How to align DirectV HD Dish?

[mrmarito]

Hello I am having issues with my DirectV HD service. I am getting a lot of artifacts, and distortion when watching HD Programming on my local channels. Sometimes it will just go to a blue screen and it may take about 30 seconds for the screen to come backup. One day it lost the signall and the receiver reset it's self. I don't know if it has to do with the Alignment of the dish.

I called Directv and they had me check the signal strength. It's at about 75%
They had me check different satellites and transponders but this is the best signal I can get right now. They told me that It could be 2 things, 1st that the reciever I have (MDL: H20, MFR:600) was known to have problems. Or it could be that it's not align properly anymore. In any case they wanted to charge me to fix it.

Does anyone know what can be the problem and how to solve it? Thank you much.

 

[charper1]

1. Is there anything in front of the dish's line of sight?

2. I can't hurt to have a competent person go out and re-peak the dish.

3. Do you have any standard receivers that you could report signal strengths?

 

[Teronzhul]

75% is probably about what the H20 should in fact be reading.

Aiming the at9 yourself is difficult, and to do it right really requires a signal meter.

The H20-600 is a piece of junk. The H20-100 is better.

You could always try to force a firmware upgrade if they didn't have you do that. Reset the box and on the blue welcome screen hit 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 on your remote.

You'll likely end up needing a tech to come out to check it for you. Just pray the problems are in fact visible during the service call.

 

[cybrsurfer]

If you have the service plan, DirecTV will come out and peak it for free...

Hello I am having issues with my DirectV HD service. I am getting a lot of artifacts, and distortion when watching HD Programming on my local channels. Sometimes it will just go to a blue screen and it may take about 30 seconds for the screen to come backup. One day it lost the signall and the receiver reset it's self. I don't know if it has to do with the Alignment of the dish.

I called Directv and they had me check the signal strength. It's at about 75%
They had me check different satellites and transponders but this is the best signal I can get right now. They told me that It could be 2 things, 1st that the reciever I have (MDL: H20, MFR:600) was known to have problems. Or it could be that it's not align properly anymore. In any case they wanted to charge me to fix it.

Does anyone know what can be the problem and how to solve it? Thank you much.

HI... If you have the protection plan, then call DirecTV to come out and peak it for you.

 

[jvarkalis]

that box is crap crap crap! I have been in your shoes (my you have small feet)! Anywho, I had my dish poked and prodded more times them Pamela Lee, I actually had a new box sent out 2 times third time was the charm! All better now!

 

[REALaw]

What is a good (relatively inexpensive) inline signal meter I can buy?

 

[OneBigJedi]

I Was Asking This Samething Last Week!

I too have an AT9 and H20-600. I had the guy come back and re-peak the dish. He was at least nice enough to tell me that the problem is the H20-600. DTV did a rush job on the unit to get it out the door to beat Dish, and chip set they are using is krap! The real sad thing is they have still not replaced the chip set after all this time.

The other problem is with the DTV broadcast center. After many calls to DTV they said that they knew there was a problem with the broadcast center too and that they are working on it. Bad news is it will take several months to fix and/or replace the equipment with new replacements.

You will get a little better results with H20-100 and the newer HR20-700 DVR. DTV is also working on a new firmware patch, but do not expect it till June. It will help with the problem, but I can almost tell you for sure it will not fix it. Since the problem is mostly chip set problem, the only fix is a newer unit that will replace the H20.

 

[Jimbo]

Which came first ?
The H-20-100 or the H-20-600 ?

Jimbo

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

The H20-600 has a much better ATSC tuner.

 

[OneBigJedi]

H20-600 was first!

The H20-600 was made before the 100. The 600 is made by LG Electronics, the 100 is made by RCA. To the best of my knowledge the 600 has not changed. RCA has revised the 100 unit at lest once that I know of, if not twice.

Also, the firmware for the 100 seems to work better than the 600 firmware. You can tell the 600 over the 100 very easy if the unit is on. The 600 has green LED lights the 100 has blue.

Both units seem to have marks, the 600 seems to handle over the air HD signals better, the 100 seems to be handling Mpeg 4 feeds for local HD channels a little better. The 600 also seems to have a slow lag in doing menu scrolling.

But, both units could use a better faster chip set replacement.

 

[SirDrake]

Just a thought.....
How is the wiring from the dish to your Sat box?
I had trouble with some of my HiDef channels on one of my H20's. It kept pixelating and breaking up mostly on HDNet Movies, but I had no problems on my other H20.
I rewired the RG6 cable (make sure you use RG6) from my multiswitch to the H20 and voila! All better!
It seems that these boxes are fussier about the cabling. The installer I had warned me about it. He said that these boxes work better with shorter runs and fewer connectors.
I think I had about 4 different runs of RG6 hooked up to it. I shortened it to 2 runs - one from the multiswitch to the wall, and one from the wall to the H20. I also used solid copper core RG6 and compression fittings for the ends.
I hope this helps.