Loss of Satellite 110 - interpreting diagnostic screens

[cruza82731]

I have a legacy Dish 500 (with built-in switch) and two 3xxx series receivers that have worked fine for years. A couple days ago, I lost satellite 110 on both receivers. When I run the Antenna pointing diagnostics, and select satellite 119 (as a sanity check), it shows that I have a signal strength of about 50 and I'm locked. The only signal strength above 50 is from transponder 1, a narrow bean signal that's pointed at my location in Southern California. It reads about 70.

When I switch to satellite 110, it shows "wrong satellite - satellite 119". When I run the switch diagnostics (38 tests) there's a truncated error message regarding satellite 110, but I can't figure out how to expand the field to read it.

Any good ideas out there? We had record rains around the time of the problem, so I'm kinda worried that my lnb took a dive.

Cruza82731

 

[BuckNasty]

Actuallly, due to your low signal strength on 119, I'm leaning a little more toward your dish being out of alignment. Did you have any high winds during the rain? Also, when you run the switch test, is it resulting with 119 119 x x, or is x x 119 119? This might help us determine which way the dish moved.

 

[cruza82731]

I'm getting 119 119 x x. Let me guess - this means the satellite is pointed too far west? Would you recommend one smidge or two smidges to fix it?

 

[BuckNasty]

Well, i'd start by standing behind the dish and turning it 1 smidge (maybe 1/8th inch) to the left (which if you are pointing south left should be east). If your 119 signal goes up to an acceptable strength, rerun the switch test and see if 110 is listed. If not, I would try bringing it a little farther over.

 

[cruza82731]

So far so good (?). I had someone read the signal strength by cell phone as we adjusted the longititude angle. The best we could do without touching the elevation was about 70% on the average transponder, so I adjusted the elevation as well and got satellite 119 signal strength to 92%. However, I then froze the antenna location and had my assistant switch the diag screen to satellite 110, and it showed "92% - wrong satellite (satellite 119)". So just for grins, I left the diag screen on #110, twisted the antenna waaaay to the left, and re-peaked the reading to about 75% on satellite 110. Now the #110 screen was green again. Then I left the antenna in this position and asked my assistant to switch the diag screen back to satellite 119. The screen went red again, and said "75% - wrong satellite (satellite 110).

Does any of this make sense to you? Thanks for any help.

 

[sattech]

You should repeak for 119 and then run a check switch this should do it for ya.

 

[cruza82731]

Maybe I didn't emphasize how far I twisted it to the left to get satellite 110 to go green. I think I was actually reading it through the 119 LNB. Is that possible? The only thing that didn't make sense to me was that I was still able to leave the dish in the "way left" position and still read some signal strength for satellite 119 - but it did say "wrong satellite - satellite 110". Seems to me that my commands to switch satellites are being ignored?????

 

[Foxbat]

I'd say your Legacy Twin needs to be replaced. When you left it on 110 and moved the dish around, you were able to find 110. Because the twin's switch is faulty, when you told your receiver to look at 119, you pulled in the exact same signal strength for "119", which was really 110.

 

[sattech]

If you can swing the dish back to where you had 92% on 119 and then RUN A CHECK SWITCH you should see both sats. Check switch screen should read 119 119 110 110. If it says x x x x 119 119 you will need to reaim the dish because you caught 119 on the 110 side of LNB. If you lock on 119 (green signal bar) and look at 110 signal before check switch it will show a signal but it is the wrong sat (red bar).

 

[BuckNasty]

Yes I can't stress how important it is to run a switch test like sattech said. You'll want run the switch test right after moving it. It is very possible you were just picking it up on the wrong side of the lnb. 110 will say wrong satellite until you have it in the switch matrix.