WB68 Troubles

[mhammett]

Is it just me or is the WB68 the biggest piece of junk ever?

It took me probably 20 hours to get it to work in the first place.

The people at Zinwell don't speak English worth a darn (took me over 10 minutes to get him to understand that a couple TVs didn't work and the only thing in common was the multiswitch).

When a mouse in Russia farts, the darn thing stops working and I have to spend countless more hours to get all of the receivers to work again.

Is there some trick to this thing, or is there a better product to use?

[curt8403]

Is it just me or is the WB68 the biggest piece of junk ever?

It took me probably 20 hours to get it to work in the first place.

The people at Zinwell don't speak English worth a darn (took me over 10 minutes to get him to understand that a couple TVs didn't work and the only thing in common was the multiswitch).

When a mouse in Russia farts, the darn thing stops working and I have to spend countless more hours to get all of the receivers to work again.

Is there some trick to this thing, or is there a better product to use?

you must have a lemon, or one that is sensitive to mouse gas, they normally do not act up like that

[mhammett]

you must have a lemon, or one that is sensitive to mouse gas, they normally do not act up like that

I'll see if I can track down where I got it from and get an RMA.

[harsh]

Is it just me or is the WB68 the biggest piece of junk ever?The WB68 works as advertised under two fundamental conditions:

1. It is correctly manufactured and tested
2. It is correctly installedIt took me probably 20 hours to get it to work in the first place.The fact that it eventually worked suggests that condition #2 was not met. Since you were uniquely responsible for meeting condition #2, you should contemplate not dragging Zinwell (or DIRECTV who would have demanded a "professional installation") through the mud.

The WB68 and its big brother, the WB616, are the legacy compatible options.When a mouse in Russia farts, the darn thing stops working and I have to spend countless more hours to get all of the receivers to work again.Global warming is obviously a real problem! ;)


Self-installing is overrated.

[RobertE]

Is it just me or is the WB68 the biggest piece of junk ever?

It took me probably 20 hours to get it to work in the first place.

The people at Zinwell don't speak English worth a darn (took me over 10 minutes to get him to understand that a couple TVs didn't work and the only thing in common was the multiswitch).

When a mouse in Russia farts, the darn thing stops working and I have to spend countless more hours to get all of the receivers to work again.

Is there some trick to this thing, or is there a better product to use?

Some details of the actual problem could prove useful to this discussion.

[mhammett]

heh, nice try.

I install microwave systems all of the time. Terminating N Connectors onto LMR400 and Heliax cable. Maintaining 18 mile microwave links passing massive amounts of traffic.

I never dragged DirecTV's name through the mud for this particular complaint, but I will drag Zinwell's poor support through the mud all day.

I'm sure you consider your standard DirecTV installation crew professional installers, and I'm sure we're all aware of the quality job they do.

The included and Googled instructions were something along the lines of, plug the cables in. Done.

After about 10 minutes, the guys at Zinwell told me I might have to restart my receiver and complete the satellite setup up to 15 times per receiver to have all receivers properly functioning. He then stated that if that doesn't work, I may have to plug the troubled receivers directly into the dish (bypassing the switch) , allowing the receiver to find the satellites, then plug it back into teh switch and repeat the setup up to 15 times. I'm sure that speaks clearly to your #1 condition.

[mhammett]

Some details of the actual problem could prove useful to this discussion.

True, and I apologize, this thing has me quite frustrated (in addition to having issues on my MPLS network).

I forget my initial troubles.

After everything is working fine, I may have to move a cord for whatever reason. After moving (involving unplugging and plugging back in), a seemingly random receiver no longer works. It doesn't even have to be the one that was unplugged.

I then try Zinwell's excellent troubleshooting steps outlined above. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Now I have a Samsung TS-180 (maybe something else, I'm not sure at the moment) that is not working after I got a D12 working because I unplugged an H23.

[50+]

Help us out here, 4 line running into the wb68, how long are your coax runs, is the switch grounded. I have had wb 68 where 1 of the ports went bad.

[BattleZone]

The included and Googled instructions were something along the lines of, plug the cables in. Done.


My company installed more than 2500 WB68 switches in 2006. 99% of them were installed using the instructions above with no problems. Of the remaining, a few were bad switches from the factory (DOAs), a few were bad/shorted fittings or a "hair" of shield braid shorting the switch out (installer error), and a couple were damaged by the installer. A few more suffered from bad receivers and from bad power outlets/floating grounds.

The whole "15 times" thing is crazy. For the most part, the WB68 *works* without any special effort or technique. Rarely is it the cause of problems itself.

[rudeney]

I had two WB68's running in parallel from the same AT9 dish for about two years with no issues. I never had to plug a receiver directly into the LNB or reboot or rerun satellite setup 15 times. They just "worked".

Unless you have unusually long runs of poor quality cable where the 13v/18v signals are dropping off severely, your problem sounds like a defective multiswitch.

[1948GG]

Is it just me or is the WB68 the biggest piece of junk ever?


Probably not, but....

When I first got re-involved with MDU in my local area a bit over 3 years ago (had occasionally done LOTS of C-Band and later DBS MDU work up to the point when I retired), the first big problem that all the folks had were not exactly the MDU plants, but individual sites ('homeowners') with problems that 'would not go away' no matter what they seemed to do.

In looking at those installs (done originally by the local Ironwood folks, they had 'given up' trying to fix), they were all WB68 multi-receiver/dvr systems. That stood out like a 'sore thumb'.

I started out with a couple WB616 (the powered equivilent of the WB68), and lo and behold, ALL the problems went away. At the time, the WB616's were just around $200/ea, so we (the clients, the MDU companies, and myself) kinda stood around scratching our heads a bit.

After pulling up some 'big guns' (i.e., rented some test equipment like microwave TDR's, time domain reflectometers for one), we found that the WB68's are particularly sensitive to cable resistance over frequency. Even 100% copper cable. Of course, cable length had a part in it as well.

So, we kinda 'bit the bullet' and carried around those WB616's to the 'problem sites' and left them with the folks for a couple of days each. At the end of it, basically they took out their wallets, forked over the cash, and kept them.

So, we started buying them (again, at around $200/ea), in bulk. Sold every one we could get off our suppliers. Replaced over 50+ WB68's in our neck of the woods, NONE of those customers have had ONE single problem since. Many have now 'upgraded' to the SWM, still utilizing the WB616 as the primary multiswitch (feeding the SWM). Now, the price is around $120/ea the last time I checked. Best investment anyone can make.

The folks I do engineering for tell me that folks with problems, even those without WB68's, that are referred to them as 'problem systems', the first solution out of their kit is to plug in the WB616's. Weak LNB's (remember, there is a multiswitch inside the 5LNB dish assembly), and a host of other problems are fixed by the powered WB616.

Does the WB68 work? I'm sure that you'll get tons of responses here saying YES, but one needs to ask the follow-up questions; how long are your cable leads, dish to WB68, WB68 to receivers, etc. And, what KIND of cable?

We found that here in the PacNW, the cable lengths were usually well in excess of 75+ feet, total length from the indoor receiver/dvr through the multiswitch to the dish, averaging about 125+ feet. The reason, of course, is that we are in forests around here, with LOTS of tall trees. So the available 'spot' to get a good shot at the sats was... a bit minimal, and required a bit longer run of cable than say, folks in Kansas (tall shrubs at 5') might see.

At the end of the day, I wouldn't put in a WB68 in ANY system. Simply not worth it.

[clb4g9]

Are you using the WB68 with a 72.5 dish? I had some issues with getting the receiver to autodetect (I guess they weren't really issues but they did take forever to actually autodetect them) when I plugged it into the flexport. If there is anything "non-standard" about your setup (second dish, really long cable runs, running two switches in parallel, etc.) let us know, it might help us diagnose your issues; honestly it sounds like you just got a bad switch. They are generally pretty reliable and even work outside in the harsh elements.