Took 722 camping w/500 dish, now won't get sw 2 input back at home

[Rtop]

I've been going nowhere with Dish support, so here goes.

We camped for a few days and took our VIP722K along and used an older Dish 500 dish, not the Dish HD permanently set up at home. That worked fine. Now we are back home and ran Check Switch and end up with Sat 1 good but Sat 2 with 3 x's. Before I disconnected the receiver for the camping trip all was working properly at home.

Here is what happened when I tried to run Check Switch to get us going upon returning from our camping trip:

Check Switch results:
Warning 530 - One of the satellite inputs or switches is not connected properly. Normal operation will be adversely affected.
Satellite Input 2 Reception error.

Details: Satellite Input 1
Status = Connected to a DPP 1K.2 w/ separator, 4 ports
Port 1 - Good Connection, Good signal
Port 2 - Good Connection, Good Signal
Port 3 - Good Connection, Good Signal
Port 4 - External LNB - None - No connection
Details: Satellite Input 2
Status = Connected to a DPP 1K.2 w/ separator, 4 ports
Reception Verified
Port 1 - Good Connection, no signal
Port 2 - Good Connection, no signal
Port 3 - Good connection, no signal
Port 4 - External LNB - None - No connection

I checked cables, reconnecting, all finger tight, checked again etc. Ran Check Switch several times. Same result. I have the gray Dish HD with 3 separate LNB's. The dish we used camping is a Dish 500 with 2 LNB's enclosed in a plastic cover.

I never touched the antenna wire except to disconnect it from the triplexer that is attached by short coax's to the receiver when I took it camping and reattaching it when we returned.

The only thing I may have done is shorted out a connection when I was hooking up the Dish 500 when messing around with wires at the camp site. Can that cause a problem? If there a fuse to protect the voltage that powers the dish? I saw a small spark one time when hooking the Dish 500 coax.

The receiver keeps telling me that the switch is not functioning properly.

Thanks - John

 

[TheKrell]

Do I understand you left the triplexer attached through 2 or 3 short cables to your receiver? That's OK, but I ask in case you flipped it over at some point, e.g. put the sat1 input on sat2 and vice versa, or otherwise cabled up some other coax on the back of your receiver and left the sat2 input disconnected. No... That can't be it either because your receiver reports a good connection to a 1K2, but no signal from the sats.

There's 19V on the center conductor to power the LNB/switches, which may have been the cause of the spark. I don't know if there is any fuse in your receiver, but it seems to me that the 19V must be OK or your receiver would not be able to get any signal from any satellite on either tuner.

 

[Rtop]

I pulled the triplexer once at the campground, but 1 & 2 are back connected to 1 & 2 on the receiver. I think I tried everything.

 

[harshness]

You might try a check switch with the inputs disconnected to "clear out the cobwebs" in the switching table.

In the event that it might be a switchgear problem in the LNB assembly, try powering down all receivers for a few minutes (killing the power to the LNB assembly).

 

[TheKrell]

In that case, it's looking mighty suspicious that the switch in your 1K2 is misbehaving. Do you have any other receivers powering it? I'd unplug it from the receiver(s) completely, and then with the receiver(s) unplugged as well, make the connections to the dish. If that doesn't help, there's always the option to "clear the switch matrix". This involves unplugging the receiver (again) and run a check switch (which should go through 38 steps IIRC) and save. Finally, plug it back into your 1K2 and see if you can get all sats on both sat inputs.

Ha! Dueling posts.

 

[Rtop]

Please don't fight!!!! Anyway, I did all that, a couple of times with cables disconnected, 38 steps, and the results on SW 2 were the same. No matter what I do, the receiver gives me the message that there is a problem with Sw 2 and unless the problem is corrected, the receiver will not work.

 

[osumike]

Can you post a couple pictures, one of the connections on the back of the receiver, and one of the check switch results screen? Maybe we will notice something you're not....

 

[TheKrell]

Please don't fight!!!!

Think "Dueling Banjos", which if memory serves was actually a banjo and a guitar. Anyhow, they were playing the same song, which fits since harshness and I were saying the same things.

 

[Rtop]

Here is one message:
Error 502
A problem has been detected with your switch box configuration. If both tuners are being used, they most both be connected to the same satellites.
------
The problem could be caused by a faulty switch box or incorrect connections. If the problem cannot be found or fixed, remove the satellite connection from one of the tuners.
------
The problem must be resolved before you can use your receiver. Please make the appropriate modifications and exit this screen to view the results of the check switch test and run check switch again.

 

[Rtop]

go to www.jjverb.com, then photo gallery for two more screen shots.

 

[lucky86]

I would try flipping sat 1 and sat 2 lines and run the check switch again. I've seen that resolve this issue before, I've also seen this happen when a tuner goes bad.

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[Rtop]

Worth a shot - thanks

 

[Rtop]

Switched 1 and 2 and the obvious happened. Sat 2 came in fast and perfect, Sat 1 not recognized, problem with the switch. So really no change.

 

[lucky86]

.

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[3HaloODST]

Hm. So that rules out the box being bad. Are you sure that you have the triplexor connected properly? Got any other cables you can substitute?

 

[TheKrell]

Just to be abundantly clear, I think 3Halo is talking about substituting another short stubby cable on the side of the triplexer that isn't working. But I can't believe the cable is bad since that tuner still shows "connected" but no signal. Could the triplexer itself cause this issue? I don't see how. I'll bet the switch inside the LNB has gone bad while the OP was on vacation.

 

[harshness]

Switched 1 and 2 and the obvious happened. Sat 2 came in fast and perfect, Sat 1 not recognized, problem with the switch. So really no change.

This pretty much confines the problem to something in the triplexer or final cabling. One of three things is probably happening:

• triplexer isn't unstacking the stacked signal
• the cable connected to port 2 of the triplexer is bad
• the LNB isn't stacking the signal

In doing the "switch", did you swap cables at the DVR or the triplexer? You could isolate it to a cable by switching the triplexer connections. If this doesn't change the behavior, the triplexer probably failed (this is relatively rare).

 

[dishcomm]

Switched 1 and 2 and the obvious happened. Sat 2 came in fast and perfect, Sat 1 not recognized, problem with the switch. So really no change.

Bad separator....That's my thinking.

 

[harshness]

Bad separator....That's my thinking.

That depends on where the jumpers were swapped (whether at the triplexer end or at the DVR end). It could be following a bad jumper connected to triplexer output 2.