phone problem with D*

[pbarca]

What's the deal with the Direct Tv receivers not hanging up after they call in? I 've been on several trouble tickets for no dial tone. low and behold unplug the line cord from the receiver and the dial tone comes back. I was seeing this about twice a month in January, But now Twice a week. only with D* .

-Pat

 

[Ratara]

Most likely the modem blew out. A good power surge over the phone line will do it.
Last I knew D* would replace a receiver if it is tying up the phone line.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Pat,
This is new news. I do DTV installs and phone work.
DTV makes a big issue over phone connections. Their installation contractor companies try to backcharge installers if the cx refuses to connect the phone or only use cells.
I have repaired several phones that have been misconnected by sat installers. Sometimes they will put an rj 45 plug on station wire-(works but fails ex). They connect to the wrong phone number and short nearby binding posts.
I have had voltage spikes damage all receivers connected to phones and all systems grounded to the main bond blown with the ungrounded systems OK.

Your deal is a new one......Ya learn as you go.

Joe

 

[wh5916]

My last DirecTV receiver, a Hughes-made Sony SAT-A65A, had a very odd bug. If you unplugged or rebooted it, the receiver could not connect with DirecTV billing. There was a test menu screen that could be accessed with a few keypresses that showed, among other things, the number of calls attempted, the number of calls completed, and date/baud rate of the last successful call.

It wasn't unusual, from that menu, to discover that the receiver had made over 300 attempts to dial out, without a single successful connect. The reason for failure was also on that screen, and it was always listed as "No Dial Tone." The phone line was perfectly fine though.

Worse, when it couldn't connect, it would keep trying roughly every hour on the hour...very annoying if you're on the telephone with someone, only to hear the DirecTV box clicking in your ear. It also wasn't unusual for those dialout attempts to disrupt my internet access, back when 56K was still the norm here.

As best as I could determine, it appeared that the modem was trying to dial out without going through the electronic equivalent of removing the phone from the hook first. It couldn't make a connect because it couldn't acquire a dial tone. Through that same
test menu described above, I stumbled across a solution, after much trial/error.

The solution involved entering a modem test screen. From that screen, you could input a phone # for the receiver to use during modem tests (I used to use a local Earthlink #, since I was a subscriber to them for a couple of years), then you had buttons to click for on-hook/off-hook/dial.

All I had to do, to get the receiver to dial out properly, was click the "off-hook" button one time, then instruct the receiver to dial the test #. It dutifully did, and would usually make a connect with the test # at a speed of 2400 baud.

Once that initial forced connect was made, and to this day I still don't understand why, the receiver could then dial out successfully to the DirecTV billing line...until there was a power failure or a receiver freeze-up, which would result in a reboot. Once either would happen, I found it necessary to repeat the above procedure, or the "no dial tone" error would repeatedly begin showing up on the receiver test page again.

I know the above sounds odd, but I can promise you that it happened...over and over and over again.

 

[Joe Diamond]

wh5916,
Good one!
I can tell you install tech (me) have never been given that instruction. If the HSP guys
have their shirt tucked in and their fly up you know they are doing their best. You have found a gap. No amount of line plugging will fix what you found. I wonder where all the money DTV charged for no phone line connected went considering your post.

Good one,

Joe

 

[michaelpa]

I have the same problem, woke up at 3:45 am and saw a light on my bed side phone indicating a phone was off the hook, I knew where to look. Unhooked the line to the 622 and the phone hung up. I have had this happen several times. I sure hate to call tech support and speak to someone I can't understand. I have to leave it unplugged for a day or more to keep it from picking up my phone. I wonder what the problem is?