Well, I came back in from the other room to find my box not outputting video and with a "6" on the display. I cannot get it to come back on. I tried to flex the board, which has worked in the past, and I tried heating the board since heat has previously helped. Neither has worked thus far. Does anyone have any thoughts about what I could do with it?
EDIT: I opened it up and tried checking the voltages out of the supply board and all were 0. Closer looking revealed a bulging capacitor that looks as though it has been previously replaced. So I'm going to order a replacement cap and try replacing it.
EDIT2: I discovered that all the symptoms my "dying" box has had for the last few months can be explained by a capacitor going bad. So once my replacement capacitor arrives, my box may come back to life free of issues.
Or so I hope.
- Trip
Trip,
Hey, that would be excellent if that resolves your issue with the 6K! I am crossing my fingers for your good luck here!
I understand your dilemna about setting up a more permanent system if you plan on moving sometime in the near future. But, I am sure that you understand my urging even if it is temporary. It would be so nice to have a great LOS and play with that in experimentation as opposed to fighting for a limited view. You will have to do with what resources (and LOS) that you have at present and make the best of it.
I just polished up this weekend helping a neighbor set up DN for his RV. That was an experience. My SuperBuddy meter did not like to work with his DN LNBF. It was a Dish Pro Plus triple LNBF for 110/119/129 on a 1000.4 dish. Man! Is that LNBF a power monger! It took a lot longer than I expected because my battery kept going dead and I had forgotten that I could use the IRD to power the system.
We were down along the river and there are trees everywhere, so it takes a keen eye to locate the "hole" to aim through. We set up a "test" tripod RV mast on Saturday to check it out thoroughly. I got excellent C/N ratio readings with my SuperBuddy, but none of his channels would come in on his receiver. Turned out that the camper sales company had miswired his external power cord and damaged a lot of the electronics. They either replaced or repaired the DN receiver and it had been disconnected for too long so it needed a "rehit" from DN to reactivate all his subscription channels. We got that done and had everything coming in great.
The next step was to install a permanent mast and dish and run cables to each camper. This second, permanent dish turned out to be more difficult to align for some reason. It took me longer to figure out all the details, but after two hours or a bit more, we had that dish set up and running. That is much longer than it should have taken, I should have been done with the entire installation within 20 minutes! I felt displeased with my progress (time-wise), but he and his wife were very happy with the end results.
I only asked him to pay for the cable and the connectors at first. 250 feet of RG6 quad shield @ $0.07 per foot + 12 connectors @ $0.35 each = $21.70. But, the "porta-potty" guy came out to service our campground and I didn't have my billfold with me. So I asked him if a $35 fee would be OK for all the hardware and my time. He asked me in return if that was enough.... I told him that it was just the right price!
That paid for the "porta-potty" service. I hope that I was fair, I only do this for a hobby and to help my friends, so I think it wasn't out of line.
I thought you might enjoy hearing this story of my latest installation. It's just for interest and curiousity and fun.
RADAR
