OTA Reception Problem w/ VIP 211

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Pinchhitter

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 13, 2004
340
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Sacramento, CA
I am in Northern California I am having a problem receiving the following channels via OTA with the 211:

6 KVIE (PBS)
10 KXTV (ABC)
40 (KTXL (FOX)

I am less than 20 miles from the towers (there are multiple transmitters in the same location for the OTA channels) and did not have this issue until this Sunday. All the other channels come in anywhere from 85-100% signal strength.

The channels in question will blip on the screen at about 90% for about a second or 2 and then I get the yellow error screen. Has anyone had this issue with their local OTA? I used to get these stations in at about 90% strength.

I have deleted and rescanned multiple times. Could it be a software issue? Anyone have ideas?

Thanks.:confused:
 
Pinchhitter said:
I am in Northern California I am having a problem receiving the following channels via OTA with the 211:

6 KVIE (PBS)
10 KXTV (ABC)
40 (KTXL (FOX)

I am less than 20 miles from the towers (there are multiple transmitters in the same location for the OTA channels) and did not have this issue until this Sunday. All the other channels come in anywhere from 85-100% signal strength.

The channels in question will blip on the screen at about 90% for about a second or 2 and then I get the yellow error screen. Has anyone had this issue with their local OTA? I used to get these stations in at about 90% strength.

I have deleted and rescanned multiple times. Could it be a software issue? Anyone have ideas?

Thanks.:confused:
Click to expand...

I live in the same area and saw the EXACT same thing, starting the EXACT same time. Try looking at them today. Things have gotten better. Not sure why. Two things possibly- there was a software update on Vip211, or it was that storm that went thru here.

Hammer
 
I also lost a couple of OTA channels after the software update. I haven't moved the antenna and nothing else has changed except for the software update, the 211 can't tune to these two channels. I will play with the antenna today and see if I can get them back.
 
I was still having the issue last night.
I will try again when I get home today.
The 811 I have seems to work fine with a standard non-powered uhf/vhf antenna and I get channel 10 with about a signal strength of 87, ch. 40 at about 84 and ch. 6 at about 73.
So I figured the powered antenna on my 211 should be better and it was up until about Sunday.
 
My FOX station had to update the software to fix the new daylight savings time change. This caused drop-outs, pixilation, and the inability for my 622's to acquire and map the digital channel. The station was able to rectify the problem by some means. It still affects my Panasonic TC32LE60.

I am pretty sure that many other TV stations with digital channels across the nation have had to update the DST software for their PSIP data stream. Most likely the stations just simply need to reboot the equipment so to rectify the problems your receivers are experiencing. Call the station and report the receivers symptoms to them, maybe they can get it fixed sooner than later.
 
Last edited:
No problem with my 211 or my two 622's with 6, 10, or 40. KMAX does seem lower than it has been, though. 85 with my outdoor and 72 with my indoors. I have 3.45 and have had no signal drops.

S~
 
Sent an email yesterday to all these locals and so far got a very quick response from ABC-10's president and general manager:

"You are right. Dish is having serious problems with the 720 hd signal. They are aware of it and are working on it. I have been in contact with them and will engage it at higher level to expidite the proccess."

Hammer
 
I am getting KTXL 40 eventhough it is still very choppy. Channel 10 is still no-existent for me. Channel 6 is not good either. Alll the other are still ok.
 
Hammer and Pinchhitter,

I talked to my contact in engineering today. He is aware of the situation. They are in the process of evaluating some software which they hope addresses the issue. It is Number 1 on their hitlist for the 211.

Scott
 
KCRA 3 is now having a blip problem. I get it at 95-100 with an indoor antenna, but it pixels and sound drops out about every minute and a half. The only station I do not have an issue with is KMAX 31. All the other OTA have some sort of drop out or do not work at all.
 
211 OTA Reception Problem Solved

Pinchhitter said:
I am in Northern California I am having a problem receiving the following channels via OTA with the 211:

6 KVIE (PBS)
10 KXTV (ABC)
40 (KTXL (FOX)

I am less than 20 miles from the towers (there are multiple transmitters in the same location for the OTA channels) and did not have this issue until this Sunday. All the other channels come in anywhere from 85-100% signal strength.

The channels in question will blip on the screen at about 90% for about a second or 2 and then I get the yellow error screen. Has anyone had this issue with their local OTA? I used to get these stations in at about 90% strength.

I have deleted and rescanned multiple times. Could it be a software issue? Anyone have ideas?

Thanks.:confused:
Click to expand...


At first I wondered how my post to DBSTalk, got over here?!!! :) Then I realized it wasn't my post and I wasn't the only one having this problem. So I subscribed here to post my solution found 2 days ago!

I had the same identical problem. I'm 23 miles from the towers, all located in Walnut Grove and at least one of them (fox 40) is the tallest tower in the world!!! I'm definately line-of-site of the towers, and at a nice sloped angle skywards.

I also contacted the engineering dept at all 3 stations and got responses from ch10 and ch40 (made a phone call to the PBS 6). After some searching, I determined that those 3 stations happened to be the 3 highest frequencies of all the 20 some OTA Sacramento stations I was getting. I tried a few options with the antenna, adding an FM trap and buying a 75 mile directional (yagi?) for $25 from Radio Shack, but no luck... made it worse.

My set top antenna, shown in the pic below, is a wonderful old dual-bowtie type Radio Shack one from the early 80's was pulling in all the stations at between 95-100 strength on my 811 (still have the 811 so I tested the antenna on it and it was still pulling them in just fine), but the 211 was iffy at first back in January for those particular 3 stations and then soon after that I was lucky to get a lock on them at all. All the other channels still got a strength of 100!

I complained to Dish, claiming thier older 811 OTA receiver circuit was better than their newer 211 and went thru all the reset and rescan-locals exercises until they decided to send me a new 211 receiver. I resisted, because I did not want to have to setup all my favorites and all the other settings again, but went ahead and set it up when it arrived. Poof... did a Locals scan and all the stations came up with the 3 stations in question, hitting the 100 mark on the strength meter and haven't dropped or unlocked yet in 2 days!!!

I'm not entirely sure whether it was the 211 receiver's fault, or turning off and turning my account back on for the new 211 (which takes 10 minutes or more for all my subscribed channels to come up), which solved the problem, but they've been up and running great, for 3 days now!

Try having them send you a new 211!
 

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I called Dish tonight regarding my 211 issue and of course they had me do the same reboot , rescan etc that I have already been doing. They insist that it is something to do with the stations transmitting the signal and not the receiver. Would not let me return the receiver since everything else was functioning. I am using an RCA power antenna.
 
hammerdown said:
Spirit,

What software version are you running on the new 211? Menu + 6 + 1 + 3

Hammer
Click to expand...

L345

Though I did suddenly notice a dropout on channel 3 last night (as mentioned in someone's earlier post)... but today it's fine. I did a minor tweak angling the antenna a few degrees more eastward to bring ch 6 from 95 to 100 and today everything is running at 100% strength except for 29 at around 95 (and lower on the spanish stations, 64, etc., which I don't watch).

100%
3,6,10,13,31,40,58

Note: I'm in Oakley, south of the Walnut Grove antennas.
 

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