Dead Tuner?

[rwmair]

I have had a RCA DVR39 on loan from a friend for a few months. (I actually have to give it back in a week or so, and just got a R10 on eBay earlier today!)

Came home tonight to discover a bunch of stuff didn't record. Recording history says "there is no signal in second tuner". I go to Satellite Setup, and sure enough, there is no signal coming into Sat 2 port on the Tivo.

Its 20 below outside, and dark, so I troubleshoot indoors first. Lots of lying on the floor and futzing with cables ensues. I connect both RG6 sat-in cables to both connectors on the wall face-plate, and in each configuration, connect both to each input port on the Tivo. Despite hoping for a bad cable, it turns out either cable, connected to either wall port, will give me signal when connected to Sat1 on the Tivo, and no signal when connected to Sat2.

Tivo then tells me to go to its troubleshooting menu. It tells me there that I could be missing signal on one tuner because something happened to my dish. I find this pretty hard to believe. The Sat1 line brings in signal from all transponders on all three satellites (101, 110, 119 - Tri-sat dish) all with signal levels above 90. My old Hughes receiver, upstairs, gives me signal levels of 85-100 on all transponders on Sat 101. So, surely the weather, our wind and extended arctic-chill here in Boston have nothing to do with me losing signal on the Sat2 line of my Tivo?

Does this sort of thing happen to Tivo's? I presume it has to be an electronic problem with the tuner, as a connector port on this or any other A/V equipment can't go bad - especially when its been sitting on its shelf, untouched for 3 months and working flawlessly until yesterday.

Other things to note:
- I noticed small sparking between the RG6 cable connectors and the wall-mount connectors, when I was disconnecting them or connecting up again. I'd never seen this before. Something to worry about - or have I just never done this in the dark before?
- We lost power in the house for an hour or two early this morning - so the unit would have had a crash/hard reboot at that time. Is any of this connected?

Any suggestions? Or do I just give the unit back to my friend next week and say "Thanks - but sorry about the 2nd tuner".

Thanks

[litzdog911]

Nice troubleshooting. You've pretty much ruled out a bad dish because the problem stayed with SAT2 after swapping the cables.

The sparking is BAD!!! Your house wiring is not properly grounded, or your satellite dish cables are not properly grounded. That sparking means you have a voltage present on the cables that should not be there. It could very well have damaged one of your DVR's tuners.

[rwmair]

Nice troubleshooting. You've pretty much ruled out a bad dish because the problem stayed with SAT2 after swapping the cables.
I do too much of this sort of thing at work too, unfortunately.
The sparking is BAD!!! Your house wiring is not properly grounded, or your satellite dish cables are not properly grounded. That sparking means you have a voltage present on the cables that should not be there. It could very well have damaged one of your DVR's tuners.
The dish doesn't have a grounding wire on it. It was installed by DirecTV installers when I moved here - I only noticed afterwards that they hadn't grounded it. I'd been somewhat lax in that area myself in the past, wondering what purpose it served - but I expected the pros would have done the right thing here. (At my last address, I had my dish mounted on a steel pole into the ground - so I guess it was self-grounded.)

I'm now realizing what may have happened. The line to Sat1 on the Tivo goes through a surge protector between the wall plate and Tivo. Another dish/receiver combination (foreign service) uses the other port on the surge protector. I didn't bother putting the line to Sat2 on the Tivo through any surge protection. Is this the answer - coupled with high winds here for the last few days which built up charge on the dish?

Oops. I presume this is not fixable - at least for less than the cost of a refurbished unit? Well, when I got the receiver on loan, it was only configured for single tuner - so maybe they won't notice/care when they get it back. But I'll have to get a 2nd surge protector to keep my "new" R10 fully functional when it arrives next week.

Should I have DirecTV back to ground the dish properly? Should I get an R15 out of them for this (why?? :-) )

Actually - due to further poor installation, all three cables (the two for the DirecTV dish and the one for the other service) were cut short and have barrel connectors in the lines just before they enter the house. Could I just replace the barrels with grounding blocks, and run grounding wires from them to the exterior water tap that is close by?

Thanks

[litzdog911]

You should have DirecTV dispatch an installer to properly ground your dish. Or replace those barrel's with a grounding block connected to a properly installed ground rod or house electrical ground.

It's up to you if you want to request an R15. You might be able to get one for free from them as an "upgrade" from your current DVR.

[rwmair]

You should have DirecTV dispatch an installer to properly ground your dish. Or replace those barrel's with a grounding block connected to a properly installed ground rod or house electrical ground.

I'll certainly get grounding blocks in place really soon. And a new surge protector.

However - the problem appears to have gone away. I'm only adjusting to thinking of these devices as computers rather than dumb machines like VCR's, etc. I realized I hadn't given it a proper reboot from the system menu.

So, I did this, and when it finally started up again - the 2nd tuner was back in business. Jackpot!

It's up to you if you want to request an R15. You might be able to get one for free from them as an "upgrade" from your current DVR.

Well - I don't need to now. But would I have wanted to anyway? Isn't an aversion to the R15 what keeps R10's going like hot-cakes on eBay? Aren't we all waiting for Tivo to return to DTV now Newscorp has divested themselves of DTV - and just praying the refurbished R10 supply is enough until then?

Waiting for my own R10 to arrive from the ebay seller I bought it from last week, so I can get in place before I have to give this DVR39 back to its owner next week!