What "ZK" status of 922 mean ?

[tvropro]

Then more I'm reading about 4DTV/DC2 then more I'd like to play with PCI cards what capable to demod the muxes and dig thru system tables - Rod posted good info for start. Who knows, perhaps the path could bring back to the 922 with some custom modification .

Im all for custom mods for the 922. If the ACC (Motorola) ever stops mapping them we will need to find a way to do it ourselves or they will become boat anchors. My 922 isn't that old (3 years) and I hate like heck to not get a good 10 years out of it.

I have some 4dtv info on 3 computers I'll see what I can come up with and upload:

Here is what I have on this PC:

 

[B.J.]

OMG Smitty elbow deep in a 4DTV!
Now if he will just share all the secrets he come across with us, that would be awesome.
Good to see you delving into 4DTV/DCII stuff. There are but a handful of peeps I figure that could do a thorough DSR disection and you are on that list. I'll pass on the info I've stumbled across scouring the 'net for 4D material.

The site you posted -
http://home.austin.rr.com/drlev/Diagscrn/diagscrn.htm
was owned by Darryl Levingston who passed away a while back. It was a very informative site. He was the founder of a 4DTV owners area discussed on the 4DTV forums. I dont know if anyone had the presence of mind to make a copy of, or spider the site before it went away.

I didn't know that he had passed away. I had a few friendly email discussions with him a few years ago.
But relative to web pages that go away for one reason or another, I usually use the web.archive.org page. It's really pretty good. I even reconstructed my own web page once using it, when it accidently got partially deleted.
Anyway:

4DTV Hidden Menus

should give a view of the original. They sometimes don't have all pages or images archived, but often you can put an "*" in place of the date number in the center, and you can find another copy of missing files or images.

 

[tvropro]

Here are all the diagnostic screens (pictures and info) ripped from the original webpages about 3 years ago. I had them on my second pc. I converted them to doc for easy reading.

Knew I was saving them for something good one day

Enjoy

 

[B.J.]

I always thought that it was kind of interesting that at least the first 3 diagnostic screens on the 4DTVs are almost exactly the same as the screens on my DSR4200v, however the one significant difference is that the signal quality item on screen "C" is reversed for some reason. Ie on the 4200 a low reading is good, and a high reading is bad, whereas on the 4DTV, the high reading is good.
It's almost like they figure anyone using a consumer receiver isn't smart enough to figure out a low reading being better than a high reading, ignoring the fact that anyone even looking at those screens in the first place obviously isn't your ordinary consumer.
Anyway, I just thought it was odd that receivers that have very similar firmware differ only in the direction that the signal meter reads.

BTW, right above the signal meter, is the freq offset, which is very useful for monitoring your LNB drift. Usually mine is less than 1.0, but when it got cold outside, my KUL1 lnbf gave me readings that were up around 5.0, ie 5 MHz off. When this number gets high, it takes these receivers a long time to lock on narrow signals.

 

[Smith P.]

Thanks Glen.

 

[Smith P.]

I successfully hosed the 922 after one hour of playing with it.

So, big warning to ppl who just start with such receiver - DON'T tune to Anik satellites !!!

After I check a couple Ku sats ( no C dish for now ) K5/K1/L5, I found on Lyngsat a lot of DC2 channels on Aniks and went there to check free/ZK .
BAM ! - TDT count went to 1920 with only one "wonderful" solution - to do a Master Reset. After that and no C dish the box become heavy doorstop.
One thing is warming me - I saw one free channel 600 at K5 79W, got a brief relief of working 922.
Now it will be pushed to far shelf and will wait for an occasion to connect it to C-band dish.
Done with 4DTV.

 

[ikki]

Surely someone close to you would be more then happy to allow you hook up your 4DTV receiver to a C band dish in order to get a remap.

 

[melgarga]

AWWWWH! I dont supposed you've considered going door to door with it under your arm to any houses you see with an old C band dish in their yard and asking, "Uh, er, would you mind terribly if I hooked up to your big dish for a few hours?" ......lol
OK you mini C experimenters, has anyone tried to get G1 on a mini bud project? I guess if there was a noble cause for trying to get C band on a 1 meter dish, G1 would be a good one to try. What is the minimum size needed for a usable signal (~40+ on a 4D box) to get a FW update?
Smith, I cant believe you did that. That IS the cardinal rule for 4DTV. Stay away from the Anik birds! I think the 905 is immune though, just the 920/922s, maybe the commercial one too, I dunno. Have you tried to load that fw flash up a few posts via the RS232. I see you found a MAX232 or eqiv. on some of the pins that were not used by whatever else uses that db9. The question is what protocol did M use. My guess is it is some off the wall proprietary configuration. I'd try a Zmodem based loader just for the hell of it, ya never know. Whoever did that FW dump has the scoop. DSRs have a BDM i/f and there was a BDM to USB cable available for the 4play proggy a while back. A quick google returns little to nada on it anymore. Guess it's all dried up. A resourceful fellow such as yourself could likely figure out how to R/W the eeprom on the DSRs. Not knowing the memory map, it would be considerable trial and error, but thats the fun. If we only knew what those guys at ATS know...............

 

[ikki]

My understanding is the 4DTV box is somewhat like the Motorola boxes that are used for digital cable TV service.

Maybe thats the direction you need to look.I recall reading a recent case in Ramsey MN where a company was hacking the digital cable boxes made by Motorola and the feds busted them.

So clearly there is a way to look at the firm ware, and in your case manual put the satellites back in.


I found this on the net,

Sat Missing in Menu - Remap Procedure

Go to G0 channel 5, push option 6-7-7-8 then "enter" in manual tune--at the frequency box enter the numbers 1-3-1-0-0-0-0 so that the frequency reads 1310.000Mhz. Then push the down arrow and highlight the word "tune" and push enter. The word will change to "tuning". In a short time quality number appears in lower right of the menu. If not, push tune again and wait a few minutes for quality number. Wait 5 minutes for Sat Remapping. Hit exit (or view) button for normal. Missing Satellite should be back in the program satellite menu. Reinstall if unchecked. If G-1 is missing with DSR 922 then follow this procedure. Goto G1-150 then, unplug receiver power for thrity minutes. After initialization, G-0 should be back in menu, if not goto options 6,4,4, enter and reselect unchecked g-0 and retune as necessary.

 

[Mr Tony]

even if you master reset it, the receiver still has some channels in it

I've done a master reset and just went to G5 100 and redownloaded the maps...takes about 10 minutes

 

[Mr Tony]

I successfully hosed the 922 after one hour of playing with it.

So, big warning to ppl who just start with such receiver - DON'T tune to Anik satellites !!!

If you have a 905 you can Just the 920/922 hose up

After I check a couple Ku sats ( no C dish for now ) K5/K1/L5, I found on Lyngsat a lot of DC2 channels on Aniks and went there to check free/ZK .
BAM ! - TDT count went to 1920 with only one "wonderful" solution - to do a Master Reset. After that and no C dish the box become heavy doorstop.
One thing is warming me - I saw one free channel 600 at K5 79W, got a brief relief of working 922.
Now it will be pushed to far shelf and will wait for an occasion to connect it to C-band dish.
Done with 4DTV.

bummer....If there is a C-band dish nearby you can reload the maps. Or maybe someone on the board would do the remapping for ya.

 

[Smith P.]

I could temporary setup my 1m dish for 123W if I'll know a SS will be enough for the 922.
Any Bay Area C band owner of such setup could chime in?

[That would req to buy 'bullet' C LNBF with conical ring and 65mm holder although.]

Mocking with FW thru BDM interface will not help here - all the info [tables] + critical subscription settings reside in static RAM what protected by the famous battery.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

I could temporary setup my 1m dish for 123W if I'll know a SS will be enough for the 922.
Any Bay Area C band owner of such setup could chime in?

[That would req to buy 'bullet' C LNBF with conical ring and 65mm holder although.]

Mocking with FW thru BDM interface will not help here - all the info [tables] + critical subscription settings reside in static RAM what protected by the famous battery.

If you can't find anyone else, the same address you used for the Dish Pro LNB / Torodial Experiment would be happy to remap your 922 for your.

Also have 905 and 920 not in use at the moment if you want to borrow them.

 

[Mr Tony]

I could temporary setup my 1m dish for 123W if I'll know a SS will be enough for the 922.

I would try 125W personally. Maybe that may give a better reading to get the maps.

 

[melgarga]

I could temporary setup my 1m dish for 123W if I'll know a SS will be enough for the 922.
Any Bay Area C band owner of such setup could chime in?

[That would req to buy 'bullet' C LNBF with conical ring and 65mm holder although.]

Mocking with FW thru BDM interface will not help here - all the info [tables] + critical subscription settings reside in static RAM what protected by the famous battery.

I've never had opportunity to mess with BDM compliant uPs. I was making a presumtion to equate it to the JTAG/boundry scan standard. Without knowledge of the memory map for a DSR it would be a challenge.
I know the 'critical' data is kept in the battery backedup SRAM, but the actual system FW is there too? Not in a EEPROM/EAROM, aka flash memory, similar to the commonly seen DSS and DVB units? Does the 921 system FW have the same version number, or just uses different maps and tables? Lots of unknowns and gray areas on the DSR internals, to me at least. I wish I did have a throwdown to play tinkertoy with, but I only have one, and it cost TOO DAMNED MUCH as it is.....lol
Besides, that's M's logic for overpricing them and 'securing' them with a battery....and it WORKS! I'd be glad to do it for you, but shipping those monsters is outragous. Might as well send it to ATS and have them go thru it for that kind of shipping cost. Somebody in driving distance will help you out, I'm sure of it.
Hey, doesnt Charlie Ergen live in the Bay Area? Maybe you could knock on his door and see if he will fix your sat rx...........You know, he used to be in C band too......before the New Orleans sting......

 

[Smith P.]

You could take that FW 'EC' above and after swapping all bytes in each word start looking into it.
Definitely whole FW reside inside of 2 MB flash chip, not partially in SRAM. Not a question.

 

[melgarga]

You could take that FW 'EC' above and after swapping all bytes in each word start looking into it.
Definitely whole FW reside inside of 2 MB flash chip, not partially in SRAM. Not a question.

Intel (little endian) not Motorola order?......lol. I bet that really chapped that Motorola tech that had to write the FW. I have no idea what uP the DSRs use, never looked. Without a set of opcodes and some idea of the I/O map it would be pretty tuff to make any sense of it. The point was that if someone (obviously did) was able to dump the FW from the flash then it should be possible to re-flash back to a pre-Anik 'FW upgrade' if one has the OEM (US) FW. That is presuming the flash FW was changed. If all that was re-written was the tables and maps, that reside in the SRAM, then it is a moot point. That is a dangerous playground. Actually this is all an exercise in relative theory, because the simple and straightforward means of recovery is to take a FW download from a C band DCII bird.

 

[Smith P.]

: but prolly too late start looking for FW streams - I'm sure they are spooling the EC version only.