My 721 problems may be solved:) [Archive]

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Bob Haller

09-16-03, 06:37 PM

My latest 721 died today with lost tuner 2. As always swapping sat input cables didnt make a difference, lost tuner 2 it stayed. For troubleshooting I put my 508s on the dishpro 3 to 4 switch using the connections used for the 721. No matter the 508s ran perfect. Who would not conclude the switch and cables were oK?

FF to today. Standing here watching tuner 2 blinking out. New tv season starting Jen will be ^%$#&^%$........

E decided to send a new switch, LNB and finally receiver. I TRIED putting the 721 on my legacy dish and although programming was working on the legacy the box wouldnt see any signal strength and thus couldnt run test switch. Just how to revert a 721 from dishpro to legacy I dont know. The advance tech indicated it wasnt possible, but I felt they wanted to get rid of me fast.

They offered to send a service tech. I passed on that, for lots of reasons. Missing a day of work, our messy house, a bit of pride that I can fix anything, and the last pro service call here the AOL tech was a waste. After all my business is fixing things and I was very curious as to just what was wrong. I used to be a dealer, this couldnt be that strange.

My last shot was changoing the LNB. After stopping at LAKETON TV in penn hills where the unhelpful guy said his name was john, he wanted $160 for a dishpro twin:( He said I really dont want to do anything your NOT my customer. Thats a terrible attitude for a dealer in anythng. I got even I told him I was shopping for Direct tv and knew for sure I wouldnt buy it from him. That was a pure ripoff. I found another dealer who had a dishpro twin for about $60 took it home ran 2 cables straight thru our doggie door.

So far everything is working fine. Our 508s on the 721 sat feeds are working great too.

All one advanced tech said was 721 are different??

If you get repetive 721 tuner 2 failures it might be your dishpro setup in some peculiar way.

ME, I want to forget this happened, you have no idea how frustratring it was. I just HOPE it continues running OK.

BOB HALLER LEADING THE WAY IN WIERD PROBLEMS:(

SteveS

09-16-03, 08:55 PM

This may or may not help you ...

Life with Dish was going well a few years ago and everything was peachy. Then Dish announced the availability of the NEW Dish 500. WOW, now I can get AT150 and my locals. Had to have one!

Got the 500 and set it up. Neato, cool. Everything was fine for about 4 weeks and THEN ... all kinds of intermittant problems. LR receiver, BR receiver, lost signals, black screen, aquiring satellite. You name it and I had it. Every problem you could think of would just come and go. No rhyme or reason. Dish tech support was no real help (I really couldn't blame them for that) but they RA'd receivers, LNBs, and switches but with no resolution of the problem. Both I and Dish were stumped. I was ready to go back to cable.

UNTIL ... one day I was sitting on the back porch eyeballing my Dish 500 (while muttering every obsenity I could think of under my breath) and it dawned on me ...

The Dish 500 mounts the LNB in a plastic "Y" on the dish arm. What that gets you is a grounded LNB (through the RG-6) as it should be BUT now the ground is LIFTED from the actual dish (which on the dish 300 was grounded through the mounting of the LNB directly on the metal dish arm). Now, out here in the southwest it is usually dry and usually breezy ... the perfect combination for whipping up static electricity. Any static electricity built up on the dish had nowhere to go ... no ground ... plastic "Y" on the Dish 500.

Ran a ground lug onto one of the little carriage bolts that hold the dish to the bracket and a length of 12 gauge "green" copper to a grounding block on the RG-6s coming from the LNB so the dish was now grounded to the RG6 shield the same as the LNB (the RG6s have a proper electrical ground down the line before entering the house) and never had any of those problems again.

Again, this may or may not help you BUT it is sound engineering and itr resolved a multitude of random and intermittant problems I had.

Big Bob

09-16-03, 09:31 PM

that is great news bob. Hope this fixes your woes.

Sounds like you had the magic combination of LNB, switch and receiver that caused everything to go haywire.

Question, are there any identifying marks on the equipment you removed? Serial numbers or markings of any sort? It may be helpful to others who have the same problem if they have parts that have the same markings.

Mike D-CO5

09-17-03, 07:49 AM

That might be why there is so many problems with the 721 : Improper grounding of the dish.

I have both Dish and Directv dishes on the same pole and I have decided to turn Directv off in Nov. So I switched the cables that were run in the same room for Directv to my Dishnetwork dish. That way I had two runs in my bedroom and living room for Dish, right.( Presently I use a dish cable from my computer room behind my living room run through a hole cut in the wall so I have two runs.) Well the 721 couldn't use these cables and thought I was trying to use a legacy dish and a dishpro at the same time. I thought the cables were both rg6? The directv cables were smaller but said rg6 /75omphs. The dish cables were fatter and I couldn't see what they were. Maybe the dish cables were quad shielded /rg6 cables? Either way the Directv cables aren't grounded to anything and the Dish is ,so maybe that was why the 721 couldn't work with them.

Mike D-CO5

09-17-03, 07:52 AM

Just to clarify, I was using the dishpro quad on my dishnetwork dish. So I had 4 cables run to my 721 and two 508s receivers. I was trying to head off the questions of confused readers.

Dealers nemesis

09-17-03, 08:21 AM

Bob Haller said,
"Just how to revert a 721 from dishpro to legacy I don't know."
Somewhere I believe I read on 501/508's that you would disconnect your satellite cable and then do a switch test which would return you to legacy voltage, then by connecting your satellite cable back up and hooking up to DISH PRO and then doing a switch test would prompt the receiver to switch to DISH PRO voltage. I'm not sure it is the same way on 721's though.

jerryyyyy

09-17-03, 09:33 AM

Are there proper instructions for grounding of the disk etc. somewhere? I note that the 721 has only a two-pronged plug, i.e. is not grounded itself.....

pjmrt

09-17-03, 10:17 AM

the grounding thing sounds interesting - maybe explains a lot of the failures. Does anyone know if the superdish will retain this feature - or (as we might hope) has a more secure ground.

SteveS

09-17-03, 10:45 AM

the grounding thing sounds interesting - maybe explains a lot of the failures. Does anyone know if the superdish will retain this feature - or (as we might hope) has a more secure ground.

could result in the following ...

There can be a static discharge from the dish to the nearest grounded device ... yup, the LNB. That can either just confuse the hell out of the LNB or confuse the hell out of the receiver trying to find it. It could also wreak havoc with any Dish switches in the circuit (SW-?? switches). Either way, I think that could manifest in a variety of confusing and intermittant symptoms.

The LNB might be permanently damaged or in my case it survived and is working fine.

SteveinDanville

09-17-03, 02:45 PM

First failed 721 was a fried disk drive, but the second failure was definitely a failed LNB. When it was replaced, it worked great. A couple of months ago it started doing it again, I had to pay $49 for a techie to come and look at it, and guess what, LNB failed again. The first time around, the installer had not grounded the system AT ALL, so I had him install a proper ground block. That still doesn't explain why the LNB failed a second time. I'm just waiting for it to happen again...it's been acting a little bitchy lately (lost signal screen mostly, which is always, for me, the precursor to the LNB going).

Bob Haller

09-17-03, 05:03 PM