All HD

71 Showtime HD
72 ESPN2HD
73 ESPNHD
74 Universal HD
75 TNT HD HD
76 HD Theater
78 HDNet Movies

and also their equivalents further up the channel list.


Reset receiver - checked cables - weather was fine - called tech support who setup a tech visit for today 12-2pm ... just woke up this morning and all of the channels are back up and running.

Should I let the tech make his visit and check everything out ... or should I cancel the visit as everything appears to be good again right now. ?

As far as i can tell - these channels are the Mpeg2 channels .. looks like they are coming at me from 110 .. am I right ? I want to try and do a check of the signal strength for the satellite/transponders that those channels are coming from.

Edit - assumuming that the signals do come from 110 ... I just checked my signal strength -
shows only three transponders 8, 10 and 12.

Signal strength is showing 86 and 87 on both tuner one and two - is this sufficient ?

 

[jcrandall]

110 only has 3 transponders. They will generally be a little lower signal, because the dish is peaked on 101 & 119. Those readings should be ok.

If they go out again, immediately go into signal strength and see what you have on 110.

 

[jokeworm]

If they go out again, immediately go into signal strength and see what you have on 110.

Wouldn't you know it - got up this morning and everything was back to normal .. so i called and canceled the scheduled appointment. Everything has been great all day ... but ...

Channels have just gone out again now - same channels ... temperature has been in the high 50's low 60's all day - so temperature should not be effecting anything.

Checked signal on 110 ... "Not Acquired" is showing. with signal Meters. Zero is showing in the table for the three transponders.

99(s) - I have four showing zero and one 98 and one 100
103(s) - are in the low 90's for the ones that are showing a signal.
103(c) - high 80's - low 90's
101 - mid-high 90's
110 - zero on either tuner.

time to call and make another appointment i guess ... reset did not bring anything back.




Flaky LNB ?

 

[Jimbo]

110 only has 3 transponders. They will generally be a little lower signal, because the dish is peaked on 101 & 119. Those readings should be ok.

If they go out again, immediately go into signal strength and see what you have on 110.

Some of them are on the 110 and others on the 101
I think one of the ESPN's is on 101 and the other is on 110, I haven't chacked lately but I remember that they were not on the same sat when I was looking into the HD mpeg2 channels that are left.

I have an old list showing the 70 being on 101, 110 and 119 kinda scattered , this could be different by now that was about 9 months ago.

Jimbo

 

[jokeworm]

scheduled to come out Monday evening 4pm-8pm ... channels just came back on again an hour ago - so i lost them for around 18-20 hours this time. I was kinda hoping that they would stay off so that the guy would not be troubleshooting an "intermittent" problem. Tech support seem to think "switch or LNB problem"

 

[Jimbo]

scheduled to come out Monday evening 4pm-8pm ... channels just came back on again an hour ago - so i lost them for around 18-20 hours this time. I was kinda hoping that they would stay off so that the guy would not be troubleshooting an "intermittent" problem. Tech support seem to think "switch or LNB problem"

Do you have a Multiswitch in the set up ?
If so, you can bypass that your self and have a good idea whats going on from there.

Jimbo

 

[jokeworm]

Do you have a Multiswitch in the set up ?
Jimbo

I have no idea .. its only a one-room HR-21 install ....

edit : Just taken a closer look .... does not seem like I have anything fancy ... 4 cables coming down from dish (I'm pretty sure he told me that he put two "spare" up there in case i ever needed to upgrade or in case they were ever needed.)

The 4 cables go into what looks like a knuckleduster ... and two cables come out the other side ... so it would seem to be like a pass-through kind of splitter/extender (sorry i don't know the technical terms for these things - can you tell ?) - The two cables then go from this knuckleduster to the side of my house and into the back of the boxes.

So I'm guessing - as it seems to be just the channels on 110 that go bad - that it's possibly the LNB or the connection from the cable to the LNB that is bad ? (The searching message and the signal problems are on both inputs)

 

[Jimbo]

I have no idea .. its only a one-room HR-21 install ....

edit : Just taken a closer look .... does not seem like I have anything fancy ... 4 cables coming down from dish (I'm pretty sure he told me that he put two "spare" up there in case i ever needed to upgrade or in case they were ever needed.)

The 4 cables go into what looks like a knuckleduster ... and two cables come out the other side ... so it would seem to be like a pass-through kind of splitter/extender (sorry i don't know the technical terms for these things - can you tell ?) - The two cables then go from this knuckleduster to the side of my house and into the back of the boxes.

So I'm guessing - as it seems to be just the channels on 110 that go bad - that it's possibly the LNB or the connection from the cable to the LNB that is bad ? (The searching message and the signal problems are on both inputs)

Sounds like you have no MS , the wires go from the LNB to a ground block and then into the rec's.

If you only have 1 rec set up then you have no need for a MS.

Just curious, go out and check to see if your connections at your ground block are tight as well as behind the rec.
Did the installer run NEW runs or use existing runs ?

Jimbo