Is anyone having trouble with the built in OTA HD tuners in a 622 or 211 receiver? Many people in the Milwaukee, WI area and Madison, WI area seem to be having problems. In Milwaukee it is ABC 12-1 and in the Madision area it is 3-1. It seems to have started about 2 mo. ago after a software upgrade from Dish. Many channels suddenly jumped from a 85 or 90 signal strength to 100%. after that the local ABC channel (showing 100% signal) pixelates, drops sound or just goes from 100% to 0% for about a second and then cames back at 100%. this happens anywhere from every 30 sec to 1 min. It makes it very hard to watch TV that way. The people in Madision, WI are having the same problem with 3-1 (don't know what network that is there).
Anyone having trouble with Dish OTA HD tuners?
- Thread starter Russell Jorgensen
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I'm having the same problem in OKC with the PBS station, digital channel 32, and only on the ViP211. The 811 isn't affected. I agree, it only started recently with one of the firmware upgrades.
Same situation here in Flint, MI. ABC channel 12 (DT 36) used to show 90% stable signal. Now after 4.01 a couple of weeks ago it shows 90-100% but drops out constantly. I e-mailed Channel 12 engineering and they say things are fine on their end.
Last night in the Greenville , SC area we lost all the OTA channels. All were recovered after rebooting by pushing the off button for several seconds on the 622. Channel 13 in Asheville , NC gives a strong signal one week and weak the next week. Other than that the OTA is fine. 
WLOS Channel 13
I live were I can see the channel 13 on Mt. Pisgah. Most of the time I have a very 95 -100 reading on them, but some times the signal drops in the 70's. UNC Channel 33 beams their signal from the same tower and is always in the 95 -100 area. It seems it may be a Channel 13 problem.
Last night in the Greenville , SC area we lost all the OTA channels. All were recovered after rebooting by pushing the off button for several seconds on the 622. Channel 13 in Asheville , NC gives a strong signal one week and weak the next week. Other than that the OTA is fine.
I live were I can see the channel 13 on Mt. Pisgah. Most of the time I have a very 95 -100 reading on them, but some times the signal drops in the 70's. UNC Channel 33 beams their signal from the same tower and is always in the 95 -100 area. It seems it may be a Channel 13 problem.
Same here in Milwaukee
We only got Dish about 2 months ago. We noticed serious dropouts on ABC Channel 12-1. That was before the 4.01 upgrade. We occasionally had it happen on Fox 6-1, but the other stations were fine. Now with the 4.01 (I haven't checked yet to see if we have 4.02) it has gotten worse. Channel 12-1 still does it badly - almost unwatchable - drives my wife CRAZY, and now it happens really bad on channel 4-1 NBC. It seems to only happen on HD content though. Not 100% sure about that, but I the other night I turned on NBC 4-1 before the show my wife wanted taped. I watched the show that was on for about 10-15 minutes and had no problems. We set the timer and went to watch the show that came on after and it was garbage - a lot of dropouts. And our shows on ABC last night were terrible too.
We have signal strengths between 85% and 100%, obviously until the dropouts.
I was going to call Dish one of these nights, but had been looking online for the last couple of days to find out if anyone else was having problems. This has made the switch from cable a little rough (that and we lost all of the VOD stuff that cable has - still waiting for Dish on that one, oh and the RSN in HD for Milwaukee too).
Anyone have any thoughts/solutions - quick before my wife makes us go back to cable!!!
We only got Dish about 2 months ago. We noticed serious dropouts on ABC Channel 12-1. That was before the 4.01 upgrade. We occasionally had it happen on Fox 6-1, but the other stations were fine. Now with the 4.01 (I haven't checked yet to see if we have 4.02) it has gotten worse. Channel 12-1 still does it badly - almost unwatchable - drives my wife CRAZY, and now it happens really bad on channel 4-1 NBC. It seems to only happen on HD content though. Not 100% sure about that, but I the other night I turned on NBC 4-1 before the show my wife wanted taped. I watched the show that was on for about 10-15 minutes and had no problems. We set the timer and went to watch the show that came on after and it was garbage - a lot of dropouts. And our shows on ABC last night were terrible too.
We have signal strengths between 85% and 100%, obviously until the dropouts.
I was going to call Dish one of these nights, but had been looking online for the last couple of days to find out if anyone else was having problems. This has made the switch from cable a little rough (that and we lost all of the VOD stuff that cable has - still waiting for Dish on that one, oh and the RSN in HD for Milwaukee too).
Anyone have any thoughts/solutions - quick before my wife makes us go back to cable!!!
They really screwed up the 211s with the last software update. I get 100% on my FOX channel but it still has video and audio breakups. Can't watch it anymore. It never did that before. I'm also feeding the Samsung TV tuner from the same antenna and no problems there.
To Dish Network: Whatever the hell you did to the OTA tuner on the 211s, just put it back to where it was before. It was working just fine.
I had a problem here in Sacramento after a firmware upgrade a few months ago. Lost 3 OTA channels totally. The only remedy was to have them send me a new receiver. It took 2 calls to get it though.
I have found that Dish receivers have problems with amplified antennas. I helped my neighbor put an antenna in his attic, told him to get the silver sensor, no he got a radio shack antenna, little square job, amplified. It worked great with his TV, but as soon as he put his 211 on it, it would drop signal on several stations. I swapped out his amplified antenna for a non amplified silver sensor and they problems went away.
Not saying you're wrong, but I haven't changed the antenna, and this problem just started occurring a few weeks ago. Sounds like a firmware induced bug to me.
My signal went from 76 to 100% strength on my NBC station on my 622 and it improved the signal for that one. Now my Abc station was at 74-76 and it has went down to anywhere from 64 - 74 and it waivers back and forth. Last night it was gone entirely. I reset my antenna and it is back to 72 right now. This is a weaker station at 50.1 digital, where as 40.1 nbc and 21.1 cbs are in the same area and both at 100 %.
Hmm... I have the exact same problem with my 211 here in OKC and with the exact same PBS station. Signal strength is 100 from my run of the mill channelmaster antenna but I have constant breakups, pixelation, sound dropouts on this one station only. The same antenna hooked up to the internal tuner on the Samsung Tv works perfectly.
Dish sent me a replacement receiver and it does the exact same thing.
This started ( as you said ) when Dish released the last firmware upgrade.
I had this problem with the pixelation and signal dropping from 76 to 0 for a maybe a second and back up to 76 using vip622 with v366 HDMI cable on only one station. I thought at first a lose cable due to the signal strength of only 76 but on another station I had a signal strength of 73 with no pixelation or signal drop offs. I checked all the connections and they were tight and it was still pixelating . So hooked up the antenna directly to the tv by- passing the 622, no drop offs, no pixelation and I had a signal strength of 80 by- passing the 622. So I thought maybe signal distribution amp might boost the signal...nope not on the 622. The signals remained the same on the 622 but on the TV signals jumped up to the 90's. I got L403 and did the same thing no change but the signal strength jumped higher on all of the OTA channels except the one that pixelates. Now I am thinking that maybe it has something to do with the channel frequency and it chokes that frequency, The channel is 19-1 on the guide but digital channel 49 on the fcc assigned frequency. It's an interesting theory that I can't prove. Maybe some of you that are having problems of the drop offs on certain channels can check and see if your problem channels are close to channel 49.
Having the same problem in Virginia Beach. NBC was the problem station before the 403 update; now I am getting 100 signal strength and the station is fine as long as it stays there, but it drops to 0 and cuts out. Last night it was out for about an hour and so were other OTA channels that I have never had problems with before the latest update.
Add Des Moines IA to the list. After the 4.01 release my channel 8.01 for CBS shows 100% strength yet drops out constantly. I reported this and the csr agreed it was a firmware glitch. I have recieved the 4.03 and the problem is still there. The tuner in my Mitsubishi works fine no fade no pixilation. I will be calling again???
Put me on the list in Indianapolis: Ch. 6 (ABC) and 13 (NBC).
Both with pixelation every couple of minutes.
Both with pixelation every couple of minutes.
Not just me then...
So it is happening in other cities too and what is being done to fix it? My OTA locals are pretty much garbage now. I at least used to be able to watch the other stations, but now they all pretty much are crap! This is not going over well with the wife!
I switched to Dish and gave up a couple of things like RSN in HD and VOD with the hopes that it will be coming soon. Now yesterday I couldn't even watch the Brewers game anywhere on the Dish because it was blacked out on the FSN alternate and the station that did list FSN had on a Twins game. Not sure if that was the case for the cable subscribers, but I don't remember that happening with cable - if it was on FSN I would see it, not the Twins. And now with having NO locals in HD, I am starting to second guess my decision - and I have been waiting for 3 years to switch back to Dish, was waiting on the 622 to be able to be leased for free. I thought these 622's were supposed to be one of the best receivers out there...
Have they said anything about a fix to this OTA problem?
So it is happening in other cities too and what is being done to fix it? My OTA locals are pretty much garbage now. I at least used to be able to watch the other stations, but now they all pretty much are crap! This is not going over well with the wife!
I switched to Dish and gave up a couple of things like RSN in HD and VOD with the hopes that it will be coming soon. Now yesterday I couldn't even watch the Brewers game anywhere on the Dish because it was blacked out on the FSN alternate and the station that did list FSN had on a Twins game. Not sure if that was the case for the cable subscribers, but I don't remember that happening with cable - if it was on FSN I would see it, not the Twins. And now with having NO locals in HD, I am starting to second guess my decision - and I have been waiting for 3 years to switch back to Dish, was waiting on the 622 to be able to be leased for free. I thought these 622's were supposed to be one of the best receivers out there...
Have they said anything about a fix to this OTA problem?
It is the latest software update that is the culprit, I have hooked my VOOM box back up to my system in the Woodruff SC area and get rock solid signals, I flip over to my 211 via my Onkyo receiver and dropout city. E* needs to get their POS software right before they send it out.
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