HR24-200 TV + PVR setup

[AcWxRadar]

Hi friends, I need some assistance and advice.

My neighbor wanted to invite some friends out to his cabin to watch a football game. He used to have a subscription to DirecTV at the cabin, but let that lapse and so he brought his home receiver (an HR24-200 model) out to the cabin to view the game since that receiver was current with his subscription. I am pretty sure that the antenna is a Slim Line 3 model, but I cannot get the model number off it as we did not have a ladder at the time and it is WAY up on the roof of a two story cabin. It is the all-in-one molded style with three identical LNBFs and is probably 10 years old or thereabouts. I guestimate that it is aimed near the 95°-119° W direction, but don't know exactly which satellites it is dedicated to.

I can connect his old receiver to the antenna and get the non-pay channels, so the antenna and cabling is in good condition. The western satellite that the antenna would be picking up might be blocked by some trees (they are awfully close and quite tall). All the sats used to come in for him, but the trees have grown considerably since he used it last. I can say for certain that the center and east satellite are OK for line-of-sight path.

He asked me to help him get it set up and functioning with his home receiver (the HR24-200). I tried my best, but wasn't familiar enough with the setup to get it working for him. Worst of all, he left the remote at home that day (why???) and that made it much more of a hassle. The touch panel wouldn't register my fingertips very well (I had been working with cleaning chemicals earlier in the day and my fingers were all dried and caloused).

Can anyone provide or direct me to a good step by step set-up procedure for the HR24-200 with the Slim-Line 3 antenna?

I would appreciate it very much. Thank You

RADAR

 

[dfergie]

Is it a Oval 18" dish ? being that age it is more than likely a Phase III which will only get the SD programming, you should go into menu > setup > Sat & antenna > antenna setup to set up for that dish. Before you do that view signal strengths and it will have signals only on 101, 110 & 119 if it is a phase III ...

 

[raoul5788]

If the dish is really 10 years old it would have to be the older Phase III type that doesn't get hd channels anymore. dfergie is right, you will have to change the dish type in the menu to get it to work. If 119 really is blocked, I don't think you will get any guide data, if that matters. Come to think of it, that may be only with the Slimline type dishes.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Thanks guys...

I think you are right, Phase III dish is what I would have thought it was (not a Slim-line 3), but there is no option in the menus of the HR24-200 for a Phase III dish (unless that is in a hidden menu or referred to as something else). What would be the appropriate antenna selection? Is the receiver even compatible with this dish? Do you know? I would expect it to be backwards compatible (except for the HD channels).

I tried quite a few options and was able to get some signal readings for TPs on 101°W that were really good, but then it went looking for guide information and failed and wouldn't do much else beyond that (no channels would scan in). There were two items to select (the dish type and a switch type or switch array selection). I didn't know which combination to use so I was just trying several random selections.

I just don't know DirecTV menus and navigation very well. I get lost in the menus and don't know all the intracasies.

RADAR

 

[dfergie]

It should work, is there an option for 3 Lnb dish? , it will not give guide info till it is setup for a dish .. try 5 lnb dish again and see what happens.

 

[Jimbo]

Thanks guys...

I think you are right, Phase III dish is what I would have thought it was (not a Slim-line 3), but there is no option in the menus of the HR24-200 for a Phase III dish (unless that is in a hidden menu or referred to as something else). What would be the appropriate antenna selection? Is the receiver even compatible with this dish? Do you know? I would expect it to be backwards compatible (except for the HD channels).

I tried quite a few options and was able to get some signal readings for TPs on 101°W that were really good, but then it went looking for guide information and failed and wouldn't do much else beyond that (no channels would scan in). There were two items to select (the dish type and a switch type or switch array selection). I didn't know which combination to use so I was just trying several random selections.

I just don't know DirecTV menus and navigation very well. I get lost in the menus and don't know all the intracasies.

RADAR

If the dish doesn't list the sat your looking for its either not the right dish (more than likely) or not compatable with the recvr.
You would think that you could get the SD signal off the 101 though with tht dish and watch SD, if you want HD, you'll need to change the dish to a slimline.

Is this a permanant set up he's gonna continue to use or a few times thing ?

Might want to do a temp. Set up with a tripod if notgoing to be used much...

Sent from my Samsung Epic using SatelliteGuys

 

[AcWxRadar]

It should work, is there an option for 3 Lnb dish? , it will not give guide info till it is setup for a dish .. try 5 lnb dish again and see what happens.

dfergie,

I think it should work, too. There were quite a few options for the antenna available. One or possibly two referred to a 3-lnb antenna, so I was concentrating on those selections. I hadn't thought of trying a one of the options for a 5-lnb antenna. There was also options to select SWM or something like a D-block adapter (???). Not sure if I have the phraseology correct on the D-Block thing, but it was something akin to that. The best results I obtained were when I selected Slim-Line III + SWM (everything else / combinations that I had tried up to that point gave me an error that the COMMUNICATION WITH LNBF FAILED).

There is another possibility... This receiver is a dual tuner model and I looked up some info on it. I read that it has two tuners for SD and HD viewing. He said that we were supposed to only use tuner 1, but I wonder if it is possible that tuner 1 is dedicated to HD and tuner 2 is for SD??? Just a thought now, wish I had thought to at least play around with it then. I really wouldn't expect that to be the case, but you never know.

I really didn't have a great deal of time to spend on this endeavor as it was nearing game time and he needed to let his buddies know that it wasn't happening so that they could all gather someplace else for the game. I personally would have continued working on it for him til I got it right (if it was at all possible).

If I get another chance, I will try some more options if given more time.

Thanks for your input dfergie,

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

If the dish doesn't list the sat your looking for its either not the right dish (more than likely) or not compatable with the recvr.
You would think that you could get the SD signal off the 101 though with tht dish and watch SD, if you want HD, you'll need to change the dish to a slimline.

Is this a permanant set up he's gonna continue to use or a few times thing ?

Might want to do a temp. Set up with a tripod if notgoing to be used much...

Sent from my Samsung Epic using SatelliteGuys

Jimbo,

Thanks... I think he was at least expecting to use it during this seasons college football for Nebraska games, but not much else. He might just have his old receiver reactivated and reauthorized rather than hauling the other one back and forth and changing the setup on it. The old one was the original that was set up with the dish antenna and it worked well. He just allowed his subscription to run out on that specific receiver because he wasn't coming out to the cabin very often for quite a while.

I might see him out at the cabin this coming weekend. I will ask him what he has decided to do and go from there.

Thanks for your advice and tips.

RADAR