Will DirecTV ship a replacement LNB?

[LlamaLarry]

I am a couple weeks into resolving a signal problem I am having. Long story short, tech has been out twice but I still drop to 0 on occasion (usually at night or when it is extra cold) on 103c ONLY. All other sats/tuners report fine, including 99c/s and 103s.

Tech has aligned the dish and said 70 is the best he could get on 103c during trip 1. Lost signal again later that weekend. He comes back out for a followup, swaps BBCs, swaps 6x8 for my 6x16 and again tries to peak the dish. Still no better than 70's on 103c. Says that he will be back with a new LNB "tomorrow or the next day".

Five days later and I am still waiting and still dropping channels.

Will DirecTV ship me a new LNB direct so I can swap it out? Or do I just call to whine that my tech never returned and hope that the third time is the charm?

PS - While I have you guys. I have a legacy HR10 that seems to be rebooting randomly. What are the odds that DirecTV will swap in another HR2x for free? :D

[Michael D'Angelo]

DIRECTV will not send you the replacement LNB so I would suggest calling them and let them no what is going on.

While you are on the phone ask them about the HD TiVo.

[hdtvfan0001]

While you are on the phone ask them about the HD TiVo.
Sassy. :D

[LlamaLarry]

Curses, I was afraid that wouldn't ship it direct. I'll give them a call later today on both issues. Hopefully that can do something for me as losing channels on 103c almost every night/early morning is getting tedious. Turns out that most of the shows I watch come on at night. ;)

Took them a week to get the tech out for the first attempt, but maybe on a return visit it will be faster.

BTW, does this poor guy get paid for these visits? I don't know the payment structure for the visiting techs; I would hate to think that DirecTV's warranty thing only covers the single event no matter how many visits it takes.

[hdtvfan0001]

Curses, I was afraid that wouldn't ship it direct. I'll give them a call later today on both issues. Hopefully that can do something for me as losing channels on 103c almost every night/early morning is getting tedious. Turns out that most of the shows I watch come on at night. ;)

Took them a week to get the tech out for the first attempt, but maybe on a return visit it will be faster.

BTW, does this poor guy get paid for these visits? I don't know the payment structure for the visiting techs; I would hate to think that DirecTV's warranty thing only covers the single event no matter how many visits it takes.
There are some retailers that have them in stock as well..but personally, I'd follow Michael's recommendation to have DirecTV's installers come out to deal with any issues on the LNBs.

[LlamaLarry]

I called up DirecTV and after getting through the troubleshooting automation I spoke to a very nice rep. She says that she has put this through to an escalation queue since the issue has been going on since I called in on the 16th. They are supposed to call within 2 hours today and I will hopefully be able to address both issues at the same time.

Added while I was posting: The escalation rep called maybe 10 minutes after I hung up with DirecTV and they have me down for next Friday with a senior tech/supervisor to come out and are asking that Mastech actually try and squeeze me in sooner than that. She also is sending me a replacement HR2* for free via FedEx.

[Michael D'Angelo]

I called up DirecTV and after getting through the troubleshooting automation I spoke to a very nice rep. She says that she has put this through to an escalation queue since the issue has been going on since I called in on the 16th. They are supposed to call within 2 hours today and I will hopefully be able to address both issues at the same time.

Added while I was posting: The escalation rep called maybe 10 minutes after I hung up with DirecTV and they have me down for next Friday with a senior tech/supervisor to come out and are asking that Mastech actually try and squeeze me in sooner than that. She also is sending me a replacement HR2* for free via FedEx.

Glad to hear. Hopefully they will be able to make it out earlier for you and get everything working for you.

[LlamaLarry]

Holy cow, Mastech just called and said that they will be out between 12-4pm Monday the 2nd, instead of Friday the 6th.

[Michael D'Angelo]

Holy cow, Mastech just called and said that they will be out between 12-4pm Monday the 2nd, instead of Friday the 6th.

Great :) let us know what happens.

[joe diamond]

Report how it goes. This is not the MASTEC I have seen.

Joe

[Greyshadow2007]

Holy cow, Mastech just called and said that they will be out between 12-4pm Monday the 2nd, instead of Friday the 6th.

Was the escalation rep you talked to with the "Case Management" group at DIRECTV?

[BattleZone]

Every HSP installer is supposed to carry extra LNBs, so it sounds to me like Mastech wasn't making them available to the techs. Swapping an LNB is an *easy* fix for a tech, and there's no way he made 2 trips already without doing so if he had the parts available to him. Once, maybe. Twice? No.

[Incompetent]

If the original tech wasnt two weeks out of training he probably already swapped the LNB. DId you observe this?

I have seen this thing before also, how long are your cable runs and does this happen on all recievers?

[Mertzen]

BTW, does this poor guy get paid for these visits? I don't know the payment structure for the visiting techs; I would hate to think that DirecTV's warranty thing only covers the single event no matter how many visits it takes.

First visit payed, return visits on own dime or bacl charged.

[LlamaLarry]

First visit payed, return visits on own dime or bacl charged.Dude, that sucks! I feel kind of bad since the tech that already came out twice was very friendly. I was pretty sure a return visit was going to be necessary after the first re alignment though after he claimed 70 was as good as I should expect on 103c. This despite telling him that I got much higher when it was first installed. I was his last call on a Saturday and I suspect that factored in highly with his eagerness to leave.

FWIW, I live on a farm 60 miles SSW of Washington DC with nothing between me and the sky, nearest building in that direction is probably a mile or more and the tree line is several hundred feet away, so no tree growth, etc. to cause a seasonal change. Dish was originally installed Nov '07 and has been re aligned by me with help from this forum a few times when needed. The only new problem is dropping 103c only.

[LlamaLarry]

The Mastech guy showed up in his window and took about 45 mins on site. He replaced my AU9-S original slimline with an AU9-SL3 (non SWM) LNB and reflector. He also said the original (Nov 07) installer used the incorrect barrel connectors and swapped those out as well.

New rig definitely gets the 103c in the low 90's-high 80's, so already an improvement. Once I see how the signals fare in the colder evenings the case may be closed.

I do believe that the new dish made the HR10 a little more spastic, but the replacement HR2* is due to arrive tomorrow anyway.

I would have liked a SWM setup just to clean things up, but I guess no dice. ;)

[LlamaLarry]

New box (refurb HR20-700) arrived on Tuesday and have not dropped 103c since the new reflector/LNB was installed so the case is now closed and cost me $0. Excellent work DirecTV and Mastech!

One small quibble that is more the issue with refurb process than anything: The new receiver did not come with BBCs, so it is a good thing the original tech left behind a couple of pairs when he was swapping them out to debug the problem. Seems that there should be a check box in that kind of situation so there is not additional delay. The new box came with a power cord, remote and document set, but nothing else.