721: tuner 1 problems. still! (long'ish)

[LV2HACK]

Does anyone know what the differences between the two tuners in the 721 are?

I am on my third 721 system. Tuner 1 in all the previous two systems and the current one is behaving odd. The original system was fine for the first 3 moths I had it.

The problem is this: Various transponders/spotbeams on sat 119 (1,5,6,7, and 9) have 0 signal strength for tuner 1 all others have >80 signal. This in itself would not bug me, but seems that FOX news is on 119 transponder 6.

Check switch passes. The signal strength is strong for tuner 2 on 119 transponder 6 (5,7,9 have 0 signal on this one as well).
The signal on my 301 and 501 receivers is identical to tuner 2 on the 721 while connected to either coax that are normally used by the 721 or to two other drops elsewhere in the house.

Sat. 110 all transponders behave the same between tuners and decders.

Sat 61.5. Tuner 1 on the 721 has 0 signal on transponder 4. Tuner 2 and other decoders have signal on tranponder 4.

Switching the coax between tuners, re-setting the power inserter for the SW64, moving the coax connections between the 721 and different SW64 ports does not change the problem.

The other weird thing is that video in the PIP window is paused when its displaying PVR stream or video from tuner 1 and the main video window is displaying tuner 2.

My equipment list is a Starband dish with two dual LNB's (119/110) and one dual LNB (61.5) dish feeding a SW64 which feeds a 301, a 501 and two drops to the 721. Power inserter on input 1 of the SW64.

What gives?

I am going to call the installer back and pay him the $75/hour to replace the SW64 plus the cost of a new SW64. Logically it makes no sense, but I don't know what else to do.

If this does not work, I am ready to throw in the towel and start a campaign of getting a refund. Its frustration to the n-th degree. :shrug: :( :bang

[Bob Haller]

Lots iof reports of instabilty of the 721 on a sw64. Has ANYONE had these problems with the 721 on a dish pro?

If your spendng all those bucks a pro upgrade MIGHT help?

[Jacob S]

There have been others to have the tuner problem without the 64 switch. I bet this is a hardware problem that Dish has, just like the 501 bad hard drive. I am so sick of these Dish problems. Isn't there a law that after three times an item is sold it is considered a lemon and they have to replace with new or refund the money?

[968.911]

The way I see it is, the SW64 works fine with ALL my other equipment. This includes a 301, a 501 and a DishPlayer. The 721 is the only receiver that is having problems.

I doubt that the SW64 is at fault. It could be that the 721 is not fully compatible with the SW64 and Dish has not tested enough to know. Field failures are a really costly way of learning.

Anyway, I guess this is what I get for being an early adopter. I am about to just yank the dishes off my roof and go back to cable (which has finally gone digital)

I really like the 721 feature set so far. I can imagine that with time it can only get better. But, damn these quality assurance failures. They are going to push me over the edge.

I can just imagine the average citizen going through problems like these. Dish would be in the garbage can the next trash pickup day.

968.911 = LV2HACK. Forgot the password.. Sorry..

[SteveinDanville]

I had tuner problems a couple of months ago, and when the tech guys came to fool around with the system, they discovered that the LNBF was bad. Installed a new one and it's run fine ever since.

[Jacob S]

Its probably the receiver. There are a lot of people that do not know about it because it is intermitant and most do not use the pip for the most part or have two timers going at the same time, therefore the problem is not viewed most of the time. The tuner 1 problem shows up more bc it is the one that is viewed mainly. This is my theory.

[pcirone]

Make sure that the feeds for your 721 are coming out of ports 1&2 -or- ports 3&4 of the sw64. Any other combination will give unpredictable results.

[kyoo]

i'm on my second 721 after a tuner 1 failure on my first.. this time I put the power insertor for my SW64 on my tuner 2 input, to see if it blows my tuner #2 this time.

-kyoo