Not too happy with DirecTV now

[bobinraymoremo]

It was suggested that I post here since there are some DirecTV installers and others knowledgeable about DirecTV. I am having an issue that I spent almost all day troubleshooting on my own. Sorry this is so long but I have a lot of info to share.

Background:
- we live fulltime in our RV traveling around the country
- we have an automatic Winegard SK-3005 roof mounted dish that we upgraded to SWM (SWM8 and splitter both DirecTV products) in March has worked great until a couple of days ago. It worked in Kansas City then Waukee IA then Clear Lake IA then Minneapolis but not after a move to South Range WI last Friday.
- DirecTV was fine with us getting 2 HD DVRs and service in 2009, then a replacement DVR a year or so later, and Genie in March.

Symptoms:
- genie dvr reboots about every 10-12 hours
- Guide will download and populate the first couple of hours and start recording programs from the series if applicable. The "My DirecTV" area of the menu will have icons, "Search & Browse* will have "Smart Search", "Movies" and another icon. But in a few minutes the guide and the the above mentioned icons in the menu will disappear so only "Search" remains and the guide has Regular Schedule for all the channels. Once the guide disappears the programs will also disappear if based on the guide.
- am-21 off air tuner is not working and this is strange. Maybe I would be the only one to notice this or nitpick this but before you add the off-air tuner the option under Setup is "Satellite". After you plug in the off air tuner that menu option changes to "Sat & Antenna". I figured it would go back to just "Satellite" but it didn't.
- some channels on the same satellite are not working. Since we live fulltime we have the Distant Network Services and get both the east coast and west coast feeds of the networks. NBC east HD channel 392 comes in but NBC west HD channel 393 does not. History Channel 269 is also one that does not come in and there may be others. The vast majority of the HD channels are fine though
- genie is running about 111 degrees with a cooling fan that I added after we got it since I read online that it can run a little hot.
- absolutely no obstructions blocking reception
- got a 41-052 diagnostic after running a system test
- signal strength, here is what I got on all the satellites and transponders. After almost 4 years of looking at signal strengths with the exception of all the zeros on the 101 this is pretty normal for what I have been seeing with no television watching or receiver issues. Winegard says above 70 is good, DirecTV technician said above 80. Here are the readings:

101
95 0 94 0 93 0 92 0
95 0 94 0 93 0 92 0
95 0 94 0 93 0 92 0
95 0 94 0 93 0 92 0

99c
79 0 75 0 80 0 76 0
80 0 77 0 83 0 N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

103ca
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
88 82 79 79 81 80 77 80
80 80 80 81 79 80 82 81
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

103cb
83 87 80 83 79 85 78 81
80 84 80 82 83 86 N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

110 is 97 96 97 (only three transponders 8, 10, 12)

119
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 95 0 96
100 98 96 97 0 97 73 97

Work to date:
- directv was out here, technician convinced it was winegard dish as the problem. He saw the signal strengths below 80 and said he could not close out the job so he would not do anything more, wouldn’t check out a new receiver, nothing, nada. He then left.

- called Winegard and we walked through the settings and they are convinced it is the receiver
- I then began troubleshooting to eliminate everything else
* we have a automatic dome so I hooked that up and although the signal strength was a little lower there was the same pattern of good-bad-good-bad across all transponders. Since the same trend as before I think that eliminated the sk-3005 as the problem and the four cables from the winegard to the swm so I hooked it back up.
* I then used a cable that I had and used it alternatively as the feed to the dvr and the client and the two to the power supply. All gave the same readings as before.
* I then called DirecTV and the CSR said they would not work on my system since it was a Winegard dish, that Winegard had to service it. I asked to talk to a supervisor who told me the same thing.

This is scary because we are not sure how to get it fixed.

Any comments will be appreciated.

--

Bob (Full-time RV'ng since 09/10/2009 and loving it!)
Our travel blog: http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/
Our travel photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Our RV - 2010 Carriage Cameo F35SB3
Our Tow Vehicle - 2010 Ford F-350 DRW

 

[bobinraymoremo]

System Info

Software 0x6be.. Tues 5/14, 2:47a
Scheduled Upgrade: Not Scheduled
SWM Firmware Version 2.0.24
SWM Library Version 2.0.24

 

[raoul5788]

Check all of your cables and connectors. If you don't find anything wrong, I suspect the lnb.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

Check all of your cables and connectors. If you don't find anything wrong, I suspect the lnb.

Since the readings on the 101 satellite had the same trend of

Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0
Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0
Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0
Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0 Good 0

When I used the dome satellite instead of the roof mounted satellite I thought that eliminated any problems from the roof mounted satellite or lnb.

 

[raoul5788]

Did you check your cables?

 

[dfergie]

Does it show those readings for all the tuners? my HR20 - 700's tuner 1 is flakey, only gets SD and gives different signal levels than tuner 2 or my HR24's tuners... (have replaced cables, BBConverters, LNB's etc, )

 

[texasbrit]

If you have an SWM8 multiswitch (not an SWM LNB) this is almost certainly a CABLE problem. If you look at the connections on the SWM8, you will see one marked 99/101 13v and one marked 99/101 18v. The 13v carries the odd transponders, the 18v carries the even ones. You are missing the even transponders on 99 and 101, so that is the problem cable. You can check by swapping the 18v and 13v cables at the input to the SWM8 multiswitch, the problem should move to the odd transponders. With the exception of your low signals on 103, which are due to a slightly poor alignment, ALL your other problems are almost certainly caused by the same issue.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

Does it show those readings for all the tuners? my HR20 - 700's tuner 1 is flakey, only gets SD and gives different signal levels than tuner 2 or my HR24's tuners... (have replaced cables, BBConverters, LNB's etc, )

Will check this out when I get back to the RV park, waiting on my wife's haircut to finish

 

[bobinraymoremo]

If you have an SWM8 multiswitch (not an SWM LNB) this is almost certainly a CABLE problem. If you look at the connections on the SWM8, you will see one marked 99/101 13v and one marked 99/101 18v. The 13v carries the odd transponders, the 18v carries the even ones. You are missing the even transponders on 99 and 101, so that is the problem cable. You can check by swapping the 18v and 13v cables at the input to the SWM8 multiswitch, the problem should move to the odd transponders. With the exception of your low signals on 103, which are due to a slightly poor alignment, ALL your other problems are almost certainly caused by the same issue.

Will check this out, however, when I used a different source, the dome automatic dish got the same pattern as the roof mounted dish, that is all evens were zero. Could the SWM8 port be bad?

 

[Mr Tony]

If you have an SWM8 multiswitch (not an SWM LNB) this is almost certainly a CABLE problem. If you look at the connections on the SWM8, you will see one marked 99/101 13v and one marked 99/101 18v. The 13v carries the odd transponders, the 18v carries the even ones. You are missing the even transponders on 99 and 101, so that is the problem cable. You can check by swapping the 18v and 13v cables at the input to the SWM8 multiswitch, the problem should move to the odd transponders. With the exception of your low signals on 103, which are due to a slightly poor alignment, ALL your other problems are almost certainly caused by the same issue.

or he might have blown that one port. We had the same issue last week but it was the odds on 103/119 and it was a bad port

 

[texasbrit]

Will check this out, however, when I used a different source, the dome automatic dish got the same pattern as the roof mounted dish, that is all evens were zero. Could the SWM8 port be bad?

If it's a completely different cable, ALL the way from the dish to the SWM8, implication is the SWM8 port is bad. If that is true, swapping the cable will have no effect. Post back and tell us what you find.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

Will check this out, however, when I used a different source, the dome automatic dish got the same pattern as the roof mounted dish, that is all evens were zero. Could the SWM8 port be bad?

Back at the park

Does it show those readings for all the tuners? my HR20 - 700's tuner 1 is flakey, only gets SD and gives different signal levels than tuner 2 or my HR24's tuners... (have replaced cables, BBConverters, LNB's etc, )

It is the same on all the tuners

Did you check your cables?

If you have an SWM8 multiswitch (not an SWM LNB) this is almost certainly a CABLE problem. If you look at the connections on the SWM8, you will see one marked 99/101 13v and one marked 99/101 18v. The 13v carries the odd transponders, the 18v carries the even ones. You are missing the even transponders on 99 and 101, so that is the problem cable. You can check by swapping the 18v and 13v cables at the input to the SWM8 multiswitch, the problem should move to the odd transponders. With the exception of your low signals on 103, which are due to a slightly poor alignment, ALL your other problems are almost certainly caused by the same issue.

So I then switched the cables and it was exactly the same, then I added new cables just to be sure, new as in just made yesterday, and it was exactly the same.

or he might have blown that one port. We had the same issue last week but it was the odds on 103/119 and it was a bad port

I think we might have a winner, bad 18v port on the SWM8 since both the 99 and 101 show the even transponders as zero. That of course raises three questions:
1 - is that the right conclusion?
2 - could a bad lnb have caused the port to fail?
3 - how do I get a free replacement since it is probably under warranty? How I got the SWM8 is a convoluted story; had a mobile rv service that was an authorized winegard dealer do the install. They bought the kit and the instructions from Winegard who bought the parts from DirecTV.

We are heading to Houghton Michigan tomorrow so probably Monday I will start the calling process to get a new SWM8.

Another question, ok that is 4, can you test the lnb to see if it is bad or just get a new one or it couldn't have caused the port to fail? (like how I put 3 questions in the 4th one ;-)

Thanks to all who responded, your help has been immeasurable.

Bob

 

[bobinraymoremo]

If it's a completely different cable, ALL the way from the dish to the SWM8, implication is the SWM8 port is bad. If that is true, swapping the cable will have no effect. Post back and tell us what you find.

Saw this one after I posted the earlier response. I have switched cables all around the town, from dish to swm8, from swm 8 to power inserter, from power inserter to splitter and from splitter to genie dvr and genie client, all with the same results.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

2 - could a bad lnb have caused the port to fail?
Bob

The more I think about this the more I think the lnb is ok. Can you tell that I am obsessing about this

The signal is good on all the other satellites so the lnb is doing its job, at least that is what I think. How does that sound?

OK time for me to do some manual recording, just like the old VCR days, until we get this resolved.

 

[Hutch1814]

The more I think about this the more I think the lnb is ok. Can you tell that I am obsessing about this

The signal is good on all the other satellites so the lnb is doing its job, at least that is what I think. How does that sound?

OK time for me to do some manual recording, just like the old VCR days, until we get this resolved.

From experience I'd say the LNB is fine. But you could always run a direct line to it and check all 4 ports to be sure by using a receiver (I think I read all you have is a genie at this point though). More than likely a bad port on the switch. I've seen lnb's do this too but normally 7/10 times its the switch

 

[Liquidforce88]

I would say that it is the SWM8 switch. I would just change that out. They are cheap on Ebay.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

I would say that it is the SWM8 switch. I would just change that out. They are cheap on Ebay.

Took the plunge and ordered one off of eBay and it is enroute. Could be here as early as Saturday, will post back after I change it out. Thanks to all for the help, don't know what I would have done otherwise.

 

[bobinraymoremo]

Took the plunge and ordered one off of eBay and it is enroute. Could be here as early as Saturday, will post back after I change it out. Thanks to all for the help, don't know what I would have done otherwise.

An update, the SWM8 switch was misrouted by USPS and is still enroute. Honestly have no idea when it will get here

 

[JamesJ]

An update, the SWM8 switch was misrouted by USPS and is still enroute. Honestly have no idea when it will get here

shocking usps messing up a package...it happens all the time to me, keep us updated!

 

[bobinraymoremo]

shocking usps messing up a package...it happens all the time to me, keep us updated!

The switch finally arrived and I installed it. Right away I wanted to check the signal strength and the even transponders but from the time I got down from the roof of our rv to the living room there was a software download to interrupt so I let that be and checked another way. The channels we could not get before were now coming in loud and clear, the icons on the menu that were missing before were now there. The guide was populated way past 4 hours already and the todo list was building. So good so far. By now could check the signal strength and the even transponders on 99 and 101 were showing values, EXCEPT, transponders 4, 12, 20, 28 were all zero. Should I be worried about that.

We left the manual programs there just to make sure the guide filled in programs would still work a few hours later and they did. The guide is still there and all appears to be ok, the only issue is that row of transponders all zero, not spaced unevenly like before when I have look at them.

So, is everything OK?