Strange signal loss behavior?

[bfollowell]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had twenty-year-old mess of wires, switches and splitters under my house and my wife wanted me to move/change the receivers around in our house so I gutted most everything and installed new wiring pretty much everywhere. I left the main coax from my antenna and from my dishes to the Dish Network switches in my basement and I left the main run to my master bedroom so I had a good run in case something went wrong with what I was doing.

Well, I got finished and everything looked good so I moved my VIP722 DVR receiver from my master bedroom to a new run in my living room. When I first turned the receiver on, I got no signal. Before freaking out too much, I reset the unit and waiting for it to reacquire the signal. It seemed to work but I could only pickup channel 120, History Channel and maybe a select few others close to there. If I tried to swtich to anything much higher, say anything in the 200s, I'd get a blank screen and then I'd get the complete signal loss message. If I pulled up the guide I could get back to History Channel and it would work. I thought I'd made up a bad cable or something. I went back to the basement and disconnected and reconnected my two satellite out wires from my switch to my receiver. When I went back, I seemed to have good signal on pretty much every channel I checked. OK, I had a good clear picture on History Channel and everything else I checked, so that leads me to think my cabling is good. I don't know why things acted up but it's working now so, I'm good. Now when I get up this morning and turn everything on, I'm right back to the same old thing. History Channel and over the air signals are the only channels I can get to work. I love History Channel but I'd like a little bit more.

I didn't get a chance to move my receiver back to my "good" run to check it out from there and I plan to do that tonight.

Does this strange behavior sound familiar to anyone or does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks guys.

- Byron Followell

 

[bfollowell]

Well, I just spoke with my wife and she said everything is fine on the receiver in the new location for now. Of course, it was OK for a while last night too, then all but dead when I got up for work this morning, then back by the time she woke up a few hours later. I don't think cable issues typically come and go like this so I'm running on the assumption that my cabling is OK, at least until I see or hear something to make me think otherwise.

If anyone is aware of any ongoing issues or has any idea what I could be experiencing, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Otherwise, I guess we'll just monitor things and see how they go.

Thanks.

- Byron

 

[djacobson]

I have a couple questions.What kind of switch? A 722 doesn't need a switch unless you have more than 1 dish or more than 3 receivers.What kind of connectors did you put on the cable. The connectors better be compression type.

 

[jarvantgroup]

Well, I just spoke with my wife and she said everything is fine on the receiver in the new location for now. Of course, it was OK for a while last night too, then all but dead when I got up for work this morning, then back by the time she woke up a few hours later. I don't think cable issues typically come and go like this so I'm running on the assumption that my cabling is OK, at least until I see or hear something to make me think otherwise.

If anyone is aware of any ongoing issues or has any idea what I could be experiencing, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Otherwise, I guess we'll just monitor things and see how they go.

Thanks.

- Byron

These are direct runs of cable? No barrels or couplers in the line? No kinks or sharp bends? Check the inside of your fittings and make sure none of the wire braid has inadvertently been left untrimmed. Any piece of that wire braid that touches the center conductor can cause issues like that. Your wire is 3Ghz-rated RG-6?