Spent over 1K so far; newbie still needs help.

[Recoil]

I have a horrible installation story and still need help.

First tech comes out, doesn't have a ladder (or decent shoes to go on the roof after I supply a ladder).

Second tech is better -- comes with a ladder but very reluctantly goes on the roof (had an existing triple dish up there).

Signal strength was 90ish on A and C -- 45ish on B. We thought it might be an alignment issue - it wasn't. He leaves the gear and I'm "activated".

He told me to cut back some trees so I could get my signal -- told me exactly which trees were in the way.

He said I could get a second opinion (because I originally thought it was a hardware issue with the dish and no one wanted to go up there to replace anything (had a spare LNB from the previous owner; brand new). Had a third tech come out for another opinion -- he wouldn't go on the roof either -- confirmed it's the trees and pointed to the same cluster.

I paid $670 to have those trees/limbs removed -- signal strength did not go up. I called DirecTV thinking it must be an LNB problem. They come out again and point to a completely different set of trees. Arg.

I paid $525 and low and behold, I have mid 90s across the board (very happy about that).

So I'm sitting at the TV last night (H10 receiver) and about every five minutes on Starz (520; was watching Miracle -- as in it would be a Miracle if I get DirecTV running correctly), I get a 771 searching for Sat signal.

If I changed channel (+ or - 1), that new channel would come in just fine. If I quickly went back to 520, it would pop up NBC. If I repeated the up/down channel change, it would go back to Starz and I could watch for another ~5 minutes. I could also just sit there and wait for the signal to come back -- but changing the channel gave me something to do.

I did not have the phone line connected (read somewhere that DirecTV likes to have that connected). I connected it (don't see why that would matter) and I still had the 771.

I will try to watch again tonight to see if it was a fluke or not.

Before watching channel 520, I watched channel 33 for over an hour without a problem.

Anyone have any thoughts for a newbie on the 771? I have a second non-HD receiver that was showing excellent SAT strength on A, B and C, even when my HD unit was 771'ing. No intermittant drops that I could detect.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm in for over 1K in tree cutting (could have been half if they told me the right set of trees to begin with) and for two HD receivers. I want this to work!

Steve

 

[grydlok]

Bad LNB

 

[newsattec]

Have you tried resetting the receiver?

 

[Recoil]

D*

I have two H10 receivers (one TV -- expecting another TV soon).

I swapped the receivers and still had the 771 issue.

Which SAT is 520 on (A/B/C)? I'll go swap the LNB if that's what you guys think.

Would the LNB be bad with a strong 95ish signal?

Steve

 

[grydlok]

I have two H10 receivers (one TV -- expecting another TV soon).

I swapped the receivers and still had the 771 issue.

Which SAT is 520 on (A/B/C)? I'll go swap the LNB if that's what you guys think.

Would the LNB be bad with a strong 95ish signal?

Steve

Yes the LNB can be bad.

 

[charper1]

I sure would have moved the dish before I would have shelled out FAR MORE than $100 to trim anything.

 

[Recoil]

Thought about that as well (moving the dish) but my options were limited. Had I moved it elsewhere, I would have had even more trees to cut back. Almost decided to go cable but their video is really poor.

The channels that work fine are tremendously better than the 480i junk from the local cable guys.

I won't care about the dough as long as I can find/eliminate this last issue.

I'm not happy they couldn't tell me the right set of trees the first time -- that's for sure.

I'll look to see if I can find what LNB is associated with the 500 channels (didn't check to see if any other 500 channel was giving me 771s).

Steve

 

[uboatcmdr]

Thought about that as well (moving the dish) but my options were limited. Had I moved it elsewhere, I would have had even more trees to cut back. Almost decided to go cable but their video is really poor.

The channels that work fine are tremendously better than the 480i junk from the local cable guys.

I won't care about the dough as long as I can find/eliminate this last issue.

I'm not happy they couldn't tell me the right set of trees the first time -- that's for sure.

I'll look to see if I can find what LNB is associated with the 500 channels (didn't check to see if any other 500 channel was giving me 771s).

Steve

Exactly which dish do you have? One of the newer Phase III dishes where the triple LNB is built altogether with an internal multiswitch or one of the older triple LNB dishes that use three dual LNB's and has a mutliswitch/combiner bolted to the back of the dish? If you have the older type triple LNB dish then I suggest upgrading to the newer Phase III dish.

 

[Recoil]

Older model -- luckily the installer left me one of the newer models so I could go out there and replace it.

Uh -- is that going to be really hard to do?

Steve

 

[charper1]

nope, not if you got that LOS issue taken care of.

 

[uboatcmdr]

Older model -- luckily the installer left me one of the newer models so I could go out there and replace it.

Uh -- is that going to be really hard to do?

Steve

Go to this website: http://www.rca.com/directv/zip_code_selection type in your zip and select the proper dish to get the base settings for your area. As long as the mast is plumb (level on all sides), then pre-set the dish to the settings from the website and slowly move the dish side to side until you get a strong signal on the receiver's meter. The key here is to move the dish s-l-o-w-l-y. Once you have a peak signal on the 101 sat check to see what the others are. You can then make minor adjustments to the elevation but probably will not have to play with the scew at all. Having a professional signal meter would help greatly but you can do without if you just stick with it and make small slow adjustments.

 

[BrettTRay]

Any time there is a line of sight issue our techs are not supposed to say which trees are in the way. There has been countless times that this has happened and in your case the customer cutts the trees and it doesn't help. They turn around and try to get there money out of the installers company. Before you spent 1000.00 you should have researched the whole line of sight issue and made your own assumption. It puts the installer in a bad situation because for one you know that the job should not go in because of the trees. You tell the customer that the trees are in the way but they look at you like you are a idiot and they want to know which ones it is. If you tell them that you ain't supposed to say then they get all mad and cuss you out. I always just tell them the azimuth of the satellite on the compass and the elevation of the satellite on the inclinometer and then tell them to make there best judgement as to which trees should be cut down.

 

[Purogamer]

Imagine how much money you could make if you were a dish installer AND a tree cutter...

 

[wobbie]

Call DirecTV and tell them the issue, tell them you want a senior tech or better yet a supervisor. I don't see any reason why you should be on a roof fixing the problem. You could have a bad LNB, a bad connection, a bad fitting, possibly even some bad coax to the reciever. Depending on how long you have been a customer you may still be under warranty. And besides, I bet when you were activated DirecTV got you signed up for the service protection plan.

 

[Purogamer]

You got a picture of this roof from hell by the way? I'd like to see the roof that so many are afraid of...

 

[grydlok]

You got a picture of this roof from hell by the way? I'd like to see the roof that so many are afraid of...

it has to be 10-12 pitch roof. If so I don't blame them one bit.

 

[uboatcmdr]

Any time there is a line of sight issue our techs are not supposed to say which trees are in the way. There has been countless times that this has happened and in your case the customer cutts the trees and it doesn't help. They turn around and try to get there money out of the installers company. Before you spent 1000.00 you should have researched the whole line of sight issue and made your own assumption. It puts the installer in a bad situation because for one you know that the job should not go in because of the trees. You tell the customer that the trees are in the way but they look at you like you are a idiot and they want to know which ones it is. If you tell them that you ain't supposed to say then they get all mad and cuss you out. I always just tell them the azimuth of the satellite on the compass and the elevation of the satellite on the inclinometer and then tell them to make there best judgement as to which trees should be cut down.

Well if you work for the local HSP (in north Alabama) as I once did, then you got told at some point that you were never to tell a customer there was a "tree" or "trees" in the way, you were to say, "there are too many obstructions" and let the customer figure out for themselves what those "obstructions" might or might not be.

 

[sksatellite]

Sounds to me, there is a cable or connetion problem.

Go to the menu and to the point dish, select one of the working TP and stay a while and see if the signal will drop and go back up. IF so, you has cable problem.

 

[Recoil]

Hey guys,

I've gone the past few days without any hitches. I connected the phone line, hard reset the receiver and went through the SAT setup from scratch.

The roof is a 10 x 12 pitch --- and on top of a 3 story house. So I don't fault the guys for not wanting to go up there.

I didn't mind the fact that I had to shell out cash to cut back trees -- I did mind the fact that I was told by two different installers the wrong set of trees to remove. The final guy (senior tech) came out, was properly attired for roof scaling and gave us the correct information.

I also mind the fact I was activated with a B signal strength of 44%. From speaking to a D* rep, he shouldn't have installed the equipment until that B signal was improved.

As a consumer, I expect the expert to give me good information -- not expect me to use my best judgement (what the heck do I know about this type of technology and margins for accuracy with LOS?). Obviously guys who do this for a living aren't that accurate -- so how could the inexperienced consumer be any better?

If the error comes back, I'll get D* involved instead of doing it myself (hate to do that because I've only had one good tech arrive out of four). Even I don't want to scale that roof (hehehe).

I did buy their protection plan so I guess I should use it.

Steve

 

[hancox]

I would also insist on getting the newer dish installed - those "Sat B upgrades" on the old, wider, 101/119 dishes are fairly notorious.