Make sure the line to the hopper is 3GHz RG6, SJ is at least 2.4 GHz, if not that is more than likely the issue. If the moca signal is bad between the hopper an SJ you would have this problem as well.

Have the hopper at home and you couldn't pay me enough to switch to DirecTV.

On a side note, Dish has released IP control of the hopper system which should make control gurus seriously geek out and make Dish much friendlier for CI.

Thanks for reminding me. The only cable that was not replaced, is the cable from the nod to the Hopper. Even though he said it was good enough, don't know what the specs are though.

Here's another question. The second guy who came around and installed the Super Joey, didn't ground the cable he had to run from the dish. The other two are grounded, just not that one.

Where the other two are grounded, is about 20 to 25 feet from the nod. So that third, issues would have to travel 40 to 50 feet to ground from the entrance of my house. All three come into the same spot.

KOT

The system is grounded. The 3rd line not being grounded at the entrance is an NEC saftey issue and would have nothing to do with performance. Troubleshooting this would be as follows:1) Alighnment of dish. Checking to make sure the dish is peaked out. A weak signal from the dish can cause all kind of weird problems.2) Check all cables and fittings. Make sure proper cable is being used and cutoff/replace any suspect ends. Bypass any surge or other junction points temporally in testing.3) For Dishnetwork, make sure to run/rerun the switch test on each receiver. That fixes a lot of problems on Dish systems.4) Start swapping parts. Start with the cheaper parts; NODs, etc. Then the LNB. Finally the receiver, as that would be the only thing left at this point.

Update.

Tech came out and replaced the 3 sat dish and installed a 2 sat dish. Seeing how my line of sight would not see sat 77 anyways. Thankfully it's the one that Dish doesn't use anyways, at least ones that I wouldn't be interested in.

He also replaced all three ends that were at the dish, because the stingers were just about flush. So they are now at least 3mm from the screw end.

And he left me a 25 foot length of cable for me to replace the old cable from the NOD to the Hopper. I am going to let it be for a week or two to see what happens. If the pixelating happens again, I'll change out the cable. Then if it happens again, he asked to have them come out again.

Thankfully I was able to have it pixelate before he arrived. So he was able to see it. When he went through the diagnostics, everything looked fine of course. But when he went back to Live TV, pixelating was gone. Of course it's a head scratcher, he's was just as dumb founded as I am.

KOT

Well 3 days later, the problem came back.

Tuner 1 was being used by the Super Joey
Tuner 2 was available.
Tuner 3 was being used by the Hopper (where the pixelating is.)
Tuner 4 was available.
Tuner 5 was being used by the regular Joey on the CBS network. So ABC, NBC and FOX could've been viewed too.

I selected Tuner 2, it changed the channel to Dish Preview(whatever number that is.) Then I tuned it to the channel that I wanted to watch. To my amazement it was working. So I pressed the TV Activity again and saw that Tuner 3 was stilling being used by the Hopper, but in PIP mode.

I pressed PIP and it was still pixelating. Despite the fact I was using a different Tuner, 2, with no problem. Swapped the two and did what I've done last week, that is to press the 10 skip back. Of course it's working now.

It would see the problem is when it's on Tuner 3. Question is, is Tuner 3 always in the Hopper or Super Joey. Or does the Dish system changes the order of the Tuners when listed in the TV Activity menu? I have to admit, this isn't the first time that the problem was happening when I was viewing Tuner 3.

Don't bother asking me if either the Joey or Super Joey sees this problem. As I never watch them. Nor would my parents understand what I am trying to gather from them. Because they are always in a delay mode. Well only for a few minutes, and that's only after a turning the system on.

KOT

Actually that might be a part of the problem....


I do know that with DTV, if the coax from dish to receiver isn't grounded, you will lose channels.

Saw this in the field.

Even if it's just one of three coax that isn't grounded? Hmm

I forgot to mention in my last post. I could tune to CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX just fine in Live Mode (but this means that it was using Tuner 5 as indicated in the TV Activity menu). But any other channels, it was pixelated unless delayed.

The coax the tech left me the other day will be installed tonight when there's no recordings going on. I'll give it a few more days until I'll call them again.

KOT