# 771 Searching for Signal



## tonywfinley (Feb 7, 2008)

First off I would like to apologize about about any misspellings and / or bad grammar. Writing is not really my strength.

Hopefully I have just ended a long standing issue I have had with my Direct TV HD DVR and I would like to pass on this info, because I am sure others are having the same problem.

Let me start at the beginning. In September I reluctantly changed the receiver in my living room from the HD TIVO to the HD DVR. I was not happy about this. I loved my Tivo, but I knew if I wanted the new HD channels i need it, plus DTV upgraded (their term not mine) me for free and gave me $10 off a month for a year. My happiness of this new receiver is for another post. In short there are some thing that are nice, but over not as easy to use as the TIVO

Here is where my issue started. From time to time my new local channels (off the dish not OTA) would give me a 771 error. I would get a grey screen with a blue bar. This was very occasional and was easily fixed by just turning the channel and the turning back. It was annoying, but anytime i checked the signal strength it seemed strong. Also, from a year of using my OTA antenna for HD I was kind of used to the occasional signal drop.

This problem became much worse as DTV rolled out the new HD channels. Like everyone else I watched the forums and as the channels came available I added them into my favorites in my guide. The more HD I got the more i noticed this 771 message. It didn't take me long to figure out that it the 771 message was only appearing only on these new MPG4 HD channels. Also it was not limited to one tuner. I wouldn't say it was 50/50 but I would get the 771 one message for sat in 1 and sat in 2. I couldn't tell you as to which one did it more as I changed the cables many times in my trouble shooting. As time went on this problem seemed to get worse. Occasionally my channel changing method would not even work and I would have to restart the box. This was a problem. I was also running into the problem that the more this happened the more I would discover items in my list that were blank. I would go to watch a show in my list and would be greeting by a grey screen.

I don't really want to go into my experience with dealing with DTV customer service, but I will give my short opinion. The people that answer the phone at DTV are almost across the board complete idiots. I would be more angry about this, but it seems to be a common trend with all tech service calling centers. They read from their script and if you break their script they seem to shutdown. Honestly I can't imagine that they ever help anyone, but I am sure for every idiot at DTV there at 30 of them in the real world. I am sure they wouldn't ask you to check to see if you TV is plugged in if it was not a common problem. Also I understand that these people are making somewhere in the ballpark of $7 and hour. I would put much effort into a job that paid me that either.

Long story short after almost two months of back and forth I finally got DTV to send someone out for free.

So if you have been having the same problem here is what the guy did to fix the problem. After reading everything on this site I had a whole list of things that could be wrong. Bad dish, bad BBC, bad alignment , bad box, bad cable, ext...
In the end it was a bad multiplexer. I had a black colored multiplexer that was installed almost two years ago. The tech said that he had seen this before and that basically the multiplexer had compatibility issues with my dish.

Since the repair I have yet to get the 771 message. Everything appears to be 100% better.

I hope this helps someone.


----------



## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

Welcome tony and sorry you had so many problems, which really shouldn't have occurred. 

It sounds like when your new receiver and dish were installed, the tech failed to also replace your multiswitch (I assume this is what you mean when you say "multiplexor"). 

Only the Zinwell WB68 would have been approved for your use. 

Sorry this happened to you,and it took so long for them to figure out the problem.

I only wish you had visited us last Fall. We'd have been able to fix your problem within minutes.


----------



## tonywfinley (Feb 7, 2008)

Canis Lupus said:


> Welcome tony and sorry you had so many problems, which really shouldn't have occurred.
> 
> It sounds like when your new receiver and dish were installed, the tech failed to also replace your multiswitch (I assume this is what you mean when you say "multiplexor").
> 
> ...


Yeah, well what surprises me is that if this is such an old problem why is there still so many people at DTV and even on this web site who mis diagnose this problem. It really was a simple fix and it is still working great. It has been wonderful not to see 771


----------



## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

Yes I agree it's a simple fix, but the 771 error (which I'm sure you've read) can come from any number of places, not always so easy to recognize and troubleshoot. 

In your case, however, it should have been easy to recognize. Glad it's all working well though


----------

