Joey signal issue report

[sclaws]

Day one with the Hopper/Joey and I'm having a signal issue. The Joey reports full MoCA signal strength, but once I ascend passed ch. 111 I start getting "Searching for satellite signal" warnings. This persists until after ch. 210, so far. I checked the Hopper signal strength and its peaked fine, and I am receiving the channels fine there.

This hardware is so new that I'm not sure if I should even try to troubleshoot this, or dare calling a CSR in hopes of getting any response other than "reboot the Joey and wait".

Any thoughts?

 

[Tampa8]

Does it pass by something sending a strong enough signal to interrupt at those frequencies?

 

[sclaws]

Does it pass by something sending a strong enough signal to interrupt at those frequencies?

I don't know what would do that, but I don't think so. The cable runs straight two floors in the walls to a wall jack in a loft.

BTW, I knew I'd ask for trouble by calling a CSR, and I was right. After I told him what was happening and what I did to try to troubleshoot, he had me unplug the Joey, then unplug the Hopper for 10 seconds...with the intent of reconnecting the Joey after the Hopper rebooted. BAD!!!! The stinking Hopper came back alright, but MISSING THE SAME CHANNELS AS THE JOEY!

OK, time for an early-adopter deep breath. Dish is rolling an on-site tech here tomorrow morning to check this out. Until then, I have a few beer left to keep me frosty.

 

[rdinkel]

Sounds like an issue of all frequencies not being passed between the Node and Hopper, since the Hopper now also is not seeing those channels. Was new RG6 3ghz coax run between the Node and the Hopper? If not, do you know the rating of the existing coax? Is the Node outside near the dish, or closer to the Hopper? Just thinking where I start looking..........

 

[kwindrem]

Day one with the Hopper/Joey and I'm having a signal issue. The Joey reports full MoCA signal strength, but once I ascend passed ch. 111 I start getting "Searching for satellite signal" warnings. This persists until after ch. 210, so far. I checked the Hopper signal strength and its peaked fine, and I am receiving the channels fine there.

This hardware is so new that I'm not sure if I should even try to troubleshoot this, or dare calling a CSR in hopes of getting any response other than "reboot the Joey and wait".

Any thoughts?

Hopefully the Hopper status page will list health of all three tuners and for each satellite. Make sure all satellites and polarities are green for all three tuners.

Use the Point Dish menu to check signal strengths. Make sure all three tuners have similar signal strengths for a given satellite/transponder.

Keep in mind that the satellite tuner is in the Hopper. The signal between Hopper and Joey will be at the same frequency regardless of which channel you tune to. So this is not a MOCA network issue.

Something else to keep in mind is that the channel numbers have nothing to do with frequency (transponder) or satellite. You need the DishChannelChart (link at the top of the SatelliteGuys pages) to translate between channel number and frequency/satellite.

Also, the satellite signals feeding the three tuners are frequency stacked on the same coax cable. One used frequencies close to 3 GHz. If you have a long coax run and it's not rated for 3 GHz you might be loosing signal for that tuner.

It's possible but not likely one of the tuners in the Hopper is marginal. Whey you rebooted the Hopper, it got the flakey tuner.

 

[sclaws]

Thx for the responses. I've yet to make any changes, however this morning the Hopper came up operating normally while the Joey remains with the same issues I mentioned. Dish tech should be here in the next 2hrs or so, so I'm going to look at the signal strengths on both of my Hoppers to see if there are any big differences.

My house was built in 2004 pre-wired with cat6, but on the jacket it shows it passed at 2.4Ghz. However, the Hopper connected to the Joey with the issues is connected to RG6 3Ghz that I ran myself for a 622 when we added a bedroom TV about 3yrs ago.

The node is inside in the basement, closer to the Joey. I'd say the Hopper line runs about 60' to the node, with the distance from the node to the joey about 15'.

I'll hold these suggestions close to hand if he doesn't come up with any fixes and will post here with any updates. Thx again for the continued help

 

[sclaws]

Tech is here...not totally confident in this one. He's out on the roof realigning the sat dishes after re-terminating the RG6 to the Joey.

 

[Tampa8]

Keep us updated! Would like to know the fix, if he finds it.

 

[sclaws]

OK, he's done. After his initial tests he re-aligned the dish (gained about 10pts all-around) and now the Joey and Hopper are both receiving all content. I wasn't convinced this would be the fix, but at the moment all is well.