501 issues???

[sorahl]

Ok I am having problems with my 501, the 4900 upstairs does not have this issue.

my picture is terrible. the receiver keeps saying it is getting satellite signal, and we get pixellation. It is only on the current stuff, anything recorded prior to last friday when it started happening is ok.

like i said the 4900 upstairs is ok not having the issues. I checked the connections, made sure the 501 has the lastest software, powered it down, and unpluged it. nothing is helping.

any ideas (other than having DN replace it?)

 

John

 :confused:

[TopCat99]

Run check switch? Is the coax to this receiver able to get wet at any point? The failure you describe sounds more like a transmission problem between the sat and the receiver rather than a receiver problem.

Try bringing the 4900 down and plugging it into the 501's coax, swap switches (if necessary/if possible) and see what happens before calling a CSR.

[Mark Lamutt]

John, I agree with Topcat - sounds more like a cable issue than a receiver issue. Are you running your cable through a coax surge protector before attaching it to your 501? If so, bypass the surge protector and see if that solves your problem. With 2 receivers, I'm assuming that you have either a twin lnb, or are running through 2 sw21 switches. If it's a twin, swap your receiver locations. If the breakups still happen on the line going to your downstairs, you know it's the cable. If the breakups follow your 501, then it may in fact be your receiver.

[sorahl]

I will try switching the locations. I have a sw21 somewhere, don't know whereit is, maybe on the roof. the switch 64 is downstairs. I do have a dual lnb setup with dish 500 plus the second dish for the must carry channels that they installed for free

[sorahl]

I did the switch and same thing. retighted all the connections, same thing. so... I called up DN and they continued their 4 year streak of great cs. Replacement pvc is on it's way (i'm hoping HOPING it will be a 508, they said they do send 508's if they happen to be out of 501's at the time they ship it to me). It will arrive on wed's morning so I only have to get 24 recorded later in the week :)

John

[smaccormack]

I have the same problem with a 508 and a 4900 (the 508 regularly displays error message about acquiring satellite signal from either location, the 4900 works flawlessly in either spot). Vendor replaced the 508 and the second 508 did exactly the same thing. Dish then suggested a memory dump of the second 508 which helped, but it still suffers signal loss. Vendor now believes that one of the LNBFs is bad, but really doesn't offer much hope. Basically, vendor has suggested that the 508s may just be more susceptible to this problem than the 4900s. Signal strength on both units runs 95-106 on the 110 and 111-120 on the 119. Problem seems most noticeable on locals which now come via spot beam. Similar problems have also affected the 721s recently. Good luck.

[huskerhead]

I went through three 501's and three service calls before that very problem was corrected. I too have a 4900 and never had problems with it (I swapped reciever positions and the 4900 worked just fine while the 501 still experienced problems). First tech came out and replaced fittings and SW21; second tech re-replaced the SW21 and and theoutside connections; the third visit by a tech finally solved the problem. He replaced both LNBF's because the connections were corroded and I haven't had any problems since.

[sorahl]

Boy, I hope that isn't the problem. Can you imagine trying to convince CS that the LNBF's had to be replaced the first time out :)?????

John

[TopCat99]

This is why self installs are good. No _______ around for a month waitng for installers to re-expose their heads to sunlight and figure out it's a bad LNBF (or whatever)

I hope the new 50x fixes it for you. Murphy's Law says it won't, so be prepared :D If nothing else, if you do get a 508, you just got one hell of a nice upgrade free ;)

[sorahl]

Top :)
here is alink to construction pictures of my house
http://christ-web.com/sorahl/house.html
the two dish's I have are on the roof in the upper right of the pictures.
The ONLY point of the roof that is close enough to the ground for my 18 foot ladder to reach is the front lower left. :)
I went up on the roof once, and I'm never EVER going there again (that once was to install the dish which was almost a complete failure, after all I did get the dish attached to the roof <grin>)

John

[TopCat99]

I don't blame you for trying a receiver first, then ;)

Mine is on my shed roof. Easy access to brush off the snow and a quick shot of Pam. Bad part is trudging thru the snow at 3 am to do it :lol:

[sorahl]

would you believe i have never had a problem with snow sticking to the dish? good thing since I'm not going up there :)

My wife called, the receiver arrived.... the box has 501 labeling :(
as long as it fixes the issue! hehe

[sorahl]

Well, have had the replacement 501 installed since wednesday night. No issues at all. Phew. Looks like the problem was in the old 501.
All I lost was the entire second season (so far ) of Enterprise.

Happy day after BF!

John

[TopCat99]

Glad it worked out for you :)

[abospaum]

This sounds like something that has been occurring to me. The problem started last week. I have two other receivers, a 301 and a 3800, both of which have no problems. I can even move the 501 to other rooms and the receiver works fine. When I move either of the other receivers down to the original 501 location the problem goes away.

I noticed that the cable that was coming into the 501 was gashed and I repaired that and it seemed to fix my problem for about 3 days but my reception has been going in and out.

Also for periods of time my signal on all three satellites, 110, 119 and 129 is perfect but then at others I can't get any of them but this is only on my 501.

Should I have Dish replace the receiver? They always want $15 for shipping and handling but it seems that I have to replace this 501 at least a few times a year. If I complain enough to customer service I can get them to erase the charge but it usually takes about 30 minutes on the phone with them.