Yikes! All satellites gone! C & KU

[trscott]

So our system has been working flawlessly for six months 4DTV, C&KU, 12' mesh dish, strong signals on X4, GB, G1, G5, etc. Many sats with 100 / 99 scores.

Today the power went out for a little while (not uncommon in rural areas), no obvious weather cause, probably a car hit a pole somewhere. Now the DSR-922 seems to do all of its normal functions fine, but I cannot get any sat signal on any band anywhere. First, when I couldn't get a directory, I figured I needed a re-hit, but when I went to sat G1, I noticed that it could not get a directory, then I noticed that it didn't see Fox News, and there was no DC light, so I scanned around trying to find G1-21 and I couldn't get it anywhere. They I went to some other C and KU channels, both analong and digital channels, even music channels, and still ... nothing.

So I am guessing a power surge wiped something out? The receiver is on a surge protector, but I know they only work up to a point. What is the most vulnerable part here? Am I probably looking at blown LNBs? Or the RF circuits in the DSR-922?

I have tried to unplug the receiver for a minute or so, to see if it just initialized badly, but that didn't seem to have any effect.

Any ideas about how to proceed?

 

[Corrado]

Did you check the cables? Try unplugging the receiver for a few minutes and reconnecting.

In my 19 year C band satellite experience the most vulnerable part is the LNB. Lightning is the #1 killer. I never leave the 10' dish high in arc when a thunder storm is likely and I'm not going to be at home. Newer LNBs seem to be more sensitive to this. I have had many ruined over the years. I always have a spare on hand.

However,since no storms were in the area and it was a power outage, a surge is possible. Several years ago the power utility here hired a tree service to trim along the highways. Nearby,they dropped a section of a tree across the primary power lines and burned out countless refrigerators,well pumps and various items in my neighborhood. My 52" TV cost $500 to fix and none of us over were reimbursed.

My lesson was learned and all my electronics are very well protected now.

 

[htownjoe]

yeah sounds like the cables. the dish still moves, right? i had the same problem before and was hoping i wouldnt have to run another 100 ft coax to replace it so i first checked the connections and then the cable along the pole. i noticed a little slice in the cable so i just threw in a connector with a 10 ft coax and fixed it all up. alot better than digging another 90 ft trench. just check the connections, you said you have both c and ku band lnbs so i doubt it hit them both. just use a voltimeter on the rg6 coax cable first. good luck bud! that sounds like a very nice setup that i wish i had, so hopefully it is just the coax cable.

 

[caddata]

....system has been working flawlessly for six months.... the power went out....

If the system didn't revert to it's basic (ROM) memory, then it sounds as though it's fried from a surge. If the backup battery in the receiver (looks like a large watch battery) was bad, you'd have lost all the programming (stored in RAM) you've added but you'd still have the basic programming.

Harold

 

[trscott]

Update with some more info...

So our system has been working flawlessly for six months 4DTV, C&KU, 12' mesh dish, strong signals on X4, GB, G1, G5, etc. Many sats with 100 / 99 scores.

Today the power went out for a little while (not uncommon in rural areas), no obvious weather cause, probably a car hit a pole somewhere. Now the DSR-922 seems to do all of its normal functions fine, but I cannot get any sat signal on any band anywhere. ?

A bit more info here:
I have discovered that if I unplug the sat receiver from the wall for a while (I've only tested several hours, don't know how short would work), when I plug it back in I can get complete function, good signal everywhere, for about half an hour, and then the signal begins to get noisey and in the space of a minute or two, the noise overwhelms the signal and the satellite signal is drowned out entirely.

It is not sufficient to turn off the power to the sat receiver with the remote, it must be unplugged from the wall.

This sounds to me like some sort of power supply leakage. Maybe a high voltage cap or transistor got fried and is leaking current somewhere it shouldn't? Takes time to build up the charge and then maybe one of the output voltages goes haywire? I haven't had time to open it up and probe around.

This is making me think it is more likely that it is the receiver than the LNBs. Especially the receiver power supply.

Do you agree?

(and where in the world would you get the idea that a cable is bad? I said it was working perfectly and then the power went out and when it came back the sats were dead. I don't think a power surge is very likely to fry the coax. The receiver apppears to work in terms of its menus, and all of that. I can even track to different satellites and tune the dish (but with no signal improvement).)

 

[somery]

any more news on this case? Ever thought of just sending it in for repair? (i think ATS electronics does this?)

 

[trscott]

I have not had any time to look at it yet because I am in the last month of working on my MBA (at age 53...) and pretty busy right now, and I was also hoping someone might recognize the symptom and post something like "Oh yeah, that's the big electrolytic cap C52, just change it out and it will be fine...), okay I didn't really expect that exactly, but a body can hope can't he?

I did however contact my favorite dealer of sat gear, Lee Richardson, who I had bought the LNBs and the feedhorn for my upgrade from, to see if he had any ideas, and he did give me a real good suggestion for troubleshooting it, and also recommended ATS as well. If Lee says they're good, that's good enough for me.

With Lee's tip (see below... duhhh, why didn't I think of that...) I confirmed that it is the receiver.

I may yet open it up and do a little probing with a DMM and a scope and see if anything jumps out at me. I did manage to repair the power supply of an old Houston Tracker Systems IV C-band receiver that had died. Just replaced about four filter caps and two transistors in the power supply and it all came back. Maybe I will get lucky on this thing too. If there isn't anything obvious, I'll spring for having ATS look at it.
-ts
============================

Good afternoon, Tom...

Disconnect the LNB cables one at a time at the back of the receiver, and see
if the remaining LNB works properly for an extended period. If it does,
the LNB or cable you disconnected is suspect. On the other hand, if the system behaves the same way regardless of if the C or Ku cable is disconnected, then it would tend to indicate something common to both C and Ku, such as the receiver or the servo motor or it's wiring. you can rule out the servo motor by going into the Options,6,4,4, Enter satellite setup menu, and noting if the probe in the feedhorn throat is moving as the skew setting is being changed. To get out of the menu, press Go Back, but when asked do not Save. This will restore your original skew setting.

If both C and Ku are affected, it sounds like it could be the receiver.

ATS in North Carolina would be the best place for a repair. It all depends
on how many parts are needed, etc, but I have yet to have one cost over $200, and sometimes they are under $100. Their telephone is 828-465-9968.
Their website is at
ATS Electronics, Inc. Authorized 4DTV Repair Center .

It could be something in the power supply, it is hard to say. The nice
thing about ATS is that they will not just work on it, they will fix it
right the first time, reasonably fast and at reasonable cost. If you do
the work yourself or have them do it, if the unit is over 5 years old I would go ahead and change the battery on the main board. If this battery
dies it ruins the main board. A dead battery is not the cause of the
trouble you are having right now.

You're more than welcome, Tom. If I may be of more information, please
just let me know. I wish you the best of luck on it.

Thanks,
Lee Richardson
Mech-Tech
812-474-1613