921 OTA Tuner Ranks #3 Behind 811 and 6000

[gpflepsen]

I'm a bit disappointed in the 921's tuner. It seems to have a lower sensitivity than my earlier 811 and 6000. Today (second day of owning) it lost the ability to tune any digital OTAs. I deleted and added them back and everything seems to come in now, except for one weaker one. The weaker on could be brought in by my 6000s and 811. The 921 is spotty on this one.

How's everyone's 921 rate for OTA tuning? Any real problems with multi-path or just not locking on a not-so-strong signal?

 

[craig9747]

For me the 921 was a huge improvement with OTA over my old 6000. Its able to keep a lock on most of my local channels. I have a few complaints with the 921 but OTA isn't one of them.

 

[dfergie]

I only have one Ota digital, Sd and it looked like heck on 6000u, still does...PQ only slightly better than my overcompressed "local" version from E*.

 

[WildBill]

I have both a 921 and 6000u connected to the same OTA antenna. In my case the 6000 is clearly more sensitive on weak signals even though it is on the longer cable run. Just had to install a larger antenna to get solid signal on the local ABC channel with the 921 that a smaller antenna pulled in just fine on the 6000. Still can't get a couple of the weaker PBS signals on the 921.

 

[mwsmith2]

Actually, if you have 3 units, you should have 3 OTA antennas, unless you have some sort of special distribution network. The cable lengths between the receivers can interact with the received signal and cause signal loss due to null cancellation.

Just for giggles, try disconnecting everything but a straight run to the 921 and see how that works.

Michael

 

[Claude Greiner]

My 6000 actually does a great Job with the removable 8VSB Upgrade Kit

The 811 OTA tuner is a Piece of crap!

The 921 OTA tuner is fairly decent, however does not handel recordings very well due to the lack of guide info

 

[xsailor]

My 921 OTA tuner is heads-and-shoulders above my (now sold) 6000. The signals now stay tuned with very little "fade away". My 6000 was good but my 921 is just better!

 

[gpflepsen]

It's amusing to read such a wide varieties of opinions on the 921's tuner. My two analog OTA's come it with better fidelity on the 921 than the 811. Can't remember how the 6000 did in decoding analog quality wise. The 811 was quick to lock, the 921 is somewhat sluggish.

 

[boy921]

I'm a bit disappointed in the 921's tuner. It seems to have a lower sensitivity than my earlier 811 and 6000. Today (second day of owning) it lost the ability to tune any digital OTAs. I deleted and added them back and everything seems to come in now, except for one weaker one. The weaker on could be brought in by my 6000s and 811. The 921 is spotty on this one.

How's everyone's 921 rate for OTA tuning? Any real problems with multi-path or just not locking on a not-so-strong signal?

I don't give it a high rating because of this most annoying problem with the 921 OTA tuner vs. the other models OTA tuners. When a digital channel is off the air and I tune to it, I get the, "aquiring signal - channel not found." When I then try to upchannel or dnchannel, it takes forever for the channel to change. Sometimes it makes it so the other working OTA channels show aquiring signal - channel not found. I have to tune to a satellite channel to get a picture then I can return and view an OTA channel. I still can't use the ADD DTV feature as it always causes a system failure within a few hours.

 

[gpflepsen]

I don't give it a high rating because of this most annoying problem with the 921 OTA tuner vs. the other models OTA tuners. When a digital channel is off the air and I tune to it, I get the, "aquiring signal - channel not found." When I then try to upchannel or dnchannel, it takes forever for the channel to change. Sometimes it makes it so the other working OTA channels show aquiring signal - channel not found. I have to tune to a satellite channel to get a picture then I can return and view an OTA channel. I still can't use the ADD DTV feature as it always causes a system failure within a few hours.

That's kind of the same thing I was experiencing. The 6000 would just drop the channel if it was dark, the 811 will just skip tuning that channel, the 921 seems to flake out when it doesn't see what it expects. I've had to delet the same set of channels (all of them) twice in a row and add ALL of them back to get it to tune anything.

 

[Jason Kragt]

I'm a bit disappointed in the 921's tuner. It seems to have a lower sensitivity than my earlier 811 and 6000. Today (second day of owning) it lost the ability to tune any digital OTAs. I deleted and added them back and everything seems to come in now, except for one weaker one. The weaker on could be brought in by my 6000s and 811. The 921 is spotty on this one.

How's everyone's 921 rate for OTA tuning? Any real problems with multi-path or just not locking on a not-so-strong signal?

I have been through four 921s in the last three weeks. I had to return each of the first three for various problems. The fourth one seem to be the charm.

Anyway, back on topic, units 1 and 3 seemed to have weak OTA tuners. I am on the fringe area for two stations and those units could not pick them up. Units 2 and 4 seemed to have much better OTA tuners. The signal strength on all channels was consistently higher and it was able to pull in the fringe stations. I am generally pleased with the 921's 8VSB tuner (at least the one I have now).

As to the quality of the first three units I received, that's a different story!

 

[Cyclone]

Well, my 921 seems to be better than my 6000. I can get seem to get a more solid singnal with the 921. I do however have a issue with the dang 0-125 signal meter.

I know that this must be some kind of carry over from the 125 units for the satellite strength, but I sure wish they'd change this to 0 - 100% instead like the 6000.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Cyclone: Just recalibrate it on your screen, and use white-out to relabel it.

 

[Cyclone]

Ok Done.

I've added an audio strength meter too. I have my kid make a beeping sound, the stronger the signal, the louder she's able to beep. I'm having trouble adjusting the volume on this though.

 

[hzhao]

My 921s OTA is now much better than my 811s. All of 921 sensitive meters are showing 125 for all the DTV channel in my area. Before the update, I can not get my local NBC at all. My 811s are between 65% to 85% on different receivers. I will wait for another update on 811 before decide if I am going to ask yet another 811 replacement for the 65% ones. It works for anything above 50%, but If I know there is 85%, I would rather be consistant cross board.

So far, I am pretty happy with the latest update for 921.

One another thought, the 811 has OTA at 65% is the one that has the feed from DPP44 with the power insersion. Since I have OTA signal combined into all the feeds, than seperate inside house, I was wondering if this little power insersion could affect the singnal strength......... Any comments?

 

[DrAlSmith]

I have both the 6000 and a new 921. The 921 was able to lock on digital OTA stations that the 6000 never, ever picked up.

 

[nclee]

I had a 501 and 811. Pruchased the 921 from Dishdepot around Thanksgiving. Dish installer came yesterday installed the 921 (which replace the 501), it took about 3+ hours.

I was going to have the installer replace the legacy LNBF, SW21 with DP twin, DP single, DP SW 34. then run an extra line out of 34 to the 921. But the installer told me he just got the dpp twin, with my requirement, he can just plug the dp single to the dpp twin and use the separator to the 921. He did not have the separator with him (Dish did not tell him what kind of install involved) so we had to wait for the separator. After the separator arrived, everything was a piece of cake and software download was painless (40 minutes).

All the basic function worked for me (knock on wood, haven't try any recording yet, use the dual tuner etc). I like what I see, I think the OTA and HD is better than 811, and is much quiter than the 501. My 811 has this problem of losing KQED digital, but never happend on the 921.

So I give a thumbs up to 921 (I am easily pleased)

 

[douweb]

Previously I have agreed that the 811 OTA has better pickup than the 921 had.

With the new L2.11 software release for the 921 (*very* happy with it BTW), my 921 OTA now actually seems to be pulling in the channels better than the 811.

Though I have no scientific facts to this.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I had a 501 and 811. Pruchased the 921 from Dishdepot around Thanksgiving. Dish installer came yesterday installed the 921 (which replace the 501), it took about 3+ hours.

I was going to have the installer replace the legacy LNBF, SW21 with DP twin, DP single, DP SW 34. then run an extra line out of 34 to the 921. But the installer told me he just got the dpp twin, with my requirement, he can just plug the dp single to the dpp twin and use the separator to the 921. He did not have the separator with him (Dish did not tell him what kind of install involved) so we had to wait for the separator. After the separator arrived, everything was a piece of cake and software download was painless (40 minutes).

All the basic function worked for me (knock on wood, haven't try any recording yet, use the dual tuner etc). I like what I see, I think the OTA and HD is better than 811, and is much quiter than the 501. My 811 has this problem of losing KQED digital, but never happend on the 921.

So I give a thumbs up to 921 (I am easily pleased)

This is the first I have heard of a DPP Twin being used on a customer install.

I'm also pleasantly surprised that a factory 921 was able to use it to take an update.

 

[boy921]

I have both the 6000 and a new 921. The 921 was able to lock on digital OTA stations that the 6000 never, ever picked up.

This makes me wonder. I don't have very many OTA digital stations in my area. I also have a 921 and a 6000. Until the release of L211, I couldn't get the local ABC station on the 921 (just the black screen) but always got exceptional audio/video on the 6000. Since reading your post, I've re scanned both the 921 and the 6000 for digital OTA but no others were found.