Lost tuner 2?

[lapplegate]

I just got the distant waiver, for CBS. I had the CBSHD (New York) activated and immediately got a "cant tune to 61.5 transponder" message. I checked the signal strength, on 61.5 TP2, and it was zero. Did the usual check switch and got it back. After a short while I lost it again. I found that a check switch brought it back but couldn't keep it.

I thought maybe it was the DP34 and started troubleshooting.

After every conceivable cable switch, etc. (including a DP34 switch), I found a strange problem.

I could get a good signal off of 61.5/TP2 with tuner 1 but only tuner 2 would not pick it up. On top of that tuner 2 got ALL other TPs on all sats. I found that when I unplugged both cables, from the receiver, and then put back just the tuner 2 cable, it would work fine. When I put the tuner 1 cable back, still OK, until I switched to the tuner 1 (in the Signal Strength screen). When I went back to #2 it would be gone. What I found was that as soon as I connect either cable, to tuner 2 it was fine and stayed that way until I switched to tuner 1 then I lost it (only TP2)

This doesn't make much sense. Dish evidently thought it was a tuner problem as they said they are replacing it. Now comes the "hope I don't get a replacement that is worse that the on I have or did have".

Anyone heard of this type of thing?

Thanks,
Larry

[Mark Lamutt]

Larry - I've heard of several 921s with one of the tuners dying. And they act just exactly like you describe.

[lapplegate]

Larry - I've heard of several 921s with one of the tuners dying. And they act just exactly like you describe.

Mark,
Thanks for the info. I was going nuts trying to figure out why I would lose only one transponder on one satellite on one tuner. The only other channel, besides CBSHD, that uses that TP is the HDDemo channel which I rarely use. So I guess this must have just started.

Got an RA#, so help is on the way.

Thanks,
Larry

[jgerow]

Larry - I've heard of several 921s with one of the tuners dying. And they act just exactly like you describe.

I had a case where a tuner was "hung" not dead, and the soft reboot didn't cure, only a hard one with power off for several minutes, and repeated once or twice. [It seems the previous front-end equalization levels get saved, then restored as initial values on the next start-up so it can lock on much quicker.]

...multipath/poor signal is what caused one of my tuners to hang (mostly due to weather, or solar/satellite issues, but could even be reflections off an aircraft, etc...) Also the satellite dish(es) may need to be "peaked" just to give your 921 a cleaner (but not necessarily stronger) signal.

Good news... In my case MPEG lock-up has become very very rare [now ~ 1/year] as tweaks have been made to both the OTA and satellite front-ends as well as HD MPEG decoders. (Another benefit: It is rare I get a rain fade outage.) I also have a newer model 921, and it performs even better --and has longer cable runs.

Good luck getting a 921 with the latest revs... and let us know if you get better signal values.

[bytre]

I lost the ability of one tuner to reliably lock onto a channel. Sometimes it would, otherwise it would complain about lost signal. Turned out that the connection was bad (old pre-existing directv cable got a little dirty at the grounding block), which caused it to be able to lock onto one sat, but not necessarily switch to a different satellite when I changed channels.

Cleaning out the cable connections solved my problem.

[Michael P]

By any chance are you using a seperator? I recently changed from a legacy LNB system with an SW-64 to a DPP twin with a seperator. I experienced a similar problem. A hard reboot fixes the problem, I find it hard to believe this was an "RA" situation. I hope you backed-up all your recordings. RA's should be a last resort.

[lapplegate]

Here is the problem as I was seeing it:
I had just had CBSHD activated. It is on TP2 @ 61.5. On tuner 1 everything would be fine for about 6-8 hours, then whenever I tuned to CBSHD I would get a message telling me that I had lost the signal on 61.5 TP 2. I could do a check switch and get it back, but only on tuner 1. Anytime I went to tuner 2, I would get the lost signal message and the point dish screen showed 0 SS on ONLY TP2. All other TPs and satelites were fine. Tuner 1 was fine. I found that simply disconnecting the tuner 2 cable (at the receiver or switch) would bring the signal back. Until I moved off that TP, then it was gone again.

Here is what I tried:
1. by passed surge protector. Same condition
2. re-aimed 61.5 (SS went from 88 to 93). Same condition
3.relpaced all 4 connectors. Two cables run straight from DP34 replaced all connectors. Same condition
4. Connected straight in to 110 & 119 ( by passed DP34). to see if DP34 is a problem.
5. Connected straight in to 2 61.5 cables ( by passing DP34) same condition.
6. I have 2 DP34s. The 921 cables come out of the "back" switch. Swapped the cables, with the 721 cables, to the front switch. Same condition.
7. Swapped the 721 & 921 cables at the receiver. Same condition.
8. Unhooked all 921 cables, at receiver. did check switch to clear matrix. re connected and did check switch. Same Condition.
9. Multiple soft boots, hard boots, card pulls and reset to defaults.
10. Cussed, then cried.
11. Call Dish. So far Same condition. But a new one, I mean, ANOTHER ONE, is on the way.
Who would of thought that calling Dish is what I should have done first?

Thanks, for everyone help & suggestions, but good luck finding something I didn't already try. I'll post the results of the swap out.

Larry