Isolated Hopper

[GreeneDish]

Short - Question:
I have a tech coming out tomorrow to isolate one Hopper from my home wiring and am wondering what that involves. What equipment do they have to install to create two separately wired systems?

Long - Explanation and question:
I currently have two Hoppers and two Joeys in my system. I have the two Joeys connected to Hopper 1 by MOCA with bridging enabled. Hopper 1 is connected to my network wirelessly and everything works as it should. Hopper 2 is connected via LAN cable to my router and bridging is disabled. Unfortunately, we (Dish and I) can't get Hopper 2 to maintain a direct connection to the network with it's own IP address. If we turn off Hopper 1 and reset the network on Hopper 2, we connect (either wirelessly or hardwired) to the network and get a unique IP address. As soon as we turn on Hopper 1, the connection on Hopper 2 switches to a MOCA connection through Hopper 1 and disables the local connections. This causes issues when both Hoppers are trying to stream anything. To solve this, Dish is sending out a tech to put Hopper 2 on it's own wiring isolated from Hopper 1. So, how do they do this? I am assuming some sort of splitter before the switch feeding Hopper 1 and the Joeys with another switch for Hopper 2 but have never heard of this before. Anyone know what I should expect?
Thanks,

 

[KAB]

None of the above sounds right.

 

[GreeneDish]

I agree but after several weeks of trying everything including replacing the Hopper, we do not know what else to do. At least it is not costing me anything.

 

[KAB]

But, an IP conflict or Unique address has nothing to do with your home power. I'd say the source of the problem is your router.

 

[GreeneDish]

Not sure what you are referring to, nothing is being done to my power. All they are doing is isolating Hopper 2 from the Hopper 1 Dish switch so it will not be able to connect to Hopper 1 via MOCA.

 

[KAB]

Not sure what you are referring to, nothing is being done to my power. All they are doing is isolating Hopper 2 from the Hopper 1 Dish switch so it will not be able to connect to Hopper 1 via MOCA.

OK, gotcha! One thought I had...did you check to see if the Hopper that is connected via Ethernet has wireless turned off?

 

[GreeneDish]

Yep, tried it both with and without wireless. When Hopper 1 is unplugged, Hopper 2 connects to wireless without a problem. When Hopper 1 gets booted up, Hopper 2 goes back to a MOCA connection. If you try to access the wireless menu, it shows the wireless as connected but no SSID's appear to chose from. Either wired or wireless, when the connection to Hopper 1 takes over Hopper 2 shows the wired/wireless as connected but disabled.

 

[Bobby]

The tech is going to install an isolator at the hub. This will isolate the two Hoppers. The down side is that the Hoppers will not see each other so you will not be able to look at programming between them and the Joeys will also be isolated.

I am thinking that the best thing to do is to turn off the wireless at the one Hopper and turn on bridging at the second.

 

[GreeneDish]

I am not worried about not being able to see between the two Hoppers. As long as Hopper 1 sees both Joeys, Hopper 2 streams without issue, and both are viewable by Dish Anywhere, I will be happy.

 

[Psikic]

Maybe consider dumping the second hopper and just upgrading everything to a Hopper3 system?

 

[GreeneDish]

Not sure that would help as I would still have two streaming sessions sharing the same IP connection.

 

[JSheridan]

If they're connected to the same router and the same home network then they're still going to see each other.

 

[GreeneDish]

When you say "see each other" do you mean they can access each others recordings or do you mean that the MOCA issue will still exist? Yes, they will both be on the same network and using the same router. Only difference is that one will be wireless and the other wired.

 

[JSheridan]

When you say "see each other" do you mean they can access each others recordings or do you mean that the MOCA issue will still exist? Yes, they will both be on the same network and using the same router. Only difference is that one will be wireless and the other wired.

Yes, they should be able to play recordings from each other over your LAN but there will be no MoCA connection through the coax so they won't be able to connect via MoCA.

 

[GreeneDish]

Great, that is what I am trying to achieve. Sounds like it "should" be an easy fix.

 

[JSheridan]

Be sure they put the isolator at the node or hub on the Hopper that you don't want to connect the Joeys to. Good luck.

 

[GreeneDish]

Makes sense but I will check and be sure. Thanks,

 

[GreeneDish]

Tech finished up in about 20 minutes. He did not want to install an isolater at first claiming they have known issues. He tried installing a HIC at Hopper 2 but, of course, that did not fix anything. At that point he got a isolater from his truck, installed it at Hopper 2 and everything works like it should. Both Hoppers have their own IP address and can still access the others DVR's. Streaming works well on both Hoppers at the same time with no buffering. Thanks for the information allowing me to know what to ask for.

 

[GreeneDish]

One small issue, Hopper 1 and my 2 Joeys are now showing weak MOCA. It is caused by the isolater as I go back to a good status when I remove it. Is this a known iuuse when using a isolater? Should I worry or just wait and see if it causes issues? Everything seems to work fine so I am more curious than concerned.

 

[JSheridan]

Is the isolator on the other Hopper or the one with the Joeys?