Visionsat help needed

[empiretc]

A friend had some water spilled on his receiver. Now it will not receive signal on 97. It will pick up 101 and just about every other satellite I pointed it at EXCEPT 97. This was a stationary setup and is quite baffling. receiver works fine on other sats. I rebooted and re-flashed but it is still dead on that bird only.

I know this is not unheard of but very uncommon. I just hope you all can give some insight on what may be done to fix the problem.

 

[phlatwound]

That's pretty wacky.

I haven't used or looked at my Visionsat menus for several months but what about setting up one of the User Defined sat locations with the 97W antenna setup and tp info and giving that a whirl?

 

[empiretc]

that's an interesting thought. I'll have to give that a shot.

 

[USDownlink]

I want to be able to offer at least some general troubleshooting angles you might try, but something is confusing here. Perhaps confounded by my not owning a Visionsat, but, what exactly do you mean by

I know this is not unheard of

??

I imagine one of the following
A. Visionsats sometimes lose the ability to receive one particular sat, or
B. Any brand receiver can lose just one particular sat if they have liquid spilled on them, or
C. Spilling water on Visionsats is more likely to occur than spilling water on, say, a Pansat.

Okay, in all seriousness, I believe you either mean A or B, I'm slightly leaning towards B. (In which case, the call for Visionsat specific help is the confusing part). If it is A, then I am not qualified to help. Or, but back to B - in my experience it is unheard of, so this is a good learning opportunity. In the unlikely event that it is C, I suggest buying a Pansat.

Joking aside (again. Sorry!), my next question tries to cover something basic. It would be helpful to know you tried both H and V (assuming a voltage switched polarity LNB) on both 97 and 101. For example, if the real problem was an 18V generation problem due to the water, you'd be masking that by only having tried a H polarity on 97, and only having tried a V polarity on 101. Of course 97 wouldn't work, and 101 would. That's the first thing that occurred to me upon reading the problem. The confusion came later when I tried to consider it more thoroughly...

 

[empiretc]

USdownlink, it would be B, but I stated Visionsat in the title as that is what I am working with.

I have heard of cases (very few) where a receiver got liquid on it and it was no longer able to tune the sat it was on at the time (this case being 97w), but never heard a resolution.

I scanned in Azteca on 93, CCTV on 95, and the Hotels on 101. All of that worked great (H&V), but absolutely nothing on 97. I connected another receiver to confirm there was signal.

I would have to guess software...

 

[Mr Tony]

that is very weird that just one satellite doesnt work

Have you tried to blind scan on that satellite? Is it possible a setting was changed?

 

[empiretc]

So I got some time to mess with this and here is what I learned.

Flashing to different firmwares did nothing. No Signal. However, while I was doing this I left the USB drive connected and BAM. Signal came up nice and strong. Excited, I pulled the pen drive and BAM- signal gone! Freaked out, I replaced the pen drive and the signal returned....

I figured I wouldn't try to investigate it any further and just leave the pen drive in at all times. However, I soon found that this will only work for about 5-10 minutes and then the signal will become intermittent. rebooting the box will clear this, but it returns.

I am starting to think this box is on its last leg. Really strange it only does this on the one Sat and works fine on others.

I am looking for some final input before I trash this thing.

 

[Bill_KY]

The only thing I could suggest is to rename 97W as something else..add a new satellite...call it 07West and then add some 97 W transponders manually...


.

 

[empiretc]

Bill, tried with same results. BIG difference is now it seems to be 95 instead of 97. Wholey buckets!!

 

[Tron]

Empiretc, you stated that you've tried re-flashing and re-booting, have you tried a factory reset? Sounds to me like there's a problem with the receiver's RAM, most likely from the drink spill. Don't throw it away, it might be useful for parts, and the Visionsats are no longer made.

 

[tvropro]

Sounds like some kind of intermittent voltage issue in the power supply since it does different things with the usb drive connected or not. That drive uses 5 volt power. Possibly a capacitor is going south.

 

[pedrogarcia]

I believe this could well be a fault in the phaselock loop IC especially as the problem changes to 95 when you create a user defined satellite.

 

[empiretc]

Tron, I did a complete reset and even flashed via serial port. Tvropro, I am thinking the same about the power supply. I will keep messing with it as time permits.

Any idea where I might get another? Fleabay has been scarce.