SWM 16 help please!

[Technoob]

Hi I'm new to the site but am in desperate need of help. I had a very old system updated in my house to a SWM 16 switch. I have a slimline 3 dish. When I had the system installed (oh lord was it a nightmare with the techs, many hours of my life I will never get back), I had 6 receivers (1: hr24-100, 2: r16-300, 1: r22-100, & 2: d12-300s). The installer put in the swm 16 with 1 1x4 splitter & 1 1x8 splitter. He put band stop filters on the non-hd receivers.

I am in the process of having some work done in the house so I am going to have a few of my receivers disconnected for awhile. I also upgraded 1 receiver. So currently I have 2: hr24-100, 1: r16-300, and 1: d12-300 attached to the system. I am having issues with pixelation on the d12 & the new hr24 on a few channels. The other hr24 seems fine. I do not want to call for service because of the nightmares I've had with them and the cost.

Any suggestions on steps I can take to fix this? My father is an electrician so he can handle wiring stuff. I have read online something about terminating ports on the splitters. Do I need to do that? Do I need to change the splitters to reduce the number of ports? Should I just move the lines I'm unsing to 1 of the splitters?

I hope this makes sense. I am trying to understand all the technical stuff but it's still new to me.

 

[jcrandall]

Make sure the D12 has the band stop filter. You could put all four receivers on swim-1 with the four port splitter and just put a terminator cap on swim-2 for right now, basically using it like a swm8 instead of swm16.

That takes the eight port splitter out of the equation for now.

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys Technoob!

What are your signal levels on all of your receivers/dvrs on all of the satellites?

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

Make sure the D12 has the band stop filter. You could put all four receivers on swim-1 with the four port splitter and just put a terminator cap on swim-2 for right now, basically using it like a swm8 instead of swm16.

That takes the eight port splitter out of the equation for now.

The r16 will need one as well. And make sure your lines are labeled.. when you start adding the other receivers back in.

What I would start with is the wiring to the rooms in question. If only certain rooms have problems then try other receivers in those rooms. If the problem follows the receiver you have bad boxes and need a tech out there. If the problem remains in the isolated rooms.. then start by moving the wires to those rooms to different ports on the splitter to test for a bad splitter. See if the problem moves to a different room when you swap lines. If need be then you may need to replace coax to the rooms in question. Make sure your dad does not use staples on the lines.

 

[Technoob]

Thanks, guys.

My signal reading are:

Satellite 101 (32 total)
1-8 96 95 96 96 96 100 97 100
9-16 96 96 97 96 97 100 97 100
17-24 96 100 96 94 96 100 97 100
25-32 95 98 96 0 97 100 96 100

Satellite 110 (3 total)
1-8 - - - - - - - 100
9-16 - 96 - 96 - - - -


Satellite 119 (11 total)
1-8 N/A
9-16 N/A
17-24 - - - - - 100 97 0
25-32 96 98 96 0 98 100 96 100

Satellite 99c (14 total) before system reset after reset - reading constantly changing with bolded numbers bouncing between # & 0
1-8 93 95 86 92 91 92 87 92 86 95 79 92 83 94 86 92
9-16 90 94 86 92 95 95 - - 64 94 0 92 91 95 - -

Satellite 99s (16 total) before reset after reset
1-8 35 0 33 0 77 0 - - 35 0 33 0 79 0 - -
9-16 - - - - - - 0 98 - - - - - - 0 98
17-24 47 71 97 99 0 0 0 0 0 69 0 99 0 0 0 0

Satellite 103s (14 total)
1-8 51 95 50 94 - - - -
9-16 - - - - - - 98 95
17-24 97 97 99 97 80 77 96 95

Satellite 103ca (16 total)
1-8 N/A
9-16 93 90 89 91 90 89 88 94
17-24 89 91 91 95 89 92 91 95

Satellite 103cb (14 total)
1-8 94 95 88 90 89 92 88 91
9-16 88 91 88 91 88 91 - -

And the 1 receiver I thought was fine (the hr24-100 installed by the directv serviceman) did have some pixelation before I reset the system. It was just on channels I hadn't been watching.

We have capped off the 2nd satellite port with a terminator and only have feed to the 1x4 splitter. We unplugged entire system and power inserter and rebooted each receiver 1 by 1. The system started out fine. But after an hour or so we have very bad pixilation and occasional searching for signal on sat 2 (771) on channels 2 (cbs), 7 (abc), 206, 209, 242, 245, 246. There could be more I just went through some random ones. On a few of the satellite signals I noted that after the reset some strange things were occuring. I noticed on 99c & 99s some of the numbers were dramatically different. And the numbers I bolded would change between numbers and then 0 then back to a different number.

When we originally called for service I was having issues on our HD receiver and R22 I think. Eventually we found that 2 of of the LNBs had corroded due to water in the line. 2 of the ports were bad. The LNB on the satellite dish was replaced. He cut about 1 foot out of 1 of the lines because he kept finding water. He also replaced the receiver with the hr24. We had some minor issues with the system after he left. But the main issues that lead me to post occurred when I upgraded to the additional hr24 (moving an r22 to another room) and we disconnected the other 2 receivers.

My father is about to tear the entire system out. So any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Technoob]

twitz3dkitty, the r16 has the band as well. It turns out that there was issues on all receivers...I just wasn't on the channels it affected on the "good" hr24. Changing the boxes in the rooms still had the same problems. The problems seemed fixed at first when I mad the above changes but now seem worse than ever.

 

[raoul5788]

With numbers fluctuating that much, I suspect you have a bad lnb. And yes, you should put terminators on the open ports, not just caps.

 

[Technoob]

Oy that LNB is brand new. Is that a part I can buy online or do I need to call for service? I would like to avoid calling at all costs. It has been such a nightmare with each tech telling us different information. Thanks so much for your help, Chip.

 

[raoul5788]

You can buy them online from eBay or another source. I'd wait until one of the techs here responds. They may have a better answer for you. Also, have you checked all of your connections to be sure they are tight, and the condition of the cabling, too.

 

[Technoob]

I may just say screw it at this point and try just re-connecting our old multiswitch. I would just need b-band converters for the hd boxes correct? The lines seem fine and are definitely tightly connected. I may have him replace the one that the repairman cut that had water in it.

 

[raoul5788]

Any cable that had water in it should be replaced completely.

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

Your 103 is off a little bit per standards but may still be passing levels... without a good meter it's not really possible to trouble shoot fully. If you can access the dish safely and have a friend with a phone call you you can adjust the signal with a 1/2 in wrench. Loosen the 2 outside bolts on the back assembly... then either the one on the very top or two from underneath (depends on age of your azel as to where the azmyth locks are) then have a buddy shout out the signal level of 103 ca tp11 to you as you make minimal turns on the dithering knobs. To get the sq to 95 or better.

You can run a test before hand from any receiver (in fact I recommend it on all receivers) go to Menu then settings then satellite and repeat sat setup. Make sure your dish configuration is slimline3 (I think that's what you said earlier) then option 1 swm. If it says setup complete you have passing levels if you get x's then there is an issue with signal in that location

 

[Technoob]

twizt3dkitty, I did the satellite setup on all the receivers. The 3 dvrs passed. The D12 failed on the odd 13v of 101. Will have to wait until tomorrow to adjust satellite. It is accessible. I plan to have my father run new coaxial from the dish to the switch on all 4 lines.

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

twizt3dkitty, I did the satellite setup on all the receivers. The 3 dvrs passed. The D12 failed on the odd 13v of 101. Will have to wait until tomorrow to adjust satellite. It is accessible. I plan to have my father run new coaxial from the dish to the switch on all 4 lines.

While never a bad idea... it's most likely a bad inside line running to the d12. What are your levels on that line?

 

[Technoob]

We didn't get to the line replacement today. going to do it tomorrow.
I retested the D12 and no error today.
On Satellite 101 mostly all 90s with a 0 on transponder 28
On satellite 110 all 3 are 95+
On satellite 119 of the 10: 9 are between 95-98 with transponder 28 at 0
And the swm (9 total) reads 1-8: 100 0 0 0 0 99 93 94
9-16 95
Channels are still glitching on all the receivers, but there are times where the channels are ok for a bit.

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

It could be a bad swm16... but not very likely.. sq on transponders really doesn't give a tech enough information to diagnose anything other than allignment. Or possibly a shorted line. When you say mostly all 90s is that high 90s or low 90s.. and does mostly mean some are in the 80s? Sounds like a bad line but it really could be a plethora of things that I'd need a meter on site to diagnose.

 

[texasbrit]

Are the same channels glitching on all receivers? I ask because the D12 only receives SD channels and I suspect you are not watching these SD channels on the receivers capable of HD.

 

[Technoob]

I believe they were glitching on mostly the same. The HD versions of the channels were much worse.
We replaced the lines....there was water in 2 of them. Now as we are rebooting I'm getting 771 errors and errors in the satellite setup. We made a few changes. Our lines now connect directly from satellite to the swm 16. Prior the installer had spliced them. All the lines are now the exact same length. Going to try adjusting the dish pointing.

 

[Technoob]

We also dropped the lines down and are going to bury them. They were above ground stung up to the house from the pole outside. On all of our satellites the odd transponders all read 0 for the most part. Is that likely a pointing issue or one of our cables? We had great signal strength for the most part prior. Never had every other one be 0 before.

 

[texasbrit]

It's almost certainly a cable/connector problem. Which satellite is showing zeroes and is this on the odd or even numbered transponders?
You need to fix this problem before worrying about realignment....