Can a LNBF go bad?

[severtson]

I had my Dish with 522 receivers for 4 days (as of yesterday) when in the middle of watching live TV I lost all signal. I tried doing a hard boot, and just get the message "aquiring satellite signal" step 0 of 5 which never goes past 0. I called Dish and had them walk me thru a system check and it failed. I literally was sitting there watching TV when it went out, so nothing has changed from the time they installed it. Any ideas what could have happened? My cable internet still works great which is sharing a diplexed line with my Dish...so I know the connections are intact. My guess is that the problem resides with the LNBF or in the 522 itself...however, I can still watch previously recorded shows on the 522?!? Any advise is greatly appreciated. I'm not having a lot of luck!

 

[gredneck]

if you are handy.....
disconnect the diplexor and hook just the satellite line to the receiver and see
if it picks up the satellite.

over the years I've had the same problem (searching for satellite) many times
all with different reasons:

1. diplexor was NG

2. lnbf was NG

3. receiver was NG

4. coax was NG (not long enough run(outside) and had to connect a second line and the weather took it's toll in less than 6 months!)

so as you can see there are many reasons why it won't work.
the easiest solution is if you have another receiver (or a trusting friend)
disonnect the 522 and hook up the other receiver, if that doesn't work, try eliminating some of the things I listed above. (Ie. diplexor, new line directly from lnbf to receiver, etc..)

hope this helps

 

[SimpleSimon]

I heartily agree with the above. You are NOT guaranteed "the connections are intact" - the run from the LNBF to where it merges with the cable internet feed is certainly an unknown. One note, to take the diplexer out of the mix, you're going to need a bulkhead connector to replace it. Make sure it's good enough - some can't handle 2GHz (satellite) signals.

Oh, and the answer to your orignal question ("Can a LNBF go bad?"), is: Even a block of concrete goes bad - given enough time.

Generally, electronics will either fail in the first 90 days, or last for many years. In the business, we call it "infant mortality".

 

[severtson]

Just to close this thread out...Dish came out today and found the indeed my LNBF had gone bad.