Question about comms between satellite and a rooftop dish antenna?

BarnRat

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Aug 30, 2021
610
1,250
SW USA
Just curious here . . .

I think I read somewhere on this site that comms between a satellite and a rooftop dish antenna is a purely one-way transmission - from satellite to the dish. If so, then how do Dish techs debug my system remotely? Or maybe they can only send commands down to my system? But then how do they "see" the results? And isn't Dish also an ISP? If so, then there has to be two-way comms. Does Dish, acting as an ISP, use a different rooftop dish antenna and different satellites?
 
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If your Hopper is connected to the internet Dish technical support can connect to your Dish remotely.
Also you can send your Dish status to Dish with the following steps:
1) Hit the Home key 3 times
2) Select Status
3) Scroll over and select Send Status
4) Test Connection will test your internet speed and phone connection.
5) Test Signal will test your signal strength on all satellites.
6) Send Data will send the results to Dish.

Dish also sends data from your Dish such as pay per view and diagnostics periodically to Dish.


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The result will look like this

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Are all models of the Hopper internet-capable? How about the Wally? Which other (older) receivers are internet-capable?
 
Are all models of the Hopper internet-capable? How about the Wally? Which other (older) receivers are internet-capable?
Barring really old stuff (Like legacy or 322/522) all receivers can connect to the internet. Old receivers would use their integrated modem to phone home instead, allowing things like PPV's (Or internet on certain special models with WebTV). VIP series also have modems for PPV ordering, and internet is done with Ethernet, external WIFI or some even had an implementation of HomePlug 1.0 which allowed powerline connectivity. Modern Hoppers (except the Duo) still retain their modems, no idea if they are functional or only used for caller ID (If someone still has a landline phone and is willing to order a movie I would love to know). HomePlug was dropped in favor of MoCA to serve Joey's (both should be possible to implement, but I doubt many people even know about the powerline capability of the VIP series to begin with).