comlicated setup problem AMC21

[turbosat]

Worked on this sev hours and couldn't figure it out today. Fixed dish, .90primestar I used to have on WhiteSprings, then over to AMC1, and yesterday, pointed at AMC21. Took the Coship 3188 out there with a tv, thought I had everything fine, but couldn't scan in the channels inside the house with the traxis, or the viewsat.
Traxis showed signal on all the H&V tps, but logged everything as Vertical. Ultra showed signal quality on all the same tps too, but wouldn't log anything at all. Found out with the Viewsat, if same channels are stored elsewhere, as in, under another sat-name (AMC3) wouldn't store them under another sat name if freq/sr was same. Deleted all the pbs channels/tps off AMC3, it STILL won't store them on AMC21.
Out at the dish today, the coship found/stored all the H/V channels, with some minor skew adjustments, good signal/quality on all. Put up everything, reconnected the rg6 to the house, from the 3x4 switch, went inside, same results. Nothing stores, and neither box see's many of the tp's on AMC21 at all. Disconnected that line from the diseqc and ran to both receivers direct>no change.
** It's got to be either the cable or switch, right? I am stumped with this one.
>On my motorized dish, the receivers scan/store the channels fine! It's 20' away from this other dish.

 

[brentb636]

Sounds frustrating !
If it works out at the dish, though, but not in the house, you're down to cable ( or connectors) and the switch. I'd start out by putting two new connectors on the cable, and shorting out one end, checking the continuity with a meter from the other end. It would be embarrassing to hook up ends of the wrong cable. Then try again hooked up without the switch. Get one thing working over the single cable before going any further.
Do this methodically, it's mighty irritating, but hopefully you'll find something simple, and end up with only perhaps a bad switch.

 

[turbosat]

Yes, it is a tough one. I think I will run an entirely new cable from the switch to the house tomorrow. There isn't any obstruction in the LOS, I even grabbed an ax (close to it than I was to the chain saw lol) and chopped down a 20' sapling about 60' away, just in case.
The test rec worked at the dish , off the same 3x4 switch, so its puzzling. Swapped output ports on the cable coming into the house, just for grins, using same output I used for the test box. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Gotta be a cable end, or cable itself. I'll find out Sunday, i have 3 of everything, already swapped out lnbfs once too lol.

 

[turbosat]

Think I got it!

All working channels now on the new bird! Appears to be 1. Flakey receivers +
2. Flakey diseqc switch

Viewsat stored all the channels fine, as long as I manually entered the transponders and then scanned each one, both H & V. Buggy software I think. It has other quirks I can't explain too, like only scanning the H side of AMC5 on blind scan-If I scan V side manually it works. Has to be longstanding bugs in the software.

As for the switch, apparently the port 4 is goofed. Bypassing the diseqc switch, the boxes both scan the new bird correctly. I might've messed up the D-switch unknowingly today while I was outside.

NOW, I can watch tv.

 

[brentb636]

Isn't it grand to be working again, and to actually know WHY ? !
Good going, Turbo .

 

[turbosat]

Maybe if I could quit dking with stuff I wouldn't find these messes lol. I just wanted an easy way to switch over to pbs without wearing my motor out!

 

[brentb636]

"Maybe if I could quit dking with stuff I wouldn't find these messes lol"

Can't do THAT, Tony would probably ban you from the forum . Screwing things up is how we make things better ( occasionally ) !