HELP...Bad Transponder Reception & Dish wants a $50 Service Call

[kirkdj]

I live in La., and have a DVR 522 super dish with a DPP44 that I'm having a signal loss problem. There is a large tree close by where this dish is pointed, but until recently have always gotten good reception. If I check the systen info it says all my signals are good on 110, 119, 121, 129. The DISH rep had me check the signal strength of different transponders on the 4 satellites. On some of the sats I get good signals on most but on some of the transponders I get a 0 signal. Am I suppose to get a signal on every transponder on every sat. ?
Like on sat. 110, transponders 7, 8, 18, 20, 27, have 0 signal.
On sat. 119, transponders 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, have a 0 signal.
On sat 121, transponders 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32 have 0 signals.
On sat 129, I get ALL the transponders with good signals.

I wanted to make sure that the rep was correct in saying that there seems to be a problem with the switch or the LNB (I think thats what she called it) and I'm not wasting a $50 service call on someone to align my dish properly or put to move it in another location as should have been done during initial installation. I had the HD channels added a couple of months ago and that installer put the 2nd dish about 25 ft. further out to avoid that tree I mentioned. I'm wondering if thats what needs to be done with this super dish? But are these transponder signals correct or a serious malfunction?

 

[MikeD-C05]

The 119 signal blackouts sound just like mine. The 110 is almost all spotbeams now and I get no signal strengths on the same ones you do or low signal strengths. Don't have 121 or 129 anymore but I don't think you are having any problems based on the readings.

Are you losing your picture or are you getting a lot of lost locks (-under the diagnostics menu and then hit counter and down on the page button on the remote)? IF you are getting a lot of lost locks under the diagnostics counters screen , this would indicate a problem with your lnb. I was getting lost locks in the 119/ 85 a day on both of my 622s and it turned out to be the lnb was going bad.


But from the signal strengths you have written about I would say this is normal . Remember that Directv shares some of the transponders on both 110 and 119 and you will not pick them up on your sat meter. I believe that 1 and 3 are the ones on 119 that Directv has and there are no more transponders after 21 on the 119 so Directv must have them too. I can't temember which ones on the 110 but I think that they are in the 26-31 range. Either way , unless you notice a problem with lost picture or searching for a sat signal pop ups, or lost locks goes way up this is normal.

 

[Mr Tony]

on 119 Transponders 1,3,5,7,9 are spotbeams and are only in specific areas. I get 0 on those too (I'm in MN)

110 has spotbeams galore and some I get 0 on too

121 they turned off a bunch of transponders right now so that is right too

nothing to worry about.

 

[Mr Tony]

also moved to Dish area

 

[Mr Tony]

according to www.lyngsat.com, these transponders are OFF on 121 (no channels, ergo no signal)

3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32

which matches up with your numbers

110 has spotbeams at the following transponders (so you may have signal or none depedning on your location)

4, 12, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31...TP 28, 30 & 32 are owned by DirecTv so they dont show up on a Dish box

TP 7, 13, 17 are HD Transponders and won't show signal on a non HD box

 

[kirkdj]

One box works and one doesn't

What does this mean? I discovered that the bad signals (picture loss) is only on my DVR 522 box, I checked the same channels on my HD box on the same tv and they come in perfect. So does this mean that the dish alignment, and lnb are all working fine? I called Dish back to let them know this and the tech said it's possible the switch port for the 522 is bad. I asked about changing to another port, he said that may correct it....it's a dp44 switch. Is changing to another port worth a shot and can I mess anything up? Does the fact that the HD box comes in clear mean that trees are not my problem?
I tried a reboot on the 522 and guess what it cleared up the bad signals......but after an hour or so, I noticed them starting to come back on a couple of channels but not on some of the previous bad channels. Not sure if it will get progressively worse overnight and this weekend.

 

[Jared Twomey]

i'd try changing ports on the 44 switch and see if that doesn't fix it

 

[kirkdj]

Oh Well

I changed the wires around, there were 3 wires coming into my house and they were all connected to the bottom ports on the switch.....only the 4th port was free. Also only the 1st port wire seemed to have any effect on the signal, when I removed it, I lost sat. signal to both boxes, the HD and the 522. The 2nd and 3rd port wires didn't seem to do anything that I could tell. I ended up putting everything back as it was, because when I put that 1st port wire into the 4th port, nothing worked.

I also noticed that a reboot on the 522 hardly does any good anymore......I'm wondering if this 522 is dying?

 

[boba]

Port 1 is the power supply on the DPP44 switch so when you moved it you unplugged it. Your description does suggest the 522 is failing.

 

[telling the truth]

Put the dish warranty on your account, it is 5.99 a month and does not require any commitment, you can remove it after the service call and only pay for the days that you used it.

 

[rich88]

There is one other slight possibility:

With a DP Plus 44 switch, I'm assuming you've one line running into your 522 with a DP Plus separater behind the receiver going into the two satellite inputs.

I don't know if you have a single or dual-tuner HD receiver.

If you have a dual-tuner HD receiver, exchange the DP Plus separaters between the HD and the 522 receiver.

If your 522 starts coming in and your HD starts screwing-up, it could very well just be a bad separater.

However, if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on your 522 receiver being "dead-man walking".