Thanks guys are all the info and support.
I am happy to report that I have finally resolved my problem. I received a second refurbished receiver and once I hooked it up, I had it all set up and activated in under 20 minutes. And, it is working perfectly.
To recap: My orginal receiver would get a 771 message and Multiswitch message. I switched locations with the other receiver and it got the same message at the new location. Took the receiver to another house and got the same 771 and multiswitch messages.
I received a refurbished receiver and I had no picture thourght the HDMI output. Component was just a blue screen and RCA was elongated, out of the screen area and pixulated. Heather told me, you really don't need HDMI anyways, most TVs don't have it anyways. (I have 2 HDMI TVs)
So, thank you everyone for your support and ear to listen to my rant!
