[SepticDeath]

I currently have 2 lnb dishes installed at my house. We have 7 Tivos in the house. I just replaced a older T60 for a new HR-20. I was told that I could be upgraded for free. I told the rep I had a pretty elaborate install, and that I had 2 tripples and 14 feeds. I know that eventually 4 more HR-20's will be replaceing hr-10's, when I have to. Because I know this, I would really rather have the replacement done all at once, however, Im sure that they will attempt to only replace the dish that feeds the room with the hr-20 in it, there is only 1 now, the rest are hr-10's and HDVR2's.

Is it as simple as replacing the one dish and connecting a new 8 port switch? I would assume that a new 8 port would just have the correct inputs for the new dish and could be placed in place.

Anyways, here are two pics of my existing install. It would be nice to have it all done at once. The tech said the installed would show with one and if I had two he would just have to call in from the truck and say he needed to install 2. Anyone have any experience with this?

Since I already have hr-10's Im hoping that I dont have to have the dude come inside (the wife is sick) and just do the swap for me outside.

 

[SepticDeath]

Well the installer showed up, and even though the 3lnb posts will mount as show in the picture, the new ones wont. They cant adjust for the angle of the facia board. Seems real stupid to me. Why they would make a mount that wont mount on something the same angle that the 18", and 24" dishes mount to.

Since the installer is outside right now trying to drill holes through the post so that he can attempt to make it work, I told him to install only 1 5lnb dish since its getting manufactured on the fly.

I guess I'll go up and measure the angle the facia is at and have a piece of wood cut about 8" long so that I can create two pads that are at enough of a angle so that it can work. Anyone with any ideas?

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

Well the installer showed up, and even though the 3lnb posts will mount as show in the picture, the new ones wont. They cant adjust for the angle of the facia board. Seems real stupid to me. Why they would make a mount that wont mount on something the same angle that the 18", and 24" dishes mount to.

You've probably already norticed this, but the 5-LNB is bigger than the 3-LNB dish. It requires a little more strenght to mount and hold properly. The mast is 2" outside diameter IIRC. btw, are looking to get locals in HD from the satellites. If so, you may need a new multi-switch. It would be the WB68. I think they have a 16-port version out now.

 

[SepticDeath]

Yeah, he plans on replacing one 8 port switch and 1 tripple dish. Just so happens that my two hd-tv's are fed by the same switch. So depening on why of the two gets the hr20 and which of the two gets the hr-10 doesnt matter because they both will be feed by the 5lnb dish and switch.

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

If he's mounting the 5-LNB in the exact location of your esiting LNB. Try and make sure he hits framing, a stud, something other than just the facial baord. The 5-LNB weighs about 32 lbs. and could simply rip right off the facial board in high winds.

 

[whsbuss]

Yeah, he plans on replacing one 8 port switch and 1 tripple dish. Just so happens that my two hd-tv's are fed by the same switch. So depening on why of the two gets the hr20 and which of the two gets the hr-10 doesnt matter because they both will be feed by the 5lnb dish and switch.

I'm looking to replace my 3-lnb with the AU-9. Looking at your pictures I have a similar setup (without the mulit-port distribution). My question is how much angle space is required for the AU-9? My current dish is mounted on the garage eave and is very sturdy.

Can you post some pictures of the installed AU-9 mounting the installed did?

Thanks.

 

[SepticDeath]

The facia board is secured very stongly into the 2X4 that was framing the house, we have all baked tiles on the roof, one of those VERY heavy roofs that required huge crossmember beam upgrades so I am not worried about any high winds (which really dont happen in San Diego) affecting it.

The angle was way to stiff, but what the installer did, was unbolted the bottom bolt (the one limiting the swing of the lnb post, and moved the lnb post further so that it was aligned level, he then drilled new holes into the mount and post for the bottom bolts quite larger than the bolts to allow for 1/4" of movement or so, and put washers on the bolts and tightened them down. He used the two additional supports and bolted it all in place.

Pictures to come.

He replaced the old 4x8 with a new 6x8 that accomodates the new sat and we rebooted the hr-20.

NOW the weird thing happens, after the reboot, my 2 hr-10's, 1 hdvr2, and 1 hr-20 all work normal, EXCEPT anything on the new 103 on the new hr-20. Basicaly my local HD in mpeg4. All the channel 70 - 100 HD come in, all the other channels come in, my fox, abc, and nbc fed via SAT leave the screen saying searching for signal, move to the SD abc, nbc, fox and the message goes away and the channel comes in. Move back to one of my local mpeg4 feeds and say hello to looking for sat1/2 signal.

We brainstormed, he re-aligned with his meter, still the same.
We rebooted. still the same.
He replaced the LNB, still the same.
We disconnected all the feeds from the new switch and made sure that the cable lengths in the connectors were right, still the same.

RIght now the only thing not switched out was the new switch, but again, the stumbling thing is that everything else works.

Ohh ya, and the little DTV frequency adaptors are connected to the rear of the hr-20 for the new 103/99 sat, so its not that.

I think pretty soon (he's been hear 5 hours) he's gonna tell DTV that they need to send me a New HR-20. I own my hr-20 and just bought it off ebay, it was brand new and unopened, and we pay for the extended service contract so They better get me a new reciever if thats the case.

Hell, once I got this working, and I gave the hr-20 a run, I was going to decide if I play hard ball with DTV and make them give me new hr-20's to replace the other (3) hr-10's I have, but I am not sure I like the hr-20 interface, but already in a few days I dont hate it like I did at first, I cant stand not having 2 tuners, but I believe that the inability to switch is a bug, its supposed to work I thought,

I'll keep you all updated...

JN
SD

 

[SepticDeath]

Here are the pictures of what took place today.

Also, I should be receiving a new HR-20 to replace my unit I currently have. Its new and 3 days old, and like I said above, it gets everything EXCEPT what it should on the 103 LNB. <- the whole reason for the 5 lnb upgrade.

I listened to the Tech work with DTV, it was kinda funny. She asked him if had re-formated the drive, and he said no. She told him how to do it, I watched him try to do it, it didn't work so he just pretended that it did and that it didn't fix the problem. (After 5 hours I know he just wanted to move onto his next job, he got here at noon, and didn't leave until 5:40 or so, he said he was going to try to get 2 more jobs done, that MUST suck on a Saturday, so I tipped him a extra 20 bucks, not needed, but hell, he stuck it out for me for a extra hour or so, rather than just going with the get a new box right away. Having to get a new one means I cant start my recordings and I miss everything I want to record and archive ON the hr-20 for the next year or so.

BTW: to try to re-format. He was told to hit reset, watch the DVR reboot and display the welcome blue screen, right when it flips to black, hit and hold the Down key and the record button, continue to hold for 10 secs and the record light should toggle on.

I watched him do this, the screen went black, he pressed, a quick reddish flash kicked in, and about 3 seconds later the next blue screen came up and no record light on or any "wizard to reformat" I watched him try a few times and just give up. After he left, I tried as well, same **** for me. Must be the wrong keys.

Anyways. Here are the pictures. It looks like I can go with up to 4 Highdef DVR's before I need to upgrade the last 3lnb to another 5lnb. I also need to remove the old 3lnb left up on the house. Problem also is, I dont know which wires go to which rooms, we have 14 feeds into the house. At least I know where 3 HD DVR's ( 1 hr20, 2 hr10's) go...

John

 

[carl6]

Two quick comments.

First, were you pressing the down arrow/record buttons on the front of the dvr, or on the remote. Got to be on the dvr itself.

Second, take the BBC's off and see if things work okay. Many have been bad out of the box. You won't need them until next year, plenty of time to get replacements.

Carl

 

[SepticDeath]

on the dvr, I will try without the bbc's...

 

[PoitNarf]

It would be the WB68. I think they have a 16-port version out now.

Yep, they do. This may be of interest to you:

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?main_cat=02&CAT=&PROD=WB616

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

Yep, they do. This may be of interest to you:

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?main_cat=02&CAT=&PROD=WB616

Thanks, actually I"m at capacity w/ the WB68 and have been thinking about upgrading it. I don't want to go w/ the with a 2nd WB68 route. I would lose 4-ports. It would basically be waste. IMHO anyway.

 

[PoitNarf]

Thanks, actually I"m at capacity w/ the WB68 and have been thinking about upgrading it. I don't want to go w/ the with a 2nd WB68 route. I would lose 4-ports. It would basically be waste. IMHO anyway.

The WB616 looks nice too since it is a powered multiswitch. I've seen many posts about people wondering if the WB68 gets sufficient power from the receivers to work properly 100% of the time.

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

The WB616 looks nice too since it is a powered multiswitch. I've seen many posts about people wondering if the WB68 gets sufficient power from the receivers to work properly 100% of the time.

Yea, I've heard that as well. I'm not really having a terrible amount of problems or any reason to swap them out so I can't confirm nor deny that it's true. It makes sense to a certain degree. I wonder if anyone has actually hada a reason too, and can report the findings?

I have power available where the switch is/would sit. So it would work easily for me in my setup.

 

[SepticDeath]

Yep, they do. This may be of interest to you:

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?main_cat=02&CAT=&PROD=WB616

I had mentioned to the installer that a 6X16 existed, he either didnt know or didnt have one. I originally figured that they would replace both dishes but came to realize that I only currently have 4 HD recievers (2 inputs each). I'm sure that its more cost efficient to discover which feeds in the 14 cable bundle goto which recievers and move the correct feeds to the correct switch. As it turns out, 6 feeds were all on the correct switch that was replaced, and only 2 feeds are still connected to the 3lnb system. No biggie right now, as my HD consists of only 1 HR-20, 3 HR-10's and 1 Toshiba DST-3000.

Its funny, as it was only last week I got the hr-20 and completly hated it compared to my hr-10's. Once you accept that the hr-20 is "broken" and will eventually have dual tunner buffers, and take a little time to use the interface and know what you can do and cant do (wishlists, record a title accross multiple channels) its really not that bad.

With all the talk about getting the HR-20 for free, dOes anyone know if you should be able to upgrade your non-dvr HD recievers for a new unit that does mpeg4, i.e. my toshiba dst-3000 for a non dvr mpeg4 capabile unit?

Thanks

 

[PoitNarf]

Once you accept that the hr-20 is "broken" and will eventually have dual tunner buffers...

Dual buffers is still very much up in the air. I wouldn't put any guarantees on getting it at any point in the HR20 life cycle at the present time (but it could happen given how many people are screaming for it).

 

[S. DiThomas]

I had mentioned to the installer that a 6X16 existed, he either didnt know or didnt have one.

Septic Death:

That is the most awful install I have ever seen. Who did that for you? :new_Eyecr

Have you considered either the Zinewell 6x16 powered Switch or the new ones from Spawn (it is an upgrade and a considerable cost but well worth it for the bugs in this box that may arise from non-powered multi-switches.

Also have you cosidered moving to one dish, placing it near your attic and running the 5-6 cables from the disk to a panel (try a Channel Master or even the generics at Home Depot) for the Multiswitch and the amplifier unit.

I realize you are in San Diego - and there is no real weather in San Diego, but aside from protection it certainly would clean the mess off the side of your house created by the "standard install" we see in those photos.

With ONE new 5LNB dish the Zinewell or Spawn powered muti switch and a box in your attic or master closet you would be much better off and have much better service quality and reliability for all 16 connections.

 

[S. DiThomas]

I had mentioned to the installer that a 6X16 existed, he either didnt know or didnt have one.

Septic Death:

That is the most awful install I have ever seen. Who did that for you? :new_Eyecr

Have you considered either the Zinewell 6x16 powered Switch or the new ones from Spawn (it is an upgrade and a considerable cost $200-$400) but well worth it for the bugs in this box that may arise from non-powered multi-switches.

Also have you cosidered moving to one dish, placing it near your attic and running the 5-6 cables from the disk to a panel (try a Channel Master or even the generics at Home Depot) for the Multiswitch and the amplifier unit.

I realize you are in San Diego - and there is no real weather in San Diego, but aside from protection it certainly would clean the mess off the side of your house created by the "standard install" we see in those photos.

With ONE new 5LNB dish the Zinewell or Spawn powered muti switch and a box in your attic or master closet you would be much better off and have much better service quality and reliability for all 16 connections.

 

[whsbuss]

Septic Death:

Thanks for posting the install pictures. I can't determine if the mounting clamp is bigger than the 3-lnb dish mount. Is that the case? Did the installer drill new holes in the mount?

 

[TheMerk]

I watched him do this, the screen went black, he pressed, a quick reddish flash kicked in, and about 3 seconds later the next blue screen came up and no record light on or any "wizard to reformat" I watched him try a few times and just give up. After he left, I tried as well, same **** for me. Must be the wrong keys.

Press red reset button on front panel.
Blue screen should appear with text "Hello, your DIRECTV..." After a few seconds text will change to "Almost there..."
After screen turns black, press RECORD and DOWN ARROW buttons on receiver's front panel (not on remote control) and hold for 5 - 10 seconds.
Light on Record button should appear and remain on for approx. 30 - 60 seconds.
Reformat is complete after light on Record button turns off and "Acquiring Info from Satellite" appears on screen.

Hint: To confirm that reformat was successful, check MyVOD menu to verify that no previous recordings are still listed here.