Blast from the past

[pattykay]

There was a trick a long time ago with the first generation or two of smart cards. If the receiver was removed from the data stream before the deactivation hit was sent, after a couple of weeks they would stop sending the hit. You could plug the receiver back in and all the channels would continue to work indefinitely. No need to try this today, quit working almost 20 years ago!

Now even if you have a valid subscription, keeping the receiver out of the data stream will deactivate it and you'll need to wake it up with a rehit.

Thanks! That explains why the old receivers that I got from my sisters after they each cancelled Dish (in around that same 20 year ago time frame) still worked for all of their programming when I hooked them up to my dish. I wanted to get my programming activated on them, though (Dish did not yet carry locals in Columbus, Ohio where one of my sisters had her Dish account) so I still called Dish to get them activated on my account. The weird thing with one of them is that when I first hooked it up, it would only work for the audio music channels. It was one of the models that needed a software upgrade to get interactive apps, I think a 3800. I let it take the software download (making it a 3900) and at that point it immediately started receiving my sister's entire programming package.

 

[pattykay]

iirc that was the 811, but I'm not sure though.

Yes, I had the Bell Expressvu equivalent (their model 6100) and that is exactly how it behaved, even after my Smart Card expired and I could no longer get a replacement Smart Card through my broker.

 

[pattykay]

Oh I had no idea. For a few years there if you didn't have service, they'd disable the OTA tuner. Do the DVR functions on the Duo still work?

Yes, they do. In fact, they work better on my account when the Duo is deactivated. Whenever I activate the Duo, Dish keeps adding the "D" code to my account to deactivate the DVR functions. There is a special phone number that I can call to get DVR service back after activating the Duo, but that is a hassle, so I don't usually do that. I mostly only activate the Duo when I want to watch something live from the satellite channels (Live TV is all the Duo will let me do while it is activated) and I need an additional receiver active because all tuners are in use on my other receiver. The Duo, when activated, will also still let me play existing recordings, but without the ability to pause or skip, etc.

I detailed these issues in another thread, for anyone who is interested. That thread started out about my Wally, but then I started having the same issue with my Hopper Duo.

Wally U810 DVR Timers Issue

The new season of Marvel's Spider-Man: Maximum Venom is about to start on Disney XD on Sunday, April 19. I checked my existing DVR timer for Marvel's Spider-Man (set before the title of the series was changed to add "Maximum Venom") to make sure it will still find the new episodes. The timer...

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