New to Forum, need Dish Network Help

[2ndsout]

Hello,

I am a newbie here to this forum. Looks like alot of information. I am hoping someone can help me.

I have had Dish Network since August 2005. The service has been great. I have never moved any of my indoor equipment, it has always stayed in the same location on top of my television. All cables are good and connected.

At 730PM tonight, I went to turn my TV on, and I got an ATTENTION 015 message stating that the Satellite signal was trying to be acquired. Well, it never did. 20 Minutes later I called Dish Network's phone number asking them for help. An hour after that, I STILL don't have a signal.

From the System Info One page that is currently displaying on my TV screen:

I have Dish 322 setup running L424 Software. The Device is a DPP Twin, Twin (1), Twin (2)

Satellite 119 and 110 both display a Red Box with white Diagonal X's under each listed Satellite.

The Status box (Box A) will update and go through various percentages and then it says: "Check "Details" for LNB.

Listed under Details I have the following information:

LNB Drift Detected...
0X00, 0xa1, 119(e -7)(o -5)
0X00, 0xa1, 110(e -7)(o -5)

There has been some heavy cloud cover, probably due to Hurricane Gustav (I'm in Cincinnati Ohio). I don't have any trees around my house at all.

From one of the options is mentions that the Dish is out of alignment.

I was a bit upset and managed to get Dish to waive the fee to send someone out to take a look at the setup, but is there anything I can do to realign my dish myself, or point the dish to a specific location?

I also can scroll down on my Stats page and it says the following:

STB Health Life
Tuner 0 as of Orbital: 14 15 16 21
Tuner 1 as of Oribatl: 14 15 16 21

Followed by:

a Group of Values.

I've unplugged the unit and shut it off, turned in back on. Do LNB pieces go bad after a certain time? How difficult is it to realign a Satellite Dish?

As I stated, the Dish has worked great with NO ISSUES, until tonight.

Can anyone help me at all? I know I am new, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible in my post. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate the help.

Thank you.

Bryan

 

[EquatorialMan]

looks like to me that you may need to have the lnb replaced, it is probably not the alignment. have you ever noticed the video freezing and audio continues and then the video catches back up- this happens w/an lnb problem. look at block B this is the number of signal losses in 48 hours...you have a service call comming, let them do the work...

 

[lakebum431]

Where is your dish located? If it is easy to get to go take a look and see if it is loose. If so it is probably an alignment issue, if not it is likely a hardware failure that they will have to replace. If it is loose you can try to realign yourself. see if you can see marks on the dish where the screws that keep the dish from going up and down or left and right have moved. If so you can move back and tighten the screws. If you can't see where the screws were then you can try to move slowly and slightly to get a signal, but you might be best off just waiting for the installer to come fix for you.

 

[boba]

After 3 years of exposure look at the connections on your ground block or any other that are exposed to the weather. Low voltage electricity is carried on the coaxail cable if water has gotten into a fitting corrosion like on a car battery is possible. if there is a loss of continuity you lose your signal.

 

[Y2k06]

I had that problem too (drift), and they sent a tech out within 48 hours and swapped out the old 1000 for a 1000.2 with all new LNB's. They left the old stuff and said I could keep it for all they cared.

 

[skyviewmark]

Not sure if a -7 drift is enough to get a service call.. If memory serves me it's a -8 before it is bad enough.. But neither here nor there. I see this loss of signal often with Dish. Sometimes it's fixed with a simple hard reset. Unplug the box.. If that doesn't fix the problem then start checking your cables. You didn't actually give the signal level of each satellite so I don't know if you have an alignment issue or not. I have seen LNB's still working with a -12 drift although they start getting a bit sluggish.

 

[tastim]

LO Drift is bad, no matter how little. Call Dish and get your LNBF replaced. The tech will (ok, SHOULD) check all the connections and alignment while he is there too... but I would put money on the Drift being your problem.

The above poster is correct in that a service call will not be automatically generated for a -7... but that doesn't mean that the LNBF is good... they just had to set the bar somewhere.... besides, if a phone line is not connected they have no way to detect the drift anyway.

Call them.

 

[2ndsout]

Not sure if a -7 drift is enough to get a service call.. If memory serves me it's a -8 before it is bad enough.. But neither here nor there. I see this loss of signal often with Dish. Sometimes it's fixed with a simple hard reset. Unplug the box.. If that doesn't fix the problem then start checking your cables. You didn't actually give the signal level of each satellite so I don't know if you have an alignment issue or not. I have seen LNB's still working with a -12 drift although they start getting a bit sluggish.

Hey, thanks for the reply. I did try unplugging the box for a good couple of hours to see what would happen, and I still have the same thing. I even tried over the weekend to go through the whole process as the tech described to me over the phone...still have the same Drift detected. To answer you question sky, in the satellite boxes on the setup screen for both 110 and 119 I got Red Boxes with White X's in each of them. :/

The more I think about it, I think that the LNB is bad, because two weeks ago, while my wife and I were watching TV, we had noticed a couple of times on different occasions that we would get Digital artifacts in the picture and then they would go away after about 30 seconds, and the picture would freeze momentarily. There was one day when the picture called up the menu, and we didn't even have the remote in hand, and we had to use the remote to get the menu off screen...it was a weird that it only happened once.


The weekend was kind of sucky, because I missed all the NFL games yesterday

Hopefully, the LNB is the only thing that needs to be replaced. When the LNB's go bad, are the receivers okay too? Or does the whole setup need to be replaced (dish AND receivers)?

Just wondering because never had this happen before now in 3 years of service.

So if Dish Network, replaces the LNB; what kind of gurantee/warranty do they offer so that this doesn't happen again? I hope that I don't need to be replacing LNB setups every 3 years.

I did manage to get them to waive the $29.99 tech service call, as they stated that the equipment was still under warranty.

 

[2ndsout]

I had that problem too (drift), and they sent a tech out within 48 hours and swapped out the old 1000 for a 1000.2 with all new LNB's. They left the old stuff and said I could keep it for all they cared.

When you had your stuff fixed...how long did it take the tech to fix them? The tech is going to be out at my house Wednesday between 8AM-12PM.

I had asked Customer Service yesterday and they had said it really depends on the Tech and what is wrong with the setup.

Can you give me a ball park idea on how long it took for them to fix your setup?

 

[skyviewmark]

Still haven't seen any indication of your actual signal level.
Menu 6 - 1 - 1
See if it shows a signal level at the bottom.
On that same screen look to the right and find the check switch box and select it.
Run the switch test and tell us what your results are.
Your comment about the menu popping up when you didn't have the remote in your hand makes me wonder if perhaps you have a neighbor that has a remote that is on the same remote code as yours and creating havoc, although the number 1 remote should not have this issue being IR. Not really sure.. But the signal level and check switch status is important for me to give any more ideas.

 

[2ndsout]

Sky,

I will check and see what kind of a signal I get going through the Menu 6-1-1 option tonight when I get home from work. I'll check the "Check Switch" status item as well and I'll report back my findings later tonight.

 

[2ndsout]

Sky,

Here are my results when I tried to do the "Check Switch":

The system went through a 38 item check, and then I got the following message:

Warning 836

The Check Switch test has found that you have fewer satellites than previously detected. Selecting "Save" will result in a loss of channels. Press "Cancel" to keep the original setting and return to the previous menu. Only select "Save" if you are sure that this new setting is correct for your installation or you have​

Cancel Retest Save

That was the entire message. The fact that the message is incomplete tells me that something is not right.

On the Point Dish screen I have the following:

My zip code Dish Tuner Input Transponder Satellite

In which I have all the correct info and have tried adjusting it from the dishpointer website ( I think that is what it was).

I also have the following:

Azimuth: 227 Elevation: 34 Skew: 122

No Signal Level ( The Meter is a White Bar ranging from 0 10 (in red), 25-125 in black.

Underneath this white bar it says:

Not Locked-Name Not Acquired! Signal Strength: 0


Any ideas? I'm guessing that this is definately something a tech is going to have to figure out. I can't make sense of what numbers I would even need to put in to try to get a signal.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

Bryan

 

[daboogas94e]

let us know... it could be just the LNB or worse. but you don't have to replace the Dish and receiver if just the LNB is bad. the only reason a previous poster got his replaced is that he was using an older dish to receive his HD's so they replaced it with a newer one

sounds like your LNB is dead. you can replace it yourself if your brave enough

 

[2ndsout]

Dish is up and running !

Well, I have good news! Dish Network sent out a tech and looked at my setup. Turns out that there were some cable connections loose on the outside of the house, and while the LNB wasn't bad, the tech replaced it anyway, at no cost as I have the DHHP (Protoection plan $5.99/month). They waived the $29.99 service charge after I had told them they would fix it after 3 years with this being my first issue.

Nice to able to watch TV again

Thanks again to everyone for the help and suggestions