Has anyone seen this problem?

I use a Sony SAT-T60 DirecTV/TiVo box and I just installed the new dish yesterday becaue I wanted to be ready for the dual tuner ability TiVo claims to be activating by the end of the summer.

So I install it, pain in the ass as usual. It is even worse because of the tilt adjustment, but the sickest flaw is that there is no signal strength LED on the LNB like there used to be on older Sony dishes.

Anyway, I check the signal strength on Satellite A (101 degrees) and all the odd transponders got strong signal (i.e. 1,3,5,7,9 etc) but all the even ones were 0!!! (i.e. 2,4,6,8,10 etc) so I disconnected the multiswitch and ran a cable directly from the LNB itself to the receiver, which fixed the problem.

Satallite B was fine in both tests.

I guess my question is what the hell is wrong with that multiswitch? The vendor I bought it from has shipped me a new multiswitch and we'll see if that one works but I was curious to see if any of you have seen this happen.

THanks!

Mike D.

I had the same problem with my oval dish. I was installing it for hdtv, so I was tuning for satellite 101 and 119. I remedied the problem by leveling the round mast that the dish mounts on. It must be plumb vertically at 0,90,180,270 degrees in order to get both satellites to work properly. It is very touchy. After I had it mounted, I used a small pry bar to bend it into plumb. Hope this helps.

Mike: have you described the problem to your vendor? I think he should have told you that's what the multiswitch is supposed to do, and that installation on the bottom of the cable run needs to be completed. Folks who know more than me (lots out there) should finish the advice.

About 3 weeks ago, I had an oval dish installed. All Directv channels came in okay, but the installer couldn't get the few HDTV channels to work on my big screen HDTV. He had to call Directv, and after 2 days, he finally got back to me. He was advised to remove the 2nd multiswitch in my basement, so he said. I ran a direct line from the multiswitch at the dish to my HDTV, and I have HD HBO now. I am still wondering why I cannot have 2 multiswitches for HDTV, but it works fine for the other channels. If somebody knows anything more about this, I like to know.

As an explanation, the 2 cables from the LNB's are connected to the multiswitch at the dish. The cables from that multiswitch and from CABLE were going to the 2nd multiswitch, combining satelltite and cable TV. A splitter before each TV results back in a satellite and cable line.

-Rene

PEOPLE LET ME EXPLAIN IT I AM A INSTALLER IN TAMPA FL AND IT GOES LIKE THIS FIRST THE MOUNT ON 24 INCH DISH NEEDS TO BE LEVEL ANS THE TILT USUALLY IS 48 ELEVATION IS 48 TO 49.5 AND IN TAMPA 239 TO 246 DEGREES SW . PUT YOU DISH TOGETHER FIRST ON THE GROUND GO TO YOUR RECEIVER AND TYPE IN YOUR ADDRESS AND TELL IT OVAL BLA BLA BLA SET IT ON THE GROUND AND WHEN YOU GO UP ON THE HOUSE YOU SHOULD ONLY NEED TO PRETTY MUCH TWIST IT LEFT OR RIGHT . LEAVE THE FINE TUNE SCREW LOOSE TO FLEX THE DISH UP OR DOWN AND GO TO 101 TRANSPONDERS FIRST. IF U BUY A SAT SIGNAL METER $40.00 WORKS GOOD FOR THE DO IT YOURSELFER AND HOOK THE RECEIVER UP TO ONE END AND THE OTHER ONE TO MULTISWITCH. YOU SHOULD TUNE THE 101 FIRST BECAUSE THE TILT AND ELEVATION IS SO CLOSE TO 101 THAT IF YOUR STRONG ON 101 YOUR CLOSE TO 119 REMEMBER THE 22KHZ IS ONLY FOR HDTV ON THE OLDER SATELLITES THE SIGNAL METER WILL SHOW 90 THEN 0 92 THEN 0 MOVE THE COAX TO OUTPUT 3 AND 4 FOR NON HD SIGNALS ALSO REMEMBER HDTV NEEDS TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE RECEIVER IT CANNOT GO THRU ANOTHER MULTISWITCH THEN TO YOUR RECEIVER. YOU WILL NOT PICK UP 199 AND 509. TAKE 3 AND 4 OUT OF THE MULTISWITCH AND YOU CAN FEED THEM INTO ANOTHER MULTISWITCH AND FEED AS MANY MULTISWITCHES UP TO 199 RECEIVERS ON ONE DISH. AS I WAS SAYING BACK TO MY THOUGHTS TO TUNE THESE DISHES LOOK AT THE ELEVATION AND YOU WILL SEE A WHITE LINE NOT WHERE THE BOLT LINES UP AT THE DEGREE BUT TO THE LEFT OF THE BOLT AND THAT IS THE LINE YOU NEED TO SET THE ELEVATION AND 9 OUT OF 10 TIMES TILT IS 48 TO 49 DEGREES. SET IT ALL UP AND YOU WILL SEE IT WORK FOR U AS FAR AS 2 MULTISWITCHES ON HDTV IT IS NOT AVAILABLE BUT YOU CAN HAVE OUTPUT 1&2 FOR HDTV CURRENTLY AND IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN 2 HDTV'S IN YOUR HOUSE I NEED BE WORKING ON YOUR HOUSE NOT U HAHAHAHAH ANYWAY IF YOU PEOPLE STILL NEED HELP EMAIL ME BILL GREEN AUDIO VISIONS SOUTH TAMPA

Thanks for all the replies!

It turns out that I had a bad 4' cable run from the 101 degree LNB to the multiswitch. I replaced it and boom, it's fine. :)

So far it has worked quite well, I don't do HD yet but I figure I'll wait until there is more to see.

Thanks again to all.