Need Shaw Direct Receiver Help Please

[bhmgolfer]

Something has happened to my Shaw Direct setup and I don't know what to do.

I have the DSR505 receiver and 75e dish. All was working well until yesterday.

We had some very high winds late yesterday and through the night to the extent that it blew my dish out of alignment very badly. I was without signal beginning last night and didn't have time to mess with it until this afternoon. I thought it would be quite easy to realign the dish. reacquire signal and get back to watching TV. I pulled up the signal meter on the receiver and went outside to align the dish (I can see my tv from the dish site, it's just outside my back window). For whatever reason, the signal bar only moved from about 13 to 17. No matter what I did, it would move beyond these numbers. I even pointed the dish way away from the satellite and the meter never went to zero...if I remember, it went down to 12. So the meter seems to be behaving very strange.

I unplugged the receiver, held the power button in for a reboot but still the same results. I switched to a different port on the lnb with no luck. I even hooked the dish and receiver up with a new cable again with no luck. I even did a factory reset which didn't help - it wiped out quite a few channels though.

I'm not sure what to do next. I have a small, single lnb ku dish - I think I can hook that up to the shaw receiver, point it to the 107 bird and see if it's an lnb issue with the 75e dish, correct? Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

Pete

 

[QCK]

I doubt that you LNB is the issue. Check you cable connections including inside the connectors. You will not be on the satellite until you get in the 40s. Take some more time to point the dish. It is often a little tricky to find if you have totaly lost your setup. Use this website: Satellite Finder / Dish Pointing Calculator with Google Maps | DishPointer.com Enter in your address. Below that there is a drop down menu to pick your satellite(s). Go down near the bottom to "Multi-LNB" and there you will find "Starchoice 107W & 111W". Then use the "Dish Setup Data" to get you close. Once you are close you should be able to tweek the dish to get it locked into the correct position.

 

[cspiteri]

I have a similar problem and am using a 10`Winegard dish. I can get certain stations and don`t have enough signal for others. Before the storm, I had no problem with any of the stations on my subscription. I`ve played with fine tuning both dish position and polarity and can`t get my previous levels. It`s not my dish alignment nor lnbs as reception is good on other sats both C & Ku. I`m beginning to think that the problem is in Shaw uplink or maybe the 111 footprint has shifted. I`m interested in knowing if others have experienced this problem.

 

[QCK]

The odds on the footprint changing right after a storm is highly unlikely. Nothing has changed for me here in Alabama. Look again at your dish positiion, connectors, cable, switches etc.

 

[joshuals]

I even pointed the dish way away from the satellite and the meter never went to zero...if I remember, it went down to 12. So the meter seems to be behaving very strange.

I believe this indicates that your LNB is working and that it is communicating with your receiver. Even if you are pointed away from the satellite, the meter will act this way due to naturally-occuring background noise. If it were an LNB, connector, or wire problem, your meter would likely show "zero" or the indicator on your receiver panel would show red (IMHO).

Did you check to be sure your mast is still plumb? If it is, then you can proceed with repointing the dish. If not, then fix this problem first. Check to see that the skew & elevation settings are still correct. When turning the dish in the east/west plane, be sure to move it in very small increments (like a half-inch at a time), and after each movement, give the meter several seconds to respond. It's not an instantaneous response.

Good luck.

 

[bhmgolfer]

Hey everyone. Thanks for all the replies. Once it warms up a little outside my plan of action is to go back and recheck connectors and alignment. I've left the receiver unplugged overnight - not sure if that means anything. If that fails, I'm going to hookup my single lnb ku dish and point it to the 107 shaw bird and see if that makes a difference. I'll report back later today. Again, thanks for all of your suggestions. Pete

 

[bhmgolfer]

Thursday afternoon update: No luck!

I connected the lnb to the receiver with new RG6 cable. Same results as before. The signal meter in the installation setup screen would go up to 18 and then down to 13 as I adjusted the dish position. I know I can't be that far off from my good settings when everything was working. I must have spent a good 2 hours playing with it and only saw readings vary between 13 and 18. This tells me that the cabling and connectors/connections are not the problem. In fact I distinctly remember that when I was aligning the dish a couple of months ago, the signal meter would move around pretty good all the way from 0 to about 80-90, whatever value I finally peaked at

That leaves only the receiver and the lnb. I called kusat and spoke to Richard for a good 10-15 minutes. He was very nice in his assistance. He brainstormed about every possible issue included mast at 90*, physical damage to the dish, and the fact that you have to be spot on satellite to receive the signal. He also told me to manually type in the EMM of 4128. I asked if it could possibly be a receiver issue and he said that if the receiver powers up and acts normal (which mine does but don't forget I did a factory reset using Options 6-4-9-8-8 then 6 ) then it is most unlikely a receiver problem. He told me to use channel 299 for the dish alignment which I have been doing. FYI, that factory reset wiped out the guide and many of the channel numbers. Richard said the only other thing that comes to mind is that the strong wind blew rain into the lnb housing and has damaged it.

Bottom line: Unless anybody has a suggestion, I believe I'm going to order a replacement lnb for my 75e dish. It's either the lnb or receiver and I'm hoping it's not the receiver for obvious reasons.

Pete

 

[QCK]

I would get the LNB for sure. Even if it isn't the problem it is nice to have a spare, & for your situation it helps for troubleshooting. I bought a spare just incase. Don't forget once you get the signal back you will need to do a re-hit online or call SD/broker to get your receiver activated again. Also, as you probably know make sure you get the LNB for the 75E dish and not the 60E dish.

 

[bhmgolfer]

Well, my new 75e lnb came in today. Put it on the dish and still no luck. Again, the signal meter in the installation setup varied between 14 and 19 like it did with the original lnb - it would never go to zero when I moved the dish significantly off line. I did my own install twice before ( I had service about 3.5 years ago and canceled and started again about 2 months ago.) I've never seen the signal meter behave like it is now. It would actually go to zero when I moved away and gradually increase as I got a better fix. I can only conclude that I have a problem with my lnb port on my receiver or there is a setting problem in the receiver that's not letting it lock on the satellite.

The only screen I know where you can make changes is in the service menu (Option button then 6-4-9-8-8;press the keys rapidly in that order - you wont see menu choices) which will bring up a service menu. If you select 1-Manual tune, I have the following settings for Tune 1:

Coding Mode 3/4*1
Symbol Rate 19.51
Frequency 995.25
EMM Provider ID 0
Modulation QPSK
Multplex Comb
Polarity R_V
22kHz Tone Off

Can someone please verify that these are correct. Any other ideas?

Thanks

Pete

 

[mikekohl]

Try using an MPEG-2 free to air receiver in place of your Star Choice box.
Methinks that you should have originally just rotated the dish back in place to wherever it was in azimuth before the storm. Now that you have replaced the LNBF and master cleared your receiver without downloading new channel maps, you're basically out of luck unless you find another device (or a working system) to connect to the quad LNBF. See the MPEG-2 settings on the Global Communications MPEG-2 listings, for 111,1 and 107.3 Ku band satellites.
www.global-cm.net

111.1 needs to have 22 KHz tone turned ON. 107.3 is off.
Other options would include an in line satellite tuning meter, which won't find the precise satellite, but will find something. You could then blind scan an MPEG-2 receiver to see where you are. Owning one of these systems without some backup test equipment is simply asking for trouble, when you are in an area where there are no satellite professionals familiar with your system.
The other more costly option would be a satellite tuning meter with real software, such as a Super Buddy, or the Trimax 2500 with analyzer.

 

[bhmgolfer]

Success!!!

My problem ended up being a dish alignment problem. My elevation setting was off by 2 degrees. Evidently the wind was strong enough to change the setting - I thought I had that pretty well tightened down on the dish but it must have worked loose. These 59 year old eyes and the gray elevation markings and gray position edge made it hard for me to pick up the fact that it had changed. Once I corrected it, the receiver picked up the satellite very quickly. Immediately went online and got a rehit and I was back to watching TV.

Thanks to everyone for keeping me focused and for all of your encouragement.

You guys are super!

 

[AlmostThere]

Success!!!

My problem ended up being a dish alignment problem. My elevation setting was off by 2 degrees. Evidently the wind was strong enough to change the setting - I thought I had that pretty well tightened down on the dish but it must have worked loose. These 59 year old eyes and the gray elevation markings and gray position edge made it hard for me to pick up the fact that it had changed. Once I corrected it, the receiver picked up the satellite very quickly. Immediately went online and got a rehit and I was back to watching TV.

Thanks to everyone for keeping me focused and for all of your encouragement.

You guys are super!

One thing to do now, I did on my dish and my eyes slgihtly younger. Get a sharpie or other marker and mark the settings. It will be easier to align next time if needed.