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Troubleshooting SWM16, or Where does DECA power come from?

612 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  RoyGBiv 
#1 ·
I have been having some issues with my system. First my setup: I had an HR44 and HR20 (let's call this one "A") on one leg of a SWM16. I also had an HR20 (let's call this one "B") on the other leg of the SWM. I say "had" because things have changed. When HR20-A went bad 2 weeks ago, I was sent an HR21. The picture had significant RF interference lines, and I was sent another HR21. This one seemed to be fine, but the following morning it had an error signal that it had not gotten guide data for the past 12 hours. I checked the signal strength, and they were all in the 90's where they usually are. I reset the receiver. It took about an hour to go through the receiver self-check. So, I called D*. They told me that they couldn't send me another receiver without a truck roll and set that up for yesterday. I unplugged the HR21 for about a half hour and when I plugged it in again, this time it went through the self check without problems taking the usual few minutes, and it worked OK after. It was so slow, though, that I decided to get an HR24 (ordered from Solid SIgnal) to replace it. It seems to be working OK.

Tuesday I turned on the TV connected to HR20-B (on the other leg of the SWM) and there was no satellite signal. The receiver error message said something like there was no satellite signal so the box needed to be activated. I don't use that TV frequently, so I don't know how long that had been like that, but I suspect it would have been for more than 24 hours. I was able to navigate to a signal strength page, and all signals on all sats were 0. It stayed like that for two days. I noticed that the DECA lights were out (power and network), and I removed the DECA and connected the coax directly to the HR20 and still got 0's.

Thursday morning I had a chance to check things, and I took the HR21 which had been working until I deactivated it, and connected it to this same coax. The DVR booted up fine, and I got the usual 90's on all sats. So, I reconnected the DECA module. The power light came on, and again all sats were fine. Then I removed the HR21 and reconnected the HR20-B. Everything was fine.

So, the tech came yesterday. Everything was working fine. HE was sure it could NOT be the SWM and had to be the HR20. He said the power on the DECA came from the DVR and not the SWM.

So, is he correct? He switched out the HR20 for an HR23, and so far everything is working, but it was actually working when he got here, too.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

SMK
 
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#2 ·
RoyGBiv said:
He said the power on the DECA came from the DVR and not the SWM.

So, is he correct? He switched out the HR20 for an HR23, and so far everything is working, but it was actually working when he got here, too.
Yep, power to the DECA home adapter comes from the DVR. But you need to specify which HR20 you had as the HR20-100 needs some "special" wiring for the DECA
 
#3 ·
It was an HR20-700.

Unfortunately, since everything returned to normal, I'm still not sure where the problem was. He was sure it was the HR20, but considering the other "leg" of the SWM had the DVR which reported it had not received guide data in 12 hours, I just don't know for sure.

SMK
 
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