Check Switch issues - 622/Dish 1000

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kelton325

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Feb 6, 2006
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Circleville, OH
I have a 622 connected to a Dish 1000, and I'm having trouble getting a clean Check Switch. I have rebooted soft and hard, unhooked the sat feed in, re-ran check switch to clear it, then unplugged it, hooked it back up again, turned it on... no success. Every time I run check switch i get something different. 119 is usually showing OK on Tuner 1, sometimes on Tuner 2. 110 will sometimes show on both. One time my switch was detected as an SW64 on tuner 1 - not sure where that came from.

129 never checks out, yet on the point dish screen I am showing a 70-80 signal strength.

Does anyone have a clue what my problem could be? Is the switch built into 1000 bad? We've had some storms recently, and the trouble started around then, and has continued even though the weather is sunny & clear now for the past 2 days.
 
Most likely your dish 1000 has been moved by the storm. A misaligned dish 1000 will display the symptoms you describe.

Paul
 
Well, I had to leave for a bit so I soft re-booted right before heading out the door. When I got home, I turned it on, and got the error message saying there was a problem with my switch installation, no surprise there. I ran check switch one more time, and voila! - all 3 sats on both tuners checked out fine. I really don't know what the difference between 3:30 PM and 5PM was, but I must've ran check switch 20 times earlier today in between constant soft and hard reboots, all with no luck until now. All 3 sats are showing good strengths - 119 - 103, 110 - 80's, 129, 70's... pretty typical for me.

Hopefully this will hold out.
 
The problems are back... Here is one additional behavior I noticed this morning. Channels that are not working WILL work if I pull up PIP, do a swap, then tune to the previously unworking channel. When I go to the point dish screen to look at the signal for that particular sat/transponder, it shows no signal at all on Tuner 1, but Tuner 2 shows just fine.

It is very strange - I can be watching the channel in question in the PIP through Tuner 2, but the main screen can be on the exact same channel and it will show me the Acquiring Satellite Signal message, which eventually fails.

Does anyone know why Tuner 2 might be getting a signal, but not tuner 1? The connections are correct - I have one RG6 between my Dish 1000 running into a separator on the 622, with both connections corrected made to the 622.
 
Kelton,

I'm having more or less the same issue but have a dish 500 DPP and a remote dish on 61.5. No matter how I try, I could only get all sats up once and it reverted back to the problem when I retuned home that night. I called D* and they are sending me a new 622. I'm not sure if this will solve the problem, but hopefully it will. BTW, I also have an 811 and it sees all the sats perfectly off the same switch.

Bert
 
Have you thought that the dishpro plus twin lnb might be faulty? I had the same symptoms of black screens on tuner 1 on certain channels and on the other tuner it was working and then not. This just happened to me this last 4 days and I have a dish 1000 too . One dish 1000 peaked for just 129 and a dish 500 peaked for the 110/119 sats. The 129 sat dish is on a pole run into the dish 500 dish on the second pole.

I checked the transponders and I was getting only odd transponders on the tuner 1 on both of my 622 dvrs. I redid the cables and changed out the ota antenna , diplexors , and dish seperators and finally I figured out to change the lnb. Yesterday I got a new dishpro plus twin lnb and changed it out and everything came back just fine. And after all the dish techs told me it had to be a cable issues. I should have trusted my instincts and change the lnbs like I wanted to first.

My point is that it might be the lnb. My origional lnb went through Hurricane Rita last September and then made it another 10 months before it went down. Try the lnb and see if your channels come back.
 
Last edited:
MikeD-C05 said:
Have you thought that the dishpro plus twin lnb might be faulty? I had the same symptoms of black screens on tuner 1 on certain channels and on the other tuner it was working and then not. This just happened to me this last 4 days and I have a dish 1000 too . One dish 1000 peaked for just 129 and a dish 500 peaked for the 110/119 sats. The 129 sat dish is on a pole run into the dish 500 dish on the second pole.

I checked the transponders and I was getting only odd transponders on the tuner 1 on both of my 622 dvrs. I redid the cables and changed out the ota antenna , diplexors , and dish seperators and finally I figured out to change the lnb. Yesterday I got a new dishpro plus twin lnb and changed it out and everything came back just fine. And after all the dish techs told me it had to be a cable issues. I should have trusted my instincts and change the lnbs like I wanted to first.

My point is that it might be the lnb. My origional lnb went through Hurricane Rita last September and then made it another 10 months before it went down. Try the lnb and see if your channels come back.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information on your experience - I am leaning toward this very thing. Do you think it would be possible to get Dish to send me one of these, or will I have to buy it myself... I'm dreading the phone call to tech support trying to explain what I want. I just got installed in March, so I'm assuming they'd just send a tech out to work on it. I'd rather they just send me the DPP LNB and put it on myself.
 
DPP Twin LNBF is only $45 through DishStore and may be less on eBay or equivalent. The service call and any necessary replacement equipment will cost you nothing since you're still within the 90-day warranty. If I were you I'd probably spend the $45 and make the swap myself, then if it was indeed an intermittent LNBF, I'd try to negotiate with E* tech service for a refund or (more likely) programming credit in kind. If you find out that it's not the LNBF you can probably unload the new one to offset some of the cost...
 
Just got off the phone with E* tech support... talked to a fairly knowledgable person in what sounded like an American call center.

We ran through the standard check switch with the same results - some channels worked only on tuner 1, some only on tuner 2. Then, he had me unplug the 622, remove the separator and plug the Sat In feed directly to tuner 1, and re-run check switch. This worked fine - Tuner 1 was all OK, which is not what happened the other day when I tried it. Next, we plugged the Sat In feed directly to tuner 2, and again, worked fine. Went back to tuner 1 so I could test a few channels, and everything was working great... The tech concluded that the separator was bad, and ordered me a new one.

I guess I didn't realize a bad separator could inflict the behavior I was experiencing before...

thanks everyone for your posts & advice!!!
 
kelton325,

I have the exact same problem with my 622. Spent 3 hours on the last night and the Tech had me run feed directly from LNB to Sat1, check switch then Sat2, check switch. Differnt results almost everytime. The tech thinks it is the seperator as well. I switched my 622 to single mode and unplugged the power this morning for a couple of minutes. Plugged it back in, did a check switch and it appears to be working again. I didn't switch back to dual mode yet. I'm not convinced that it might be the 622 or the L357 update. I got the feeling the L358 was coming tonight......
 
Soooo.... I got the separator mid-last week and it apparently solved the problem at that time. Tonight, I get home from work, and it's back to the same exact issues. Tried doing a check switch, and a soft reboot, with no luck. Called Tech Support, got a knowledgeable tech who reviewed the notes from the last call, had me go to the System Info screen, which showed all Red X's for the 3 sat's. He immediately scheduled a tech to come out on Thursday afternoon to take a look... He thought that it was either the DPP Twin or the cabling. When I hook up the cable directly to Tuner 1, everything works no problem, so I'm not sure that implicates the cabling, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.
 
I would like to know what the tech finds when he/she comes out. If you could, let us know what the outcome to your situation is. Thnx!
 
Well my seperator came last Thursday night, installed it and so far my check switch is working fine. All three sats are giving me green boxes. What makes me nervous is it looks like others have replaced the seperator, had it working and now the check switch problem is back......
 
The saga continues...

larsh74 said:
I would like to know what the tech finds when he/she comes out. If you could, let us know what the outcome to your situation is. Thnx!
Click to expand...

The tech was scheduled between 12PM - 5PM Thursday. My wife is waiting at home all day, and the guy calls about 5PM telling her that he is just leaving from 45 mins away. He rolls in about 6PM.. Great, my wife could've done whatever she needed to do all day and I could have been home from work by 6PM, so her day is wasted. Anyway, the tech goes to work, guess what? Everything working fine, all green. Surprise, Surprise :( I walked him through all the problems I was having, and it became very clear that he didn't have much understanding of how the system really works - just a basic understanding of put up the dish, point it, make sure the cables are connected. This poor guy didn't even realize you could hook an OTA antenna up to a 622 - he was amazed when he saw that. I can't believe they send these guys out with so little training - it's not their fault. He was a real nice guy, and wanted to help somehow, so he replaced a couple of the cable ends with what appeared to be better ones, with weather boots, and left.

About 12 hours later, back to the same old problems :mad:

I call Dish again this morning and told them about my continued problems the past 2 weeks. I told them that I originally thought it was the DPP Twin, and have tried the separator, no luck, then tried the service call, no luck. I told the CSR I wanted them to send me a DPP Twin, and I'd do it myself. She puts me on hold, comes back and says they must roll a truck to be sure that's the problem. I told them I didn't want to waste another half day waiting on a truck that will probably be late. I also walked through my original Dish install experience (read about that nightmare here) and told them that it took 3 separate appointments to get it right, and that I wasn't interested in waiting around again for a tech who probably would know less than I do. On top of that, it might be intermittently working again when they get here. I told her I wanted the DPP Twin shipped out, and I would take care of installing it, and if that didn't fix it, I'd send it back to them. On hold again... she comes back and says they can ship it for $82!!! I said absolutely no way I'm paying for it, let me talk to the manager. Manager gets on, I walk him through my frustrations, and how every time I call, I get a different answer on what the cause could be, and that the techs they send don't have training and seem to know less than me. I tell him if they can't ship me the DPP Twin, that I will just need to cancel because I can't pay $80 per month for somethign that doesn't work. He says, "OK, is your shipping address..." :) They are shipping my new DPP Twin ASAP. I also asked for a 2 week credit, which he immediately agreed to. I thanked him for hearing me out and hung up pretty happy. I am convinced you must revert to the "I will cancel if you don't do want I want" trick to get anything.

I'll let everyone know if the new DPP Twin fixes it.
 
Kelton,

Did this fix it? I have a scheduled appointement for Sat. but like you, I think most of these guys are clueless. I called Dish last night to see if they would send me a LNBF but they also wanted to charge me. She said that if I waited for the tech that I wouldn't have to pay anything. How stupid is that. Having someone come out to swap out a LNBF has to cost E* more money than me getting my ass on a ladder and doing it myself. :confused: .

My wife asked me why I don't just cancel and go with someone else. The truth is I love my 622 and the programing on Dish when it's working, but man does it frustrate me when it doesn't.

Bert
 
New DPP Twin Solved it!

The new DPP Twin arrived today. 15 minutes later it was installed and Check Switch was back to all green. I am back to everything working, no problem. Soooo... This was much easier for everyone. I'm glad I saved both of us time and them money by not having to send a tech to try to figure out what I told them was the problem 3 weeks ago.

If you are experiencing similar to problems to what is described in this thread, it's probably your DPP Twin so make them fix it. If you have the knowledge/ability to switch the DPP Twin yourself (not hard at all), and don't want to sit around for a tech, insist that they send it out so you can do it yourself. Ask for a manager if you have to, and if they still resist, threaten to cancel. That was what did the trick for me. I also got a 2 week credit without any push back at all.

Hope everyone else gets their check switch problems resolved.
 
kelton325 said:
The new DPP Twin arrived today. 15 minutes later it was installed and Check Switch was back to all green. I am back to everything working, no problem. Soooo... This was much easier for everyone. I'm glad I saved both of us time and them money by not having to send a tech to try to figure out what I told them was the problem 3 weeks ago.

If you are experiencing similar to problems to what is described in this thread, it's probably your DPP Twin so make them fix it. If you have the knowledge/ability to switch the DPP Twin yourself (not hard at all), and don't want to sit around for a tech, insist that they send it out so you can do it yourself. Ask for a manager if you have to, and if they still resist, threaten to cancel. That was what did the trick for me. I also got a 2 week credit without any push back at all.

Hope everyone else gets their check switch problems resolved.
Click to expand...

It's always fun showing up at 6:30-7:00 while people are attending to their BBQ.

Anyhow, I ran into a trouble call similar to what you were saying about 2 weeks ago. All in all the problem was a DPP Twin. Customer was having issues loosing tuner 2. When I arrived everything was okay within the matrix, system appeared to be fine... when I went into system status menu under details I seen both the tuners had lost signal over 90+ times within a few hours.

Swapped the feedhorn problem solved. :up
 
rcdallas said:
It's always fun showing up at 6:30-7:00 while people are attending to their BBQ.

Anyhow, I ran into a trouble call similar to what you were saying about 2 weeks ago. All in all the problem was a DPP Twin. Customer was having issues loosing tuner 2. When I arrived everything was okay within the matrix, system appeared to be fine... when I went into system status menu under details I seen both the tuners had lost signal over 90+ times within a few hours.

Swapped the feedhorn problem solved. :up
Click to expand...

So that is what the lost locks feature means under the diagnostics screen. I tried to get a dish tech on the phone to confirm that this is what it meant and he said he didn't know what it meant. I had a problem for two weeks with a dish pro plus twin that went bad and I was having anywhere from 90 to 158 lost locks only on tuner 2. I knew that was the problem and I switched out the lnb and now they are back to 1 and 2 lost locks a day on one tuner and two tuner or sometimes 0 and 0.
 
Lost locks in the diagnostics screens matches the number of lost signals in the Sys Info under details. My 625 has 1 or 2 lost locks around the time the updates happen (From 1:00 AM to 7:00 AM). Sometimes it's 0 and 0.
 
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