# Some HD Channels Not Working



## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Hello All - 

I have an HR20 that has been working perfectly for 3 months or so. For the last week or so, some of the HD channels in the 70s (ESPN2 especially) have not been working - and it's always only 3 of the channels, not all of them. When I try to tune in the channel I get the "Searching for Signal" message. 

I have tried the menu-based reset, the RBR, and unplugging it...to no avail.

Interestingly, what does work is that if I run the system test, Tuner 1 comes up as "OK, Acquired at 0%", the test completes, and the channels are back.

Also sometimes they just come back on their own.

Any ideas???

Thanks!


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## davidord (Aug 16, 2006)

What's the signal strength on Tuner 2? If it's at zero, your dish alignment is probably off, if it's strong you may have a loose connection some where. Try switching the two feeds on the back of the HR20 to see if Tuner 1 is at zero after the switch. If so, there is a line issue. If not, then there may be a hardware problem with tuner 2. Just my thoughts, I could be wrong....



tjb6116 said:


> Hello All -
> 
> I have an HR20 that has been working perfectly for 3 months or so. For the last week or so, some of the HD channels in the 70s (ESPN2 especially) have not been working - and it's always only 3 of the channels, not all of them. When I try to tune in the channel I get the "Searching for Signal" message.
> 
> ...


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

I switched the lines and the tuner responding at 0% during the test has now switched to tuner 2, but the problem is worse.

The system test no longer "jump starts" the tuner...just nothing on ESPN2, Discovery and HDM. And ESPN is completely pixelated.

So maybe it is a line problem....but shouldn't one good line be enough as long as I'm not recording something on the other line?


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Oh...and by the way, I have another HR20 in the house also that is working fine.

I also have a 10-250 and 2 non-HD DVRs that are all fine.


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## MrDad0330 (Jun 16, 2007)

Could be your dish alignment. 73, 76, and 79 (all good HD channels) come off the 119 sat location. I had problems with trees as the sat is farther west and lower. I had to move my dish wish solved my problem


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## Greyshadow2007 (Aug 23, 2006)

To me, it sounds like an issue with the signal coming though a single cable if you swapped cables and the tuner listing 0% changed. You may want to inspect the cable indoors and outdoors (if applicable) or attempt to change the port on your multiswitch to see if that changes anything


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

The troubleshooting continues...

I switched the lines at the multiswich (6X8) to two completely different ports. No improvement.

I think the thing that really confuses me is how running the system test would make it come back - and come back perfectly clear. I would think a bad line is a bad line and the doing the test would have no effect at all.

I'm also not sure how a piece of cable that hasn't been changed, moved, bent, etc.. would suddenly fail.


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## Meklos (Nov 7, 2006)

tjb6116 said:


> The troubleshooting continues...
> 
> I switched the lines at the multiswich (6X8) to two completely different ports. No improvement.
> 
> ...


There is signaling that occurs from the receiver (across the wire) to the multiswitch. The receiver uses a combination of tuning to a particular frequency *and* sending a particular combination of signaling to indicate what exactly it wants to "see".

If part of that information isn't making it down there to the multiswitch all the time, the multiswitch could be sending you the proper transponder data (frequency) but you're getting transponder 16 instead of 32 (polarity).

Running the system test could resend all of the various combinations down the troublesome wire, and the last one could be the one you're looking for. Look to see if any other channels don't work after a system test. I dont have a chart of what's where, or I'd try to give you some ones to try to narrow down the problem.

Really sounds like you have a line problem though, if the problem follows the line.


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## shendley (Nov 28, 2005)

I've had a similar, though _very_ intermittent problem with one tuner dropping the 70s channels (get either black screen or "searching for authorized content" or "searching for signal in . . ."). And I had all sorts of strange things that would, on different occasions, bring the tuner back up to speed: change channel to an mpeg 4 HD local station, change channel to a standard SD channel, go check the signal strength, remove one of the coaxes coming into the box (didn't matter which one) and plug it back in. I thought it was my box, but I replaced it with another box and started seeing much the same thing. I tried changing the outputs from the multiswitch as you did, but that didn't make a difference in my case either. I'm currently bypassing my multiswitch entirely to see if that makes a difference. I'm also curious if removing the Bband converters might solve it. But I won't do that until I see if the multiswitch was the problem.



tjb6116 said:


> The troubleshooting continues...
> 
> I switched the lines at the multiswich (6X8) to two completely different ports. No improvement.
> 
> ...


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

tjb6116 said:


> The troubleshooting continues...
> 
> I switched the lines at the multiswich (6X8) to two completely different ports. No improvement.
> 
> ...


Water in the cable from cheap connectors or corrosion from water. Way back when, When we originally got cable, When there was one HBO and it went of the air at night. Long before there was a DirecTV I had problems from cheap connectors. I just recently had the Cable Guy out to fix a Cable modem problem. Turned out to be Old corroded connectors from way back. Strange that it didn't affect the analog Basic cable reception, just cable modem service and HD Locals from the cableco.

Cheers


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Thanks all!!

I'll keep troubleshooting.


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## cparish (Mar 31, 2007)

I am having the same problem. I just added an HR20 over the weekend and the HDs in the 70's stopped working. My other HR-20 was working fine. I checked all of the connections, restarted the receiver, unplugged it, etc. Called D* they had me trouble shoot for about an 1 hour no resolution. They setup a service call.

I then had an idea. My other HR-20 that was working fine has feeds directly from the dish. The one with the problem was going through a multiswitch. I swithced the wiring so that the one that was having the problem now had the cables going directly to the dish. That fixed the problem. So I have ordered a new multiswitch.

So it sounds like the problem maybe your multiswitch.


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Thanks.

I already switched the feeds to the HR20 that is not working to the same two outputs on the multiswitch that are feeding the HR20 that is working. That had no effect.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

tjb6116 said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I already switched the feeds to the HR20 that is not working to the same two outputs on the multiswitch that are feeding the HR20 that is working. That had no effect.


So you know it isn't from the multi-switch, but don't know if it is the coax coming from the multi-switch.
What happens if you take it to the location you have the "good one" working and use those coax feeds? If you find it works there then it looks like a bad coax cable, but if it still doesn't work there [where the other one does] then you can start to figure it's the box.


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## cparish (Mar 31, 2007)

Try eliminating the multiswitch all together and see if that fixes it.


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Yeah, I know that's really what I need to do. One of the boxes (the good one) is a real pain to switch out...but I'll have to bite the bullet. That really is the way to know for sure. I was just hoping to try everything else first.

Thanks!


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## tjb6116 (Jun 4, 2007)

Hello All - 

Problem Solved!!

It seems to have been one of the B Band Converters.

Thank you for all of the suggestions!


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