Signal Messed Up In One Room...?

NealNeedsHelp

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Original poster
Jul 21, 2005
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Hi all, I've had Dish Network (with a Super Dish) since around the middle of May and for the most part it has worked great. We have it hooked up in two rooms (one in the bottom-floor living room and one in a bedroom upstairs) and the living room one works just great, but not the upstairs one... I remember for the first day or two we had it, the upstairs one would get pixels on the screen and freeze every once in a while... but that went away and I haven't had problems with it for the past 2 months or so.

Now ever since we caught the tail end of Hurricane Dennis (I live in KY and all we got was a lot of rain... not much wind) the receiver upstairs keeps giving the error "Acquiring satellite signal" (error 015 I believe) every 5-15 minutes I'd say. Sometimes it appears on for a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes. There's also a quite a lot of pixeling and audio glitches (not a terrible amount but enough to get on my nerves).

I wrote down some of the signals I'm getting from the three satellites on the receiver upstairs (the one not working right) and here they are:

[Satellite 119]

Transponder 18 - 105 (every once in a while jumps from 98-125)
Transponder 19 - 107
Transponder 20 - 101

[Satellite 110]

Transponder 18 - 108
Transponder 19 - 108
Transponder 20 - 106

[Satellite 105]

Transponder 18 - 65
Transponder 19 - 66
Transponder 20 - 67


When the guy first installed it, it was pretty tricky because some trees are in the way... but after a few attempts we finally got it. I don't believe it's an issue due to strength or anything in the way because I've never had a problem with it downstairs in the living room.

I've measured off about how long the coax cables are, thinking that they might be the problem... and from the bedroom to the splittler it's about 85 ft. and from the splittler to the dish it's about 115 ft. of course give or take some feet-- which comes to around 200 ft.

I've emailed Dish about it and they told me to reset the receiver, try to unplug it, try to reinsert the smartcard, and make sure all of the connections are tight. I did all of that and it didn't help it at all.

Can someone please help and give your opinion on what you think could be wrong/what to do next? I suppose I should call Dish Network and have them come out here... I'd rather not because my first few experiences with them coming here to install it weren't that good, but I'll call them and have setup an appointment if needs be... I'd just like to try to get an idea of what's wrong at least first.

Thanks in advance,


Neal
 
Thanks :)

No I haven't tried swapping them yet. Sounds like a good idea though. I'll try it now and report back what happens within the next 30 mins to an hour or so.

Thanks,


Neal
 
Well I swapped the receivers and I watched TV for about 20 minutes upstairs and didn't notice anything wrong! I didn't get any kind of errors or pixelation or anything. I'm now running the receiver I've been using in the bedroom to the living room and will report back what happens.

Thanks for the hepl so far,


Neal
 
Hmm well I just watched TV in the living room with the swapped receiver for about 30-35 minutes and it played perfect too... lol this is kinda strange. I'll probably need to watch it some more upstairs to be for certain everything is working right now.

BTW what does E* mean?

Thanks again for the help,


Neal
 
Perhaps you are having an issue with a particular transponder (18 and maybe others) on 119 which only affects specific channels and that you are no longer viewing the channels you was experiencing the problems with. Try changing the channels to see if there are particular ones you have issues with on both receivers to see if the problem follows the receiver or stays in the same room which means it would follow the wire.
 
It is also possible that the connection to the back of the receiver in the bad location was loose. Removing it and reconnecting it might have fixed the problem. You mention a 'splitter' which I assume is a DP34 satellite switch that takes your three satellite feeds and switches them to your two receivers. That is another thing that changed. By disconnecting both receivers you powered down the LNBs and switch. A nice reset.

It is an old way to fix a problem - absolute cold boot. The receivers are never really off unless they are unplugged and as long as there is power to the receiver connected to DP34 port #1 the switch is always powered (and the LNBs are always powered). Unplugging all power allowed the switch to finally turn off.

JL
 
Stargazer said:
Perhaps you are having an issue with a particular transponder (18 and maybe others) on 119 which only affects specific channels and that you are no longer viewing the channels you was experiencing the problems with. Try changing the channels to see if there are particular ones you have issues with on both receivers to see if the problem follows the receiver or stays in the same room which means it would follow the wire.

I don't believe that is the problem... because I watched the same channel that used to mess up a whole lot for most of the time when I did the test... but actually it seemed like any channel just about (except locals) messed up like that. It's still working good--I've watched it upstairs now for about 1-2 hours on random channels and I had someone watch it downstairs now for about 2 hours and no problems.

justalurker -- I tried reconnecting that one a few times and it never really seemed to help... perhaps the "cold boot" was what did the trick? I'll remember that in the future if this happens again to unplug both receivers for a bit.

Thanks guys for all of the help,


Neal
 
Hmm some new news... I recorded some stuff during the night on both receivers and the one upstairs (the good one) recorded stuff just fine... but the receiver downstairs (the original "bad" one) did the stinkin' error 015 and had quite a bit of pixelation and audio glitches. I browsed through a few channels and I got more pixelation on some of them just now.

I remember when the guy was installing the receivers, he dropped the one he put upstairs (which is now downstairs) in its box in the driveway... He didn't have anymore with him and this was already the thrid time Dish was out there so I figured we should try it and make sure it works before anything else. It seemed to work okay at first but then it started pixeling and whatnot for a day or two and then it went away so I figured everything was alright. Do you think dropping it could've caused these problems?

I've got the protection plan so if I call Dish and tell them what's going on they should send me a new receiver for free, shouldn't they?
 
If the problem has followed the receiver to the down stairs then the receiver is defective and needs to be replaced. Call DISH and tell them you switched the receivers and the problem followed the receiver. They so replace it no problem.
 
Alright, I'll give them a call tomorrow. I want to run a few more tests on it today just to make sure. Dish will probably make me send them back the messed up receiver, right?
 
Clearly you have DP equipment -- Superdish is DP only. With 200 ft. of cable you are nearing the specified maximum. If, as seems common, they used iron-core cables you may have trouble pushing enough voltage and signal through the wires. Check the cable center conductor end (stinger) to see if is plated or solid copper. Even the braid may be inadaquate. Steel is prone to rust.

If they are not suspended try to replace them with solid copper core 1/4" RG-6. RG11 is 1/2" and more expensive and has 4X the core area but may have larger signal loss due to non-foam dielectric, tinned conductor, and is harder to adapt to F connectors.

If possible, check by bringing a receiver closer to the dish or switch.
For standard of comparison we quote TP 11 and 12 of each satellite.
-Ken
 
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