subscription question about HD

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So I got to playing with stuff I had no clue about. I got into the HDTV setup screen and it had options that said Offair, HRC, IRC and Cable. I have no idea what HRC or IRC is or what the difference is between those and Offair.
BUT, I changed it to IRC and rescanned and BOOM!, a few channels popped in that wouldn't work before. Hmmmm...
Click to expand...
you should only have it on off air

They all came in but the two trouble makers still weren't right, I could tell because even though the showed on the scan, it showed their signal level to be 72% when it was supposed to be 100%.
I highlighted the two trouble makers and deleted them. Then I went to the option that said Add Locals. I pressed the up button until I hit their primary number and it found them. It showed their signal to be 100%.
I quit that screen back to the main OTA scan screen and quit that screen. It told me it was saving the channels to memory. I went to the guide and FINALLY! Now it tunes in ALL my locals as it should.
Several channels (local sub-channels) won't show listings in the guide, it just says "Digital Channel" or something. Meh..... No biggie. I can find what I want on Titan and program the auto-tune for the evening news or whatever.
THAT was frustrating! But I got it!
Click to expand...
some stations will show "digital channel" because the guide info Dish doesnt have for it. Its a known issue and we've talked about it. The main channels have guide info...subchannels are hit and miss.
After a scan all channels show that but usually within 10 minutes to an hour it fills in the info. Of course you could always do a reboot (press and hold down the power button on the unit for 5 seconds) to refresh the guide...but that may take longer than 10 minutes ;)
 
Iceberg said:
VHF/UHF one...only drawback on this one is one is VHF only and one UHF only. The only local in your area (local area) on VHF is 12. The rest are on UHF (but map to chanels you know)
Pico Macom UVSJ UHF VHF Band Separator/Combiner for Antenna (UVSJ) from Solid Signal

or a combo one
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...iner-Coupler-(CC7870)&c=Signal Combiners&sku=
Click to expand...


I can see now what I need to do. I didn't realize that there were any VHF channels left. I thought they all went bye-bye with the new digital. Oh well, whatever.
In doing a little research it is recommended that I have two identical UHF antennas and two cables of exactly the same length. I already have that Pico Macom UHF/VHF combiner.
It's been over two years since I put up my OTA antennas so I didn't remember what all was up there until I looked over the receipt.
I would need to buy another identical UHF antenna and run those into the Winegard coupler, then run the output of that to the UHF input on my existing Pico Macom combiner.
I'm also thinking about ordering a signal booster at the same time I buy the antenna and other thing. In the house the antenna wire goes into a One to Five splitter so that it can connect to the ATSC tuner in my Home Theater PC, to the Vizio flat screen in my bedroom and to the ATSC tuner in my VIP211k. Maybe a booster would help with that, I don't know but maybe the signal loses a little with all the splitters and what-nots?
I guess I should also run a new RG6 quad shield cable to replace that ancient old black wire that's there now. I have a big roll of it that I used on my FTA dishes and Dad's dish, it works great for C-band because you can control the motor over the ethernet wire.

I figured out how to get video from the DN tuner to my iPhone, I think I can get it to my HP Touchpad too (haven't tried yet) so when I do all this antenna stuff I can watch the signal meter as I set the antennas.
Or I could just get Dad to help me. He could sit and watch the screen and talk to me over the phone as I turn the antenna. Sure wish I had a hand held ATSC meter like I do for satellites!

Oh. And I was watching MeTV on the local OTA sub channel today and it's HORRIBLE... The picture quality is pathetic and un-watchable. Unless you're blind and sitting 20 feet away and watching on a 1965 Zenith B&W 19" TV. (We had one)
It's that bad. So I won't be watching MeTV via local. Watching it on C-band is 100x better than the local sub. Ugh... What a waste of resources. I don't know how people can stand to watch TV that looks that bad. :(
They (the local re-broadcaster) should be ashamed of themselves. They have millions of dollars of equipment and here I am with a junkyard salvage dish I put together myself that produces a picture easily twice as good as what they are transmitting.
Double shame on them!

Even with all the wonderful new channels on Dish I'm still going to be flipping over to MeTV on C-band every night at 10pm until 8am weekdays. Daytime I watch OTA (except for Hawaii 5.0 at 11am), Saturday evenings MeTV has me all night, Sunday morning I record Laurel and Hardy and play it back later. Sundays I'm open to Dish until Columbo then I watch Sunday Noir all night and Offbeat Cinema on RTV (C-band).

Dang it! I need more hours in the day! Saturdays Cheyenne comes on on Retro something (Blockbuster channel) with Clint Walker. :heart I've never seen the show before but I set a time to record them all. I'll watch it on Sunday with coffee. :D
I still haven't begun to explore all the new Dish channels and shows yet. I was quite upset earlier when I had set a time to record a bunch of American Chopper shows (I like the drama) but when I came home I found it had recorded a bunch of shows about dope heads growing marijuana! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Oh well. It was east enough to erase them. The DVR is way cool. I just wish you could connect a PC keyboard to the tuner because the ABCDEFG thing you have to do with the remote to enter things in the search box is a pain in the backside. :(

Or what would be very cool would be if I could control the tuner with my iPhone or my HP Touchpad. I don't hold out much hope on the HP though, it's it's own weird critter and it's not very compatible with pretty much anything. :(

Well, each day is progress. I'm getting there, but it's really all about me adjusting to the newness of this stuff. I guess tomorrow I'll go out back and see if I can get the wires right on that 3 way switch. That was messing with my head so I had to step back for awhile and regroup. In the morning over coffee I'll look over everything again and see if I can get it right. I think I'm pretty close to getting past the biggest part of the learning curve.

:)
 
Update on the OTA.

I went up on my roof and pushed the antenna around a few inches and was able to raise the signal level on a few of those troublesome locals.
They have been borderline and had been showing an average of about 72% on the signal meter.

After a few attempts I was able to raise it to 75-76%. A few other channels that had been at 100% dropped down to like 85% however.
But now all the channels seem to be stable, no more yellow signal loss screens.

Now that I got that taken care of, I'm wondering if I would just be better off to simply buy a signal booster instead of the kooky triple antennas and assorted adapters.
If an inexpensive signal booster would even just bump it up by 10% that would be a huge improvement, IMO..

I got that stupid iLive speaker bar working via the Dish remote. I had a lot of trouble understanding the instructions on how to program it but I found where someone on a different forum posted directions for ijjits and I muddled through them and now it's working. I can mute/raise/lower the volume with the Dish remote without having to press silly button combinations. :D

My little UFO looking IR to UHF converter will be here in a day or two and then things will really be awesomesauce!

I am having a hard time with the DVR though, it is radically different than what I'm used to.
But overall, it's going pretty well..

:)
 
Regarding ordering the satellite feeds: take one LNB output (for example, western most eye is eastern most satellite 110W or use center feed 119W) feed into switch. Check that it is arriving at the right input on the Menu+6+1+1 and has the right name. Add one more and then you are left with only one--ta da.

AntennaWeb.org is an alternative to TVFool.

Not sure if 211 can be controlled by RF but it can that would make remote problem easier. Probably only dual tuners.

VHF-UHF combiner has less signal loss but if you are using UHFs in VHF direction then you would be better with normal splitter/combiner. I recommend a 1-to-4 amplifier of say 10dB rather than say a 20dB with 4-way splitter and certainly over a 10dB with spitter. I have a diagram for mixing outputs of 2 VIP722s with antenna and 3 satellite inputs with 1 to remote 622. Works as I have not problem radiating to open air. It shows the tangle you can make.

DPP44#1--[power.insert]-->[Separator]===>[Sat.1,2.722]
........+-------------------------------<[Out.1+2..#1]
........|...........................+--->[Ant.in.....]
........|...........................|
DPP44#2------------------>[Separator]===>[Sat.1,2.722]
........|.+-----------------------------<[Out.1+2..#2]
........|.|.........................|.+->[Ant.in.....]
........|.+--->[#1.UHF/]...[4-out]>-+.|
........+----->[#2.VHF.]...[UHF/.]>---+.[split]>->DVD.in.etc.
UHF/VHF.ant--->[#3.4-in]-->[VHF..]>---->[2/3/4]>->TV
DVD.out------->[#4.-6dB]...[+10dB]>-+
....................................+-->[rf.]
DPP44#3-------------------------------->[sat]>-->Remote.622


I use 60 and 62 on one 722 and 64 and 66 on the other to avoid the OTA channels.

-Ken
 
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Iceberg said:
shes using Legacy LNB"s which require that aftermarket switch
Click to expand...

I did not think about her using legacy LNB's and that they will not work with the DP switches. Could she maybe not pick up some cheap Dish Pro single LNB's off if E-Bay and a DPP34 and perhaps have less trouble than she is having with the legacy LNB's and the aftermarket switch?
 
Well the satellite issues seem to have leveled out for the most part without me touching anything. It seems stable at the moment.

I'm wondering though if the signal loss screens I was seeing originally were actually because of the OTA channels? Maybe I was confusing the screens. :confused: It was (and still is) all new and unfamiliar to me.

I am still having OTA problems even after moving my antenna around. I's quite annoying.
I think my next move is an OTA signal booster. They are cheap enough. I'll have to wait awhile to do the dual antennas thing because I hadn't figured that into my budget.
I've been spending like crazy the past few months and I need to chill it a little.

On thing I can do is juggle my shows around a little so I can watch them off of Dish rather than OTA. It's all courtroom stuff, Judge This & That so it's not really crucial stuff. But I still like it and would prefer not having those annoying yellow signal loss screens popping up every few minutes! :mad:


But the channels coming down from satellite, those seem to be doing well for now. It's overcast all week but not rainy. I still need to get my lazy self outside and tweak that 129 dish.
I just hate dragging half the house out into the back yard to do it.
 
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OTA signal issues have been reported here to cause the "signal loss" message while on a SAT channel. When you get this message, if you press "Guide" and then "Cancel", if the message goes away and your sat channel comes back just fine, then the OTA was the culprit. Once you get your OTA signal levels stabilized, you should be ok.
 
dare2be said:
OTA signal issues have been reported here to cause the "signal loss" message while on a SAT channel. When you get this message, if you press "Guide" and then "Cancel", if the message goes away and your sat channel comes back just fine, then the OTA was the culprit. Once you get your OTA signal levels stabilized, you should be ok.
Click to expand...


THAT, is stupid.. When that happens does it interfere with any DVR functions? Will it interrupt/corrupt a recording on a satellite channel? If I'm watching something on the History Channel and the signal on an OTA channel goes weak (wind/rain/squirrels) and the yellow screen pops up, will it wipe the playback (rewind) buffer? I often times will pause a "live" show, go to the kitchen for awhile then come back later and hit play. A benefit to this is skipping past commercials.
Will it blow out the buffer causing me to lose what was buffered during a paused situation?

Can this thing be designed so that unrelated signals on a separate tuner that should theoretically not even be in use, disrupt the operation of the entire system?
If I'm not watching OTA I don't care a flip if the signal is weak. I only care if the signal is weak AT THE MOMENT I'M WATCHING OR RECORDING THAT CHANNEL!!
 
From what I read, the record buffer and all of the trick play functions still work fine, provided you don't leave the channel you are on. Guide, then Cancel should get you back to a point like nothing happened.
 
Also, if you are/were watching an OTA on another TV/tuner, when done watching the OTA channel, make sure to switch that tuner back to a SAT channel, which SHOULD prevent the problem from occurring in the first place.
 
Update on the OTA.

I went up on my roof and pushed the antenna around a few inches and was able to raise the signal level on a few of those troublesome locals.
They have been borderline and had been showing an average of about 72% on the signal meter.

After a few attempts I was able to raise it to 75-76%. A few other channels that had been at 100% dropped down to like 85% however.
But now all the channels seem to be stable, no more yellow signal loss screens.
Click to expand...
I'm confused as to why the signal isnt that good. I plugged in your location on tvfool and all the local Beaumont stations are within 10-15 miles and NW of you. There is the Fox in Lake Charles (29) which is NE of you but the Beaumont stations are NW (between 353 and 15 degrees on a compass)
NBC Lake Charles is the furthest at 60 miles but being on VHF Hi (7) the signal can travel further

Only reason I ask is my Minneapolis stations are 30 miles away and the 211k showed all the full powered ones between 90-100 and the low powered religious at 77-80 or so. What kind of antenna ya using?
 
Do you have a pre-amp on your antenna? If you don't then that will probably do the trick. Take a look at this Channel Master pre-amp at Solid Signal. Also, be sure and check (if you haven't already) all of the connectors on your antenna and be sure that no water has gotten into them.
 
On a related note, I have a basic indoor antenna that gets me signal strengths of high-70s/low-80s except for one station, that falls in the low-70s and sometimes gets me brief signal losses. Would it be better for me to amp the signal or to look for a better antenna entirely? Rigging an outdoor antenna is not feasible due to location of the TV at an interior wall in the center of the house with vaulted ceilings and limited attic crawl space.
 
dare2be said:
On a related note, I have a basic indoor antenna that gets me signal strengths of high-70s/low-80s except for one station, that falls in the low-70s and sometimes gets me brief signal losses. Would it be better for me to amp the signal or to look for a better antenna entirely? Rigging an outdoor antenna is not feasible due to location of the TV at an interior wall in the center of the house with vaulted ceilings and limited attic crawl space.
Click to expand...

From what little I have read, you would not want to use any type of amplifier with an indoor antenna as most have a built in amp of some kind. Perhaps you might want to look at some of the newer indoor antennas that offer more features, that might could help you out some.
 
A little more info...according to antennaweb all of my stations are 6-7 miles away coming from the same general direction/location. The problem channel is about 30 miles away coming from almost the exact opposite direction. Would a directional antenna work better, and how would I set one up to receive from both opposing directions?
 
Get a rotor. That way you can aim the antenna in any direction. I live about 20-25 miles from the Rochester NY antennas and about 50 or so from Syracuse NY antennas. I also sit on top of a ridge so my antenna is at about 630 ft above sea level. With my rotor and booster I get all the channels from both cities crystal clear. I just point the antenna in the direction I want,
 
Dee_Ann said:
THAT, is stupid... If I'm not watching OTA I don't care a flip if the signal is weak. I only care if the signal is weak AT THE MOMENT I'M WATCHING OR RECORDING THAT CHANNEL!!
Click to expand...

Exactly! You are right, and this problem has been around for years without resolution. This is why I have such contempt for Dish engineers. They've got 100 people working on Hopper, and (apparently) no one fixing these long-standing bugs.

dare2be said:
Also, if you are/were watching an OTA on another TV/tuner, when done watching the OTA channel, make sure to switch that tuner back to a SAT channel, which SHOULD prevent the problem from occurring in the first place.
Click to expand...

Not according to my experience! You need to switch the OTA tuner back to a strong OTA channel, not just LEAVE IT ON THE WEAK ONE and switch to satellite. That is why this bug is so idiotic. The signal lost message comes from a tuner you're not even watching.
 
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