Troubleshooting with Birdog & Switch

[Quantum]

Often I am called to troubleshoot a system that has a 34 or 44 switch, and my meter is a Birdog 3. The Birdog does DisEqc well, but does not seem to detect birds after the switch. How do you troubleshoot dead lines?

 

[mboron]

I'm sure you have read all the dish info on birdog's website--they have some good tips. As far as testing the cable, you can do it with a good ohm meter or take the receiver to the switch with a short piece of new cable. I haven't had much luck with a birdog after the switch myself, but I don't pretend to know everything about it either.
I hit the thanks button on accident, but thanks I guess.

 

[vegassatellite]

Often I am called to troubleshoot a system that has a 34 or 44 switch, and my meter is a Birdog 3. The Birdog does DisEqc well, but does not seem to detect birds after the switch. How do you troubleshoot dead lines?

If you want to troubleshoot a line from switch to IRD, you can do that with the birdog by barrelling the line you want to test direct to one of the LNB lines, bypassing the switch altogether. If it doesn't pass signal, you'll want to confirm by attaching directly to the LNB cable and seeing if you have signal on it. If you do, then your IRD cable is bad. If you don't, its a dead LNB cable or LNB. Test for that by using a test jumper attached to LNB. No signal, dead LNB, signal=dead LNB cable.

If you suspect a bad port on the switch, place a good cable from a receiver that has confirmed a good checkswitch on to that suspect port and test. If it comes back bad, then you've got a bad switch. If it comes back good, then your problem is elsewhere.