Installation issue/question

[oscar madison]

I mistakenly put the original thread in the wrong area.


My market, Fort Wayne, changed the SD locals to another satellite. Read this on another thread. I called with the info on this site that I should be receiving two R22's for my two R15's.

After today, I will have 3 R22's(had another before), 1 HR21-700.

The installer came today. Nice guy. Tells me this shouldn't take long. He walks to the back of the house with me to look on the roof and tells me the small round dish won't be needed anymore and offers to take it down. I tell him don't bother I'll do it in the summer.

When he is going through, the satellite setup, it is coming up errors on the 103. Two big red X's. So he reruns satellite setup, but this time chooses, Slimline 5, and 72.5 to make it work. I saw him looking real perplexed and trying to look at signal strength a number of times.

My questions are: are my R22 still pulling locals from 72.5 and when it is shutoff? will my locals go dead on my SD R22's? 2) If I run sat. setup again what settings should I use to test if my R22's are getting locals off another satellite? Choices I see, Slimline 3, Slimline 5, Slimline 5, 72.5, and some more. I tried Slimline 3 and I get gray bars on the top and bottom of my locals only. 3)If I get slimline 3 to work, does that mean that i'm no longer relying on 72.5 and can take it down?

I asked him if I should take down the small dish and he said no. Did I error in telling him not to take it down because he ended up still using the 72.5 dish?

All receivers are working after he left, but I'm just worried about locals going dark sometime soon.

Please help, and thanks.

[BattleZone]

Did the R22s get their software update? The HR2x/R22 receivers usually have issues with 103 until they do. I would re-run the setup on one of the R22s with Slimline 5 (if that's the LNB on your Slimline) without 72.5 and see if you're still getting your locals. You can always switch it back if it doesn't work.

[oscar madison]

Did the R22s get their software update? The HR2x/R22 receivers usually have issues with 103 until they do. I would re-run the setup on one of the R22s with Slimline 5 (if that's the LNB on your Slimline) without 72.5 and see if you're still getting your locals. You can always switch it back if it doesn't work.

Okay, thanks. I did Slimline 5 and here's how it worked on all my receivers. R22 locals work but they have gray horizontal bars on the top and bottom. My HR21-700 worked like a charm, but it is a widescreen tv, so no gray bars.

Another question I had was when I ran the sat. setup again, I had a number of red X's on a few satellites on my different receivers. 101, 103, but I selected continue anyway and I get all my locals.

Am I okay here?

edit: Yes, when the installer was here I saw a new software update downloading on both the new R22s. Not sure if it is the latest.

[oscar madison]

Did the R22s get their software update? The HR2x/R22 receivers usually have issues with 103 until they do. I would re-run the setup on one of the R22s with Slimline 5 (if that's the LNB on your Slimline) without 72.5 and see if you're still getting your locals. You can always switch it back if it doesn't work.

How do I tell which LNB I have? 5 or 3?

[eakes]

The slimline 5 will have three 'knobs' (aka feedhorns) pointing at the reflector, the slimline 3 will have only one. Both LNB assemblies have three "antennas" inside one of the feedhorns, the 5 model has two additional "antennas" for the remaining two satellites.

Check signal strength on your available satellites. Readings should range from the mid 80s to 100 on all transponders except the spot beams for markets outside your area.

The bars on the R22s connected to 4:3 TVs is a function of settings on the receivers. There are settings which will fill the 4:3 screen and lose the bars, but there will be some distortion of the 16:9 picture.

[oscar madison]

The slimline 5 will have three 'knobs' (aka feedhorns) pointing at the reflector, the slimline 3 will have only one. Both LNB assemblies have three "antennas" inside one of the feedhorns, the 5 model has two additional "antennas" for the remaining two satellites.

Check signal strength on your available satellites. Readings should range from the mid 80s to 100 on all transponders except the spot beams for markets outside your area.

The bars on the R22s connected to 4:3 TVs is a function of settings on the receivers. There are settings which will fill the 4:3 screen and lose the bars, but there will be some distortion of the 16:9 picture.

There are only two settings for the R22's, 4:3 and 16:9, and I have it on the 4:3, but I still get the bars. If I choose slimline 5, 72.5 for setup, the bars go away.

[Incompetent]

Need more info on which feed your locals(101 or 119) come from.

The R-22s are HD -ready but not available to do the HD thing just yet. I think that this is causing some problems every once in awhile if the setup is not done properly.

If your locals come from the 101 just redo the sat setup and when it asks you for dish selection, pick 18" round. If the locals come off of 119 then choose 18x20".

Because the reciever is not HD do not pick the slimline 5 or 3 and that should take care of your "bars" issue.

[oscar madison]

Need more info on which feed your locals(101 or 119) come from.

The R-22s are HD -ready but not available to do the HD thing just yet. I think that this is causing some problems every once in awhile if the setup is not done properly.

If your locals come from the 101 just redo the sat setup and when it asks you for dish selection, pick 18" round. If the locals come off of 119 then choose 18x20".

Because the reciever is not HD do not pick the slimline 5 or 3 and that should take care of your "bars" issue.

According to this thread http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=150603 it's 99 or 103.

[Incompetent]

According to this thread http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=150603 it's 99 or 103.

That would be where your HD locals come from but since the r-22s arent HD receivers, you need to go through the setup and set them as if you had no HD dish at all.

I got a Blast Fact from DTV not long ago about this same issue.

Configure the R-22s as if they were not connected to any HD dish and that should clear up your problems.

[Shades228]

The reason for the bars is that you're 72.5 is getting mpeg 2 and the 99/103 is getting mpeg 4. If you have it set for 4:3 and it's on a 16:9 tv you get the bars. If it's a 4:3 tv then I would call in to D* and talk to tech.

Are the tv's connected to the r22's widescreen?

This might be better off in the dvr forum as it's not really an installation related problem.

[oscar madison]

That would be where your HD locals come from but since the r-22s arent HD receivers, you need to go through the setup and set them as if you had no HD dish at all.

I got a Blast Fact from DTV not long ago about this same issue.

Configure the R-22s as if they were not connected to any HD dish and that should clear up your problems.

Hmmmm....but I thought according to the aforementioned thread, my SD locals are changing to the 99/103 satellites and that is the reason for the www.directv.com/localswap

[oscar madison]

The reason for the bars is that you're 72.5 is getting mpeg 2 and the 99/103 is getting mpeg 4. If you have it set for 4:3 and it's on a 16:9 tv you get the bars. If it's a 4:3 tv then I would call in to D* and talk to tech.

Are the tv's connected to the r22's widescreen?

This might be better off in the dvr forum as it's not really an installation related problem.

My R22's are all connected to regular screen. When I click on the HDTV link in setup, the only choices I get are 4:3 or 16:9. I chose 4:3.

However, when I look at the info and test page, it says letterbox for screen format, which is what my locals look like. Regular channels don't have the grayed horizontal bars.

I know if I chose Slimline 5, 72.5, I can get rid of the graybars, but that was what my OP was about. Right now D*tv is mirroring? my SD locals on both 72.5 and 99/103, and what happens when my SD locals are discontinued on 72.5?

[oscar madison]

That would be where your HD locals come from but since the r-22s arent HD receivers, you need to go through the setup and set them as if you had no HD dish at all.

I got a Blast Fact from DTV not long ago about this same issue.

Configure the R-22s as if they were not connected to any HD dish and that should clear up your problems.

I configured it for a 18" and a 18x20 and both times the locals disappeared.

[texasbrit]

I configured it for a 18" and a 18x20 and both times the locals disappeared.

If you configure the R22s without the HD dish setting, and you are not using 72.5) you will lose the HD locals because the round and oval dishes can't see 99/103. The reason you are seeing the bars on the MPEG-4 version of the SD locals is because what you are displaying is an SD version of the HD signal which is 16:9, so there is a 16:9 picture in a 4:3 frame. The only way to change that is by using the stretch/crop controls on the TV (if you have them) to make the picture fill the 4:3 frame.

[oscar madison]

If you configure the R22s without the HD dish setting, and you are not using 72.5) you will lose the HD locals because the round and oval dishes can't see 99/103. The reason you are seeing the bars on the MPEG-4 version of the SD locals is because what you are displaying is an SD version of the HD signal which is 16:9, so there is a 16:9 picture in a 4:3 frame. The only way to change that is by using the stretch/crop controls on the TV (if you have them) to make the picture fill the 4:3 frame.

Okay, that makes sense. Why are the regular channels, or non-locals, not showing the gray bars?

Two of three R22 Tv's do not have any stretch controls, so do I just have to live with this?

Thanks again.

[evan_s]

Regular non local channels are still pulling the SD versions from 101. You should be able to set it to 4:3 and change the letterbox to crop to get a full screen view with out the grey bars. It should just take the 16:9 hd signal and cut the right and left sides off to the the 4:3 for the SD signal.