Well, a few weeks ago on my last day of vacation, a young man ran into my car at a traffic light and totaled it. Added to my bad luck, today a lightning bolt struck a pine tree about three houses down and started a small brush fire. Thankfully, it was extinguished pretty quickly, but I had a thought to check my satellite systems after the fact. Ku-band is fine. C-band is dead 
Looks like the ASC1 got toasted somehow. I can hear it power up but the screen doesn't light up, and I couldn't move the dish -- neither by the STB or by manually pressing the buttons. I hooked up an old V-box, and I can manually press the keys to move the dish, but the STBs (tried two different ones) couldn't make it move. This may not necessary mean anything as the V-box tended to overheat and stop functioning well after a few hours, becoming very finicky if relying on STB commands to move the dish. So I moved the dish manually by pressing the buttons on the V-box, which seems to indicate the actuator is working fine, but I wasn't able to scan any transponders on the arc although there was a 5% signal quality. This was true even when I directly connected the LNB to the STB separately from the V-box. I'm guessing the coax is probably OK, but the LNB might have suffered some damage. I didn't notice any visible damage inside the actuator where the wires connected, so I'm hoping the sensors weren't damaged. I am ordering a new ASC1 (I just don't trust my V-box long term) and a new LNB just in case.
The dish is placed 150 ft. from the house because of trees, etc., and the M1/M2 wires are at the bare minimum. I would appreciate it if someone could recommend (perhaps by a link to eBay or Amazon) an example of good sensor wire to use at that distance, which is probably one reason the V-box had trouble in the first place. The wire I have on it is unshielded alarm wire (16 AWG 16/4). The ASC1 didn't have much issue with it. I'm hoping the sensors don't need replacing in the actuator (24" Venture Maxi Acme Screw). Would the M1/M2 wire be the first suspect in why an STB isn't communicating with the V-box/ASC1 to move the dish when the DISEqC 1.2 commands are sent?
Thanks in advance for your feedback! I've had an awful few weeks.
Looks like the ASC1 got toasted somehow. I can hear it power up but the screen doesn't light up, and I couldn't move the dish -- neither by the STB or by manually pressing the buttons. I hooked up an old V-box, and I can manually press the keys to move the dish, but the STBs (tried two different ones) couldn't make it move. This may not necessary mean anything as the V-box tended to overheat and stop functioning well after a few hours, becoming very finicky if relying on STB commands to move the dish. So I moved the dish manually by pressing the buttons on the V-box, which seems to indicate the actuator is working fine, but I wasn't able to scan any transponders on the arc although there was a 5% signal quality. This was true even when I directly connected the LNB to the STB separately from the V-box. I'm guessing the coax is probably OK, but the LNB might have suffered some damage. I didn't notice any visible damage inside the actuator where the wires connected, so I'm hoping the sensors weren't damaged. I am ordering a new ASC1 (I just don't trust my V-box long term) and a new LNB just in case.The dish is placed 150 ft. from the house because of trees, etc., and the M1/M2 wires are at the bare minimum. I would appreciate it if someone could recommend (perhaps by a link to eBay or Amazon) an example of good sensor wire to use at that distance, which is probably one reason the V-box had trouble in the first place. The wire I have on it is unshielded alarm wire (16 AWG 16/4). The ASC1 didn't have much issue with it. I'm hoping the sensors don't need replacing in the actuator (24" Venture Maxi Acme Screw). Would the M1/M2 wire be the first suspect in why an STB isn't communicating with the V-box/ASC1 to move the dish when the DISEqC 1.2 commands are sent?
Thanks in advance for your feedback! I've had an awful few weeks.
