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Here is a good story. How does this compare to some of the ridiculous things you've heard from technicians?
First the background. I've been getting intermittant 771 errors on HD channels that I knew came from the 103 satellite. This has been going on since the satellite became active. I had my 5 LNB dish installed about a month before the satellite went live.
I called DirecTV about 3 weeks ago and in speaking with their technical service, it sounded like I either had a bad LNB or a bad multiswitch. They set up a service appointment and today was the first day available.
The technician showed up. I told him the story of what's been happening. He first proceeded to tell me what idiots the DirecTV people are and that they never know what they are talking about. Of course, I wasn't getting any 771 errors while he was here so he said there was nothing he could do. He did leave me a new LNB that he said I could replace if I started seeing it happening again. I showed him my signal strength from 103(c). Most of them were in the 50's and 60's with a couple in the 30's. I knew this was the problem. Here is where it gets good.
He told me that the HD channels came from 103(b) and that my reciever, HR20, couldn't read the signal strength of those channels and that it didn't matter what my 103(c) signals were since that's not where I'm getting my HD from. I tried to tell him that 103(a) and 103(b) have been renamed to 103(s) and 103(c) respectively and he told me that was false and that there were actually four of them, 103(a), 103(b), 103(c), and 103(s) but only the new recievers, HR22, could read the signal strength of all 4.
I asked him about the low reading on a couple of the transponders. He told me that didn't matter because I had some high readings on other transponders and if the receiver couldn't get a signal off of one transponder it would just pull it off of another. He claimed that as long as I had a high signal on one even transponder and one odd transponder that I should be fine.
He also told me that ALL HD came from the 103(b) satellite. It didn't matter whether it was MPEG2 or MPEG4, it was ALL coming from 103(b).
I did some more troubleshooting myself later in the day and found that my multiswitch was the Zinwell 6802 which isn't fully compatible with the new Ka signals and needs to be replaced with a Zinwell WB68. The tech who installed my dish a year ago should have installed a new multiswitch. I called Directv back to get a replacement multiswitch but apparently they can't send those out and scheduled another technician visit for July 18.
If the tech would have looked at the multiswitch, he should have known it was not compatible and just replaced it and everything would have been fine. I decided just to buy one on Ebay for $20. What a pain!
Jamie
First the background. I've been getting intermittant 771 errors on HD channels that I knew came from the 103 satellite. This has been going on since the satellite became active. I had my 5 LNB dish installed about a month before the satellite went live.
I called DirecTV about 3 weeks ago and in speaking with their technical service, it sounded like I either had a bad LNB or a bad multiswitch. They set up a service appointment and today was the first day available.
The technician showed up. I told him the story of what's been happening. He first proceeded to tell me what idiots the DirecTV people are and that they never know what they are talking about. Of course, I wasn't getting any 771 errors while he was here so he said there was nothing he could do. He did leave me a new LNB that he said I could replace if I started seeing it happening again. I showed him my signal strength from 103(c). Most of them were in the 50's and 60's with a couple in the 30's. I knew this was the problem. Here is where it gets good.
He told me that the HD channels came from 103(b) and that my reciever, HR20, couldn't read the signal strength of those channels and that it didn't matter what my 103(c) signals were since that's not where I'm getting my HD from. I tried to tell him that 103(a) and 103(b) have been renamed to 103(s) and 103(c) respectively and he told me that was false and that there were actually four of them, 103(a), 103(b), 103(c), and 103(s) but only the new recievers, HR22, could read the signal strength of all 4.
I asked him about the low reading on a couple of the transponders. He told me that didn't matter because I had some high readings on other transponders and if the receiver couldn't get a signal off of one transponder it would just pull it off of another. He claimed that as long as I had a high signal on one even transponder and one odd transponder that I should be fine.
He also told me that ALL HD came from the 103(b) satellite. It didn't matter whether it was MPEG2 or MPEG4, it was ALL coming from 103(b).
I did some more troubleshooting myself later in the day and found that my multiswitch was the Zinwell 6802 which isn't fully compatible with the new Ka signals and needs to be replaced with a Zinwell WB68. The tech who installed my dish a year ago should have installed a new multiswitch. I called Directv back to get a replacement multiswitch but apparently they can't send those out and scheduled another technician visit for July 18.
If the tech would have looked at the multiswitch, he should have known it was not compatible and just replaced it and everything would have been fine. I decided just to buy one on Ebay for $20. What a pain!
Jamie
