[Ichibod]

Well... that's according to the installers that came to setup my 1000.4, my 612, and my 222. I signed up for the TurboHD Gold package, and because of my location in Northern VA, it looks like I can get everything - including locals - in HD.

So, here's my experiences so far: The local installers came and did what I thought was a solid job. The installer openly admitted that my 1000.4 was his first ever "in the field" (he'd done others in the classroom). He took his time, and I was very pleased with the wiring job he did.

The 1000.4 is mounted atop my house and pointed out over an open field that extends for probably more than 300 yards before any obstructions show up. My LOS has to be pretty good.

When he and later his supervisor (who came over to check progress) left, everything seemed a-ok. That was a week ago.

Since that time, I've had repeated problems with pixelization and audio dropouts. The events only last for a few seconds, but they are incredibly annoying. It happens probably at least once every 15 minutes or so on some channels (such as CNN HD.)

Though I'm a complete newbie to the whole satellite thing, I'm a techie at heart and by trade. So, I've tried to read up a bit and see if I can find some solutions. Moreover, I figured I'd post here and see what the experts think.

Now here's the rough part. The installer told me he thought my signal level was the highest anyone in his area had seen during training. However, when I look at it in the menu using the "system info" (section g) menu, it tells me that "72 is dead" and "61.5 is green". I also get an "Error! Click 'Details'" with that. The details simply say I've had signal dropouts repeatedly at 3:06AM and 9:06PM. That's odd; and makes no sense to me.

If I check the signal strength, I find most of my channels are in the range of 40 to 50. Now, the bar goes up to 125, so I assume this sucks. However, when I mentioned that I didn't think those numbers looked very good to the tech, he said the scale recently changed with a recent software update. So, apparently those are good. (Is that true?) I've seen other posts here that say you can add ~45 to it, but that would still just put me up around 95. //sigh//

Given that my weather over the past week for all but 1 day has been stellar, I can't blaim any of this on wind, rain, clouds, etc. Plus, the whole Eastern Arc thing is supposed to help fix all that for me, right?

So, what do you all think? I presently have a tech scheduled to come back out and re-eval things. Dish said they'd do that for me for free. Is it worth my time, or are there other things I could try?

Thanks for your time and expertise!

 

[jclewter79]

You have a 3 month warrenty on a new install so yes I would make them come back out. That being said, usually the install company would like you to call them directly to get something fixed rather than call Dish. There is a good chance that the original install company will not get paid for your install now, since a problem has come up. On the other hand if the installer did not leave you a contact # and tell you about this it is their own fault.

 

[phrelin]

On the new scale 40 to 50 is fine. When you read here on other threads about people struggling with 129º with weak transponders its us folks trying to keep the signal over 20.

Edit: The 3:06 am thing is occuring normally when downloading updates to your schedule and new firmware, other maintenance activity occurs. But something "looks" wrong the way you've described it.

 

[dewey brunner]

My 1000.4, here in Tampa is great. My installer knew what he was doing. Sounds like one or more of the settings is wrong. I never get pix. like I did before. On 72 I am getting transponder signals in mid to high 50's. Of course you know 77 has not been activated yet. Even with heavy storms, clouds etc I have no loss or pix.
Sounds like the installer needs to double check his work.

 

[thenamesash]

I am in VT. I just got eastern ARC 2 days ago. Signals seem poor, ranging from 23% on 61.5 #22 to 45% on 61.5 #24 and on 72 #13/#17. The peaking transponder - 61.5 #14 - is at 52%. The signals were all about 10% lower than that until I myself took a compass out and physically rotated the dish about 2.5 degrees more West. Seems like there are additional adjustments to be made, probably in skew, a little more direction and maybe elevation. I don't really know what the heck I am doing so didn't want to mess anything up since I originally was seeing 14% to 38% with picture drop outs, so this is better. No real obstructions in the way.

I have a question about the 1000.4 dish. It's really large. There is nothing on satellite 77 and only a few channels on 72. Can I get a smaller dish and have it peaked primarily for 61.5 and still pick up the few 72 channels? Anyone know what is going to be added to satellite 77 that I might care about? I have turbo HD silver + platinum. Thanks!

 

[HDftw]

Yeah around 45-50 strength is good. Looks like your Dish needs to be re-aligned.
Call them up and tell them whats going on. They should schedule you for a re-alignment. Good Luck

 

[dewey brunner]

I do not know if you have an installation guide. It gave me the correct skew, elevation and direction for my zip code. Your installer should have all these settings. If they are off a little transponder strengths will fall off. Like I said earlier, 72 strengths are in the mid 50's on mine. Get that guy back.

 

[verncat05]

First post here, as I just made the switch from cable to Dish last weekend. I had the EXACT same issue last Sunday when they did the install. I was the very first eastern arc install the local techs had ever done, so it was a learning experience. Everything seemed to work OK when he was at the house, but literally 5 minutes after he left, I would get dropouts (ie, acquiring sat message). I had to have a different tech come back out on Thursday and now all is well. He tweaked the 1000.4 dish alignment a bit and changed out my 44 switch as it seemed a bit flakey from the get go. We've had quite a bit of heavy rain and bad weather and my signal strengths haven't even wavered. I am sitting at 48-53 on 77 and 58-61 on 62.5.

Now, I can tell you that the status you are getting "77 is dead" is normal at this point. The second tech that came out seemed to know alot more that the first one and he said that because 77 is not fully up at this time, you will continue to get that error. I get the exact same status as you. As far a the signal strengths, he confirmed that the max you could even possibly see is about 75, so anything above 40 is considered good to go.

Shawn

 

[BobaBird]

The Dish 1000.4 will support 3 receivers off its internal switch, so unless you have more than that you shouldn't need a DPP44.

 

[verncat05]

I have 4, hence the DPP44 switch.

 

[IamtheEggman]

I'm interested in an Eastern Arc Dish. Where can I find Elevation and angles for my zipcode?
Thanks

 

[Rob O]

I am in VT. I just got eastern ARC 2 days ago.

VT is not listed on the EA market list that Bobabird posted below. What market are you in? I'm in the Boston market, so just wondering.

 

[Ichibod]

Thanks for the posts.

I actually had the installers back out today to check things out. This time around, 4 guys showed up (all very nice), including the "senior boss-tech guy". (I think the other 3 were here to watch him work since he appeared to be the guru.) The original installer did not come back out; which I think was a good thing since I got a 2nd (3rd, 4th, & 5th) opinion.

We all went up on the roof, and he verified that my Dish was properly installed with 2 'minor' exceptions - 1.) The extra mounting brackets were leaning forward, not backward. 2.) The rotation of the dish was off by ~4 degrees. The first issue he said was just kind of a gripe since the weight of the dish was pulling on the struts rather than pushing on them. The second, more severe in my newbish mind, was an issue that he corrected.

He verified/corrected everything there, and then proceeded to follow the signal clear into my living room. (He didn't meter it, but checked all the connections and plugs.) He commented that my run was a bit long, but the bigger deal was that it went through a 2 non-hi-freq. barrel connectors. I recommended an approach that let them remove all the non-hi-freq. barrels. As before, everything checked out before they left. For all there efforts though, my signal strength - as reported by the 612 - is still ~"50" on most transponders on the 61.5 bird. So, no change.

Unfortunately, after all their efforts, I'm still kind of in the same boat. After watching the TV when I got home for ~2 hours, I noticed no fewer than 5 'hiccups'. These included momentary audio dropouts, frame-freezing, frame drops, picture tearing, etc. I don't get much pixelization - or what I'd call pixelization - but I do get my share of the other things I've described.

Given that from the tech's perspective everything checks out, the only thing I can think of is either Dish doesn't have their MPEG4-only service worked out yet or my ViP612 DVR could be the problem. Besides the intermittent blips and bops, I have noticed that when I scroll through the menu (hold down the arrow key), I always lose audio. I'm going to try to watch my 222 for a while to compare. Should I consider having them swap out the 612?

Thoughts?

 

[BattleZone]

Pay attention to whether the problems are with local HD channels or national ones. Lots of local stations have (long) been having issues delivering their HD signals to the sat providers, and sometimes even OTA.

Most of the 612 issues seem to have been ironed out, but you could have a flakey one. I would watch that 222 for a while before doing anything else.

 

[thenamesash]

VT is not listed on the EA market list that Bobabird posted below. What market are you in? I'm in the Boston market, so just wondering.

Hi, I do not know what "market" I am in, but I have Eastern ARC and the HD silver + platium package and am getting satellites 61.5 and 72 with all my programming in HD. Dish is aimed between 178 degrees and 203 degrees magnetic compass heading and 37-38 degrees inclination with the eliptical 1000.4 dish. I have an OTA antenna to get my locals in HD for free.

 

[Ichibod]

Ok, as I mentioned earlier, I decided to try watching my 222 instead of my 612. In the exact same setup (TV, cable line, etc.), I've seen 0 frame locks/audio dropouts! Interesting! Now, I have had some pixelization - something I've really not seen on the 612. But this is far better so far over the past 2+ hours. I'll keep running the test and see what else I find.

Now, unfortunately, both the boxes I have (the 612 and the 222) have recently decided that they don't always respond to the remotes when asked to power-up. On several occasions, my wife or myself has had to walk up to the box and press and hold the power button to get it fired up. Please tell me this is not supposed to be this way.

From my research, I've read that ALL receivers connected to the Easter Arc should have the "Circle A" logo near their contents list. (It looks like an 'A' with a circle around it.) Though I went through the boxes each receiver came in, nothing - including the box itself - had this logo. Does that mean anything?

This is certainly VERY annoying; and I won't stop demanding help from Dish until they get it right. However, compared to Comcast - which I had before - it is slightly better.

Thanks for the thoughts.