Dish 500, old 2800 commercial receiver for Muzak - transponder issues

[cypherstream]

Our business has a dish 500 with a single cable run to a 2800 commercial receiver, which is pretty old, or at least the menu's and stuff look pretty old. This is for a "muzak" subscription for commercial business.

The issue is that many transponders do not have signal at all off of 119 W. However some do have good signal (low to mid 90 % I would say). Is there any correlation as to why these transponders have no signal at all:
1,2,5,6,7,8,10,12,14,18,20

I ran check switch and it came back ok, but we can't get the stations we want on it.

What's the next thing to check? Its the only receiver on this dish because it's for music. We have TV too but that is off a different dish (the black turbo HD dish on Eastern Arc).

 

[boba]

Try getting your provider to upgrade your receiver to at least a 311. For consumers the 2800 is dead and being replaced I don't know about the commercial market but I would assume the same replacement is ongoing.

 

[Mike_H]

Such music systems are a subscription service so you must be leasing or renting that equipment from someone. You'll want to contact whoever that is and have them resolve your issues.

 

[TheKrell]

Is there any correlation as to why these transponders have no signal at all: 1,2,5,6,7,8,10,12,14,18,20.

Interesting list. Transponders 1 and 7 are 8PSK on 119, so you cannot demodulate them with a legacy receiver. 2 and 8 are spotbeam transponders, so perhaps it's aiming somewhere else or the PA spot is also 8PSK. (This varies.) But so far as I can see from the DishChannelChart! (see tab above), you should still be getting 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, and 20. Music channels are all over the place, but a quick check of the above tab for 119 shows a lot on 18 and 20, which you say you don't get, even though you should.

Perhaps the 2800 is going deaf to the higher frequencies, or it can no longer switch polarization, or the LNB has gone south. Whatever is the case, sooner or later, you'll have to get it upgraded to a 311 (or better) to receive 8PSK. There is an interesting little receiver (which I have un-sub'ed in the closet) that also can decode 8PSK, and that's the 111. It is crippled in that it only has an RF coax output, so that might be a non-starter unless you happen to be distributing music from your 2800 via coax...

 

[KE4EST]

Yep it could be any of the components really. LNBF, Receiver, or even moisture in the coax could cause this. I would call who ever you are leasing from and get them out for an upgrade.

 

[cypherstream]

Ok, thanks. Yeah I thought maybe it could be LNB because I tried another 2800-commercial receiver and it had exactly the same result.

They want to charge $200 to upgrade so thats why we are just running these old boxes with the L/R outputs piped to a audio distribution system for business. When our contract is up we would like to put in a 211 and connect it to the new turbo HD dish we have and add DishCD to our package if its possible to add that to a commercial package (our channels for TV are in the 4000's).

But we have 1 year left on the Muzak contract and the ETF is like $550 so we can wait.

 

[HIFI]

Ok, thanks. Yeah I thought maybe it could be LNB because I tried another 2800-commercial receiver and it had exactly the same result.

They want to charge $200 to upgrade so thats why we are just running these old boxes with the L/R outputs piped to a audio distribution system for business. When our contract is up we would like to put in a 211 and connect it to the new turbo HD dish we have and add DishCD to our package if its possible to add that to a commercial package (our channels for TV are in the 4000's).

But we have 1 year left on the Muzak contract and the ETF is like $550 so we can wait.

unless something has changed since I left dish you should be able to hook the 2800 up to the turbo hd dish provided it is the western arc dish.

 

[Mr Tony]

I would just swap out the LNB...easy fix (hopefully)

 

[cypherstream]

unless something has changed since I left dish you should be able to hook the 2800 up to the turbo hd dish provided it is the western arc dish.

The newer dish is eastern arc 61.5-77, the dish 500 is western arc at 119. The 2800 also cannot do mpeg4 or 8psk.

 

[Mr Tony]

and an Eastern Arc dish you can't use with old equipment so yeah you will need to swap out the LNB on the 119 dish for that

 

[garys]

If everything else on the account is mpeg4 and connected to EA, it may have been tagged and the 2800 would not be allowed to work with the system. Also, the 2800's are on the way out and will be useless very soon.

 

[cypherstream]

If everything else on the account is mpeg4 and connected to EA, it may have been tagged and the 2800 would not be allowed to work with the system. Also, the 2800's are on the way out and will be useless very soon.

We are receiving encrypted programming with the 2800 looking at 119 now, just not our normal station as half the transponders report a big 0 - no signal while the other half or so report signals in the 90's.

As far as the 2800 being old, yes it is old but our Muzak contractor will surely contact us or replace the unit if / when needed. A tech is coming out to check everything out. I really think its a bad LNB. For now we just have a different (more laid back) music station that is broadcast from a different transponder on 119.

 

[cypherstream]

Tech came out. Put a meter on the cable and we paged through all the transponders. The level was 59-60 and he said that was good. I forget the make and model of his meter, but it had an LCD screen on it with two bar graphs. It "verified" 119 W and everything passes.

The only thing it could be is the receiver. That's not on the dish network acct though. It's on a Muzak retailer acct so he said we will have to call them. He can't authorize or send any hits to it because its not even listed on our acct. Our retailer has to do all that stuff, and he said this box is so old he can't believe it even partially works. So now I guess we have to convince our Muzak retailer to upgrade the box. Once that contract is up, we are def. going with a a 211k commercial and Dish CD instead of paying out the nose for Muzak.

 

[Mike_H]

If you have a business, and you are play music in the background in that business you are generally required to pay royalties for that music that you play. There are exceptions based on size of business, type of business, and number of speakers. Generally you start with the requirement to pay and have to search for an exception.

That means you can't just yank out Muzak and start using a standard Dish Receiver and broadcast Dish CD throughout your business. That is likely illegal. There are other services than Muzak that are cheaper, as well as royalty free music out there.