# switching problems



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Ok, I have a 50' run of RG6 (new) running to a 4 port disq switch. From there I have a run of coax going to a 1M G10 dish, a 1M AMC3 dish, and a 24" G28 dish. On ports 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

When I switch between channels on a single sat, either V or H, no problems. When I switch sats, I get "No Signal". If I pull up the sat setup screen for that sat, and toggle V and H once, then that sat comes in fine. If I switch to another sat, the same thing happens again. I can't determine what isn't switching, the lnb itself, or the polarity after it switches. Its quite annoying. Signal is 70-80 when it finally tunes in, and quality varies from 47 to 70 depending on the channel I am on.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Sure sounds like a bad switch. Do you have a spare that you could swap in?


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

No spare, its on the FedEx truck with the disq motor and a spare lnb...Should be here Wednesday. Tried putting the switch right behind the receiver too, worked a little better but still the same problem. Those switches that troublesome? Would there be a good more expensive one I should consider? This one was a freebie with the receiver from GoSatellite.

How do those switches work? What does the receiver send to it to make it switch?


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## unclehonkey (Jan 3, 2008)

The receiver sends pulses to let it know what satellite to go to. 

When you add or remove switches, always make sure to power switch the receiver off on the back as to not do damage to the switch


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Thanks. I for sure had the power switch on the back off, as I rerouted all the cables to get ready for the motor drive, and bought a new 50' section to go from the receiver to the motor under the house. Its just annoying, trying to hand aim a dish for 30 minutes and then find out the switch wasn't working right and I was probaably aimed correctly all along. Its a hobby though, so its all good.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Will this work:

Receiver to 22KHz switch. 
22KHz off to disq motor to lnb on motorized dish

22KHz on to 4 port disq switch to stationary dishes. ???


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## unclehonkey (Jan 3, 2008)

Davenlr said:


> Will this work:
> 
> Receiver to 22KHz switch.
> 22KHz off to disq motor to lnb on motorized dish
> ...


if the 22k switch is an ecoda brand...yes
if the 22k switch is any other brand...no

Ecoda 22k switches are the only ones that pass diseqc commands.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Ok, thanks. Nope, Its a perfect 10 switch from an old 3 dish Directv setup. Guess Ill just put the new disq switch between the motor and the motorized lnb and pray


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

Chieta heavy duties have always worked well for me in the past.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Thanks Ptown. Definantly gonna need a good one. I found another sat IA7 the motorized dish won't see and I want to watch the old movies on there, & found out my C Band dish still works, so that's 1 motorized and 3 stationary dishes...Just waiting for a good 4 port disq switch  Amazing how much of this old junk still works.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

IA7? Galaxy 25 at 97w?

I thought most of that was Irdeto encrypted these days?
Maybe worth another look then.

Lucky you've got a c-band setup, not much room for them in the cities these days, if I could get a cheapy I'd be all over it. Might have to do the old c band on 1.2m trick


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

PTown said:


> if I could get a cheapy I'd be all over it.


Check freecycle.org to see if anyone near you wants to get rid of their old "eyesore" C-band dish. Keep checking eBay using a "within 25 miles" search. You'd be surprised (or saddened) by the number of new homeowners who don't want the big ol' dish they inherited. Good luck!


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## unclehonkey (Jan 3, 2008)

PTown said:


> IA7? Galaxy 25 at 97w?


white springs TV on G27/IA7/T7 at 129W


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

My Gosh, setting up that motor drive was twice the PITA as my old 10 ft prime focus. I like to have never found a sat. Ended up using the old cband trick and finding a sat due south (University network) and manually entering that, and still took me two hours in 29 degree weather to lock it in. After that, using desq, they were all off a little, so switched to USALS and all were spot on except for 72, which scanned in the channels that are supposed to be on 74. Was really happy to see the new disq switch cured the channel change problem, but I need to find one with less than t db loss...Gonna check out that one suggested a bit up the page. 

Whoever invented F connectors didn't try to screw a bunch of em together in freezing weather 

Thanks for all the tips guys.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

I believe the heavy duties have a 1.5db insertion loss.

.... and no I don't work for them I just like em


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

unclehonkey said:


> white springs TV on G27/IA7/T7 at 129W


Ahh thanks. I thought IA7 was intelsat americas 7 or something like that, which I thought used to be at 97w.

Thanks for clearing it for me.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I think I am about a half degree to far west, besides the sat picking up 74 when it should have been on 72, I had to use disq switching for amc3 so I could fine tune it 4 steps east of where USALS put it. To cold, will play more when it warms up.

As for the switching probems, Going from the motor dish to one of the stationary dishes, still doesn't work without putting up antenna setup and playing with polarity, or powering the receiver off and on. I'm thinking its the receiver itself. What do you guys think? Same results, two switches. On a side note, the one it has the most trouble withing to is the c band lnb, which is 125' from the switch...
Definantly a fun hobby though.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Davenlr said:


> I'm thinking its the receiver itself. What do you guys think? Same results, two switches.


If you can swing it, a good sanity check is to haul your receiver outside and hook up a _short_ RG6 from it to the switch, then see if you have the same problems. Then you can also eliminate the cable run as a culprit, so you can feel more confident when you get on the phone with whoever sold you the receiver. 

Seriously, I had some intermittent motor problems a few months ago and was tearing my hair out looking for a pattern or reason. Then I tried that same sanity check and discovered that I had a bad cable. I replaced the cable and the motor problems disappeared.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Sanity check was the first thing I tried. Ran all the sat cables to the inside, and used a 3' cable. Same thing. It seems to have no problem switching to the motor, or to the 24" dish on 129, just the G10 and C band dishes, which coincidentally both have 100' runs from the switch, so I'm gonna chalk it up to long cable runs, both of which are over 8 yrs old. This spring, Ill replace them. The motor (new cable) works perfect...I can get around the other. The receiver doesn't keep time either, its minutes to hours off each day. I just got it to see if I really wanted to get into this. I'm eventually going to order a Pansat or other good mpeg4 capable receiver anyway. For $89 delivered from Canada, I'm not gonna worry. Just learning.

I would like to know why CBC isn't on Anik KU tho...You would think Canada would want to be "seen" down here if for any other reason than free PR for Canada. I should be able to manually move the c band dish to Anik tho, so I'm going to check Lyngsat and see what's available from up there.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Davenlr said:


> I would like to know why CBC isn't on Anik KU tho...You would think Canada would want to be "seen" down here if for any other reason than free PR for Canada.


Me too. I'd pay $5/month for just one CBC channel in the clear. Canadian law allows pretty much anyone (in Canada) to retransmit anything carried OTA by paying a small amount into a pool for content owners, so you'd think they wouldn't bother to scramble all the OTA channels.

Then again, I was told by a Canadian in the know that the reason that ExpressVu scrambled its music channels, including radio stations, was to make sure that non-subscribers would have no reason to erect a dish. This made it easier to identify pirates - folks with a dish but no subscription. By that reasoning, they wouldn't allow anything of interest to stay in the clear.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Haha, satellite police.

Can anyone tell me if the caribbean network mux (cbs,abc,nbc,fox,cw) at 99 degrees on c band is still there? Since its horizontal, and only 4 degrees west of where my C Band dish is sitting now, I thought I'd try for it, but as touchy as my system is right now, I'd kinda like to make sure its there first. Lygsat lists it at 99W 3950h 12296.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

FTA Michael said:


> Then again, I was told by a Canadian in the know that the reason that ExpressVu scrambled its music channels, including radio stations, was to make sure that non-subscribers would have no reason to erect a dish. This made it easier to identify pirates - folks with a dish but no subscription. By that reasoning, they wouldn't allow anything of interest to stay in the clear.


I used to live in Canada. Interesting theory, however there are many arguments against it. I can remember going to bowling alleys, halls, etc where they would have the free muzak channels setup but just cable on the TV's, I would imagine that was a more legitimate reason. After directv pirates were shutdown Bell offered discounts for people who already had dishes setup to re-point to 91 and get a legit subscription, less overhead for them. So you could assume anyone with a directv dish is a pirate but in reality they could be legit subs.

Sorry for going off topic


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Davenlr said:


> Can anyone tell me if the caribbean network mux (cbs,abc,nbc,fox,cw) at 99 degrees on c band is still there?


The fine C-band list from Global Communications http://www.global-cm.net/MPEGlistCBandUS.html shows that it's still there as of Feb. 10.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Yep, still there for sure. Sme weird stuff going on. I hooked the c band dish directly to the receiver to fine tune it. Then when I put it back on port 4 of the disq switch, I got no signal. Put my old disq switch back on, and it worked again, but still have to pull up antenna setup and cycle between H and V then hit exit, to get it to pick up a sat on a new disq position. Motor drives perfectly tho, and I have the same results with both switches. I'm thinking its got to be the receiver. 

BTW, when scanning G16 C band at 99 it scanned in MYtv-SD and MYtv-HD, if anyone with an HD receiver wants to see if they can get it. I didn't even know MYnetwork had any HD programming.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I'm giving up for now. Now the motor is sometimes turning, and sometimes not. Desq almost never returns to the same spot, and USALS works most of the time, but then it started working intermittantly. I've got to turn the receiver off and on about 75% of the time, to get the switch to change sats. I'm gonna order a new receiver as soon as I get some answers on the Pansat. If I have the same problems with the Pansat, or alternate receiver, Ill just have to try to get one receiver to work with the motor alone (no switch) and use the other for the stationary dishes.
What's funny is it will work perfect sometimes, then just go brain dead.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

Does you STB have the latest firmware on it, maybe a newer release has fixed these bugs.

What brand is it BTW?


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Its a Fortec Star Mercury II.

I did an experiment just now. I totally disabled the motor. Told the receiver there was no motor. Have 4 sats on disq switch. Turned on receiver, and channel on port 4 came on fine. Switched to channel on port 1, and got "No Signal". Didn't do anything, just let it sit there. About 5 minutes later, the channel just popped on and the "no signal" banner went away. 

I checked their web site, and the only update didn't cover any problem I was having. Also said it would void the warrantee to install it. Said I would have to send it to them to do the upgrade to keep the warrantee.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

I wouldn't worry about it, just go ahead and upgrade. You can always flash it back if it ef's up. You never know if it'll fix it until you try right


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Well, I was gonna take your advice, and downloaded the loader and .bin file, then discovered neither my desktop or laptop has a serial port "DOH". No way to get the software to the Fortec unless I buy a USB-Serial adapter


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Did you purchase the receiver recently? Any chance you can swap with the seller for a non-defective unit?

'Cause I've got a Mercury II, and it doesn't have this problem.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I got it from gosatellite.com in Canada. I wanted to make sure it was a receiver problem before I called them, but will do so Monday and see what they say.

Its hardly raining here today, and I'm loosing the first Equity mux on the 1M G10 dish, and can't get any of the PBS stuff on the GeosatPro (although that Arab channel comes in). Got KUIL once good, then last night, and today its not coming in, but other stations on the sat area. Guess I should have ordered the 1.2M dish instead of the 1M (which isn't really a full 1M)... Oh well.

Had a strong line of storms coming in tonight, so thought I would run a test.

In order of the signal dropping out:
1M G10 KU on Equity
1M on Aljezeera
Directv KA
OTA digital channel 5 (what a mess it was)
Directv KU
10' C band had noticable errors with a signal Q of 32 but still came in.

Now for the surprise... the 24" pointed at 129 broke up, but outperformed Directv at 119. It seems to work better than the 1M dishes. Maybe I should put it on the motor  Either that or the old movie channel has a killer signal.

Just for grins tomorrow, I'm gonna stick a linear KU on my AT9 directv dish and see if KUIL comes in. Its already pointed at 101.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I ordered a Pansat 9200. That will tell me if my Fortec is bad, or if its a antenna system problem. Was gonna get it anyway. The pansat web site shows its got a eSATA port, will it record to a hard drive or is the port not active yet?


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

Port is not active yet.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Just a follow-up...its the fortec receiver causing the switching problems. I set the Pansat 9200 up the same exact way, didn't change anything, and it moves the motor, and switches all 4 ports flawlessly.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

Sweet. Glad that nice setup is working.


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