# FROM MARK: Please Respond - Do you lose any OTA channels when the 921 reboots?



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

As suggested by kmcnamara and jsanders, I would like to collect data on whether or not you lose any OTA channels when the 921 reboots. That is do you have to add any OTA channels back or rescan OTA channels after your 921 reboots?

If you answer YES, please provide your location, the station(s) you have to add back, and contact information for the engineering department at the station(s) if you can get it.


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## JM Anthony (Nov 16, 2003)

Sorry, fat finger error, my "No OTA channels" should have been "No problems with my OTA channels.


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## rlewis52 (Jan 31, 2004)

Yes I have to add back all my ota in the Dallas area when the 921 reboots.
The channels are 4,5,8,11,21,27,33 no other infro. available.
rlewis


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

C'mon rlewis52 - you have to tell me more than that. The reason for the contact info is so that the Dish engineers here in Denver can contact the stations to find out what they are transmitting that the 921 is not liking. At least give me the call letters of the stations. And the stations have to at least have web sites.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

I am in the Dallas area and lose the following stations following every reboot:

KERA (PBS) - ATSC 14 http://www.kera.org/
KDFW (FOX) - ATSC 35 http://www.kdfw.com/
WFAA (ABC) - ATSC 9 http://www.kdfw.com/
KDAF (WB) - ATSC 32 http://wb33.trb.com/
KTVT (CBS) - ATSC 19 http://www.ktvt.com/
KTXA (UPN) - ATSC 18 http://www.ktxa.com/

I DON'T lose the following 2 channels:

KXAS (NBC) - ATSC 41 http://www.nbc5i.com/index.html
KPXD (PAX) - ATSC 42 http://www.paxtv.com/stations/contact.cfm?sti_id=18

Edit: Per Simon's message below, I wanted to add that I had thought about the manual vs. autoscan. For me, it makes no difference. The end result is the same either way.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Maybe an appropriate question is: Do you lose 'auto-scanned' OTA on a reboot? Manually added OTA only? Etc.

If some people but not others are losing OTA, look for the correlation, and the above seems an obvious place to start.

The fact that some OTA is lost across a reboot indicates that something is not being saved to non-volatile storage (disk), and is only being kept in RAM. OR, nothing is saved and the box IS auto-scanning on a reboot.

Having no experience with OTA, I'm speculating here, but it sure seems obvious.

This business about contacting stations can only go so far - and E* certainly isn't going to get them to change things in any reasonable manner.

Once a channel has been added (auto or manual) it simply should not disappear due to a reboot - regardless of what the sending station is doing right or wrong.

So, I'll speculate that nothing is saved and a scan IS occurring on reboot, but who knows?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> As suggested by jsanders, I would like to collect data on whether or not you lose any OTA channels when the 921 reboots.


I don't think I can take credit for that one. I started the thread, however, kmcnamara thought "it would make an interesting poll to ask if people who use the OTA functionality of the 921 have to add back any channels after a reboot".

Anyway, I obviously have to re-scan my stuff every time the 921 reboots.

I know for sure that I have to add these stations in the San Francisco Bay Area:

KPIX, CBS channel 5, digital 29, www.kpix.com (signal strengh 109)
KGO, ABC channel 7, digital 24, abclocal.go.com/kgo (signal strength 76) 
KBWB WB	20.1 digital 19 www.wb20.com (signal strength 101)

KBHK, UPN channel 44, digital 45 www.upn44.tv (signal strength 102) does not get lost and these two stations (KBHK and KPIX) are owned by the same company, and the engineering department handles both KPIX and KBHK.

The following I don't know about the following yet, I will check tomorrow when it reboots (I usually just re-scan rather than re-add so I don't know all of the problem channels):

KICU-DT	36.1 52 (gone) www.ktvu.com/kicu/index.html
KSTS-DT	48.1 49 (gone) www.ksts.com/
KNTV-DT	11.1 12 (gone) www.nbc11.com/index.html
KDTV-DT	14.1 51 (didn't dissapear)
KTVU-DT	2.1 56 (gone) www.ktvu.com/index.html
KCNS-DT	38.1 39 (gone) www.plu.edu/~kcns/index.htm
KRON-DT	4.1 57 (gone) www.kron.com
KQED-DT	9.1 30 (gone) www.kqed.org/index.jsp?flash=true
KTSF-DT	26.1 27 (gone) www.ktsf.com
KKPX-DT	65.1 41 (gone) www.pax.tv/stations/default.cfm?sti_id=66&siteid=50659
KFSF-DT	34.1 34 (gone)
KTNC 42 42 (didn't dissapear)
KCSM-DT	43.1 43 (didn't dissapear)
KGO 7.1 24 (gone) http://abclocal.go.com/kgo
KPIX 5.1 29 (gone) www.kpix.com

I actually have got more channels than this in my list that don't show up, however, they don't show up on antennaweb.org either, so I don't know what digital channels to manually add to see if I can get them back.

Edit: Went through my channel list morning of 7/2/04 to list whether the channel was (gone), or (didn't dissapear).
2nd Edit: Added URLs to second list of stations.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

SimpleSimon said:


> Maybe an appropriate question is: Do you lose 'auto-scanned' OTA on a reboot? Manually added OTA only? Etc.
> 
> The fact that some OTA is lost across a reboot indicates that something is not being saved to non-volatile storage (disk), and is only being kept in RAM. OR, nothing is saved and the box IS auto-scanning on a reboot.
> 
> ...


Very good questions database man. I've been trying to piece it together too. It isn't quite that easy though. I do an auto-scan, and I pick up some channels, then I have to manually add KPIX sometimes. The next reboot comes around, and I lost both the auto scanned channels and the manually scanned channels! Go figure!

When the channels are lost, they still appear in the channel database! It seems that at least some information is written and saved to the channel list.

It is also interesting to note that some people have noted that some channels get remapped to other channels, Mark did a poll on that one before too. I think they are related. For me, I've seen KPIX map to KBHK or KQED before. Still, KPIX and KBHK both stay in the channel list seen by the user. It seems based on correlating the two experiences, that some sort of frequency information is getting lost. KPIX, channel 5.1 is digital 29, it seems like the digital 29 frequency is getting lost. That would explain the lost channel after the reboot (the frequency info is gone), and it would explain why two channels could get mapped to each other (the KPIX and KBHK frequencies get swapped).

It seems that they really do need a database expert to look at it!


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

jsanders said:


> Very good questions database man. ...
> It seems that they really do need a database expert to look at it!


I'm available.


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## TV Director (Feb 14, 2004)

...and they're all there, right where I left them.


-TV Director :listenup:


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## Redster (Jan 14, 2004)

Occasionally when I do a reboot, one of my OTA's become unavailable but a quick rescan solves that. I dont think its the same channel every time, so in my case,, it seems to depend on the station signal strength and whether its strong enough when the 921 reboots to pick it up.


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## dishbacker (Jun 15, 2004)

I'm having adventures keeping one of my OTA channels in Dallas, WFAA (ABC - NTSC 8, ATSC 9) http://www.wfaa.com, but I don't loose the rest of the channels, so I have a feeling it could be related to some adjustments in my antenna positioning. Haven't tested it enough, but since Monday night (when I got the 921), I've lost it 3 different times.

What is the best way to re-scan it though? I delete the remaps (8.1 and 8.2) along with 9.1 (which is the only Dallas channel that has problems with not removing the ATSC channel when the remap channels show up), do a save, exit out of the list, and then try to re-add it. It scans... eventually gets up to the 120+ lock strength, but when I try to go to that channel, it waits for 8-10 seconds and then give me the message that it can't find the channel. Do I have to remove the entire list and re-add them all in order to get it to work again?


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

dishbacker-
I believe last winter many were forgetting to put a check in the dot next to the channel before saving it when doing manual scan. This was causing the channel not to complete the process of listing it in the memory. Yes, I agree, this appears to be a redundant step but none the less, it is a requirement to do the channel add correctly.

Aside from manual vs. auto scan differences, I'll offer that my only channel I lost (months ago) and never bothered to re-add was a deep fringe weak signal channel. Otherwise my strong signal channels never disappear anymore since L149.

Another station difference is that the HDTV channel (1080i) could be transmitted on digital channel -2 with nothing on channel -1. I got this from out local CE at a CBS affil station. Seems the cheaper encoders from Tanberg offer no channel assignment and have a preset default of all 1080i configured channels are output on the -2 subchannel. Then the receiver will auto map (most receivers) to another mapped channel but on -1 by default. Not all stations use these cheaper (Tanberg) encoders. That's about all I know about this difference except that we have at least 2 stations using them here and I don't have any problem losing them. One is FOX and they don't do 1080i so their output is -1 and 480P /widescreen. The CBS using it is 1080i and it outputs on -2 but remaps to the mapped channel -1. So, I doubt the channel mapping is an issue but thought I'd mention it to keep in the back of your minds.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

DonLandis said:


> Another station difference is that the HDTV channel (1080i) could be transmitted on digital channel -2 with nothing on channel -1.


Interestinging that you should mention this. I used to lose all OTA stations except for WCBS-DT after a reboot. I now do not lose any channels after a reboot.

One of the channels, WLIW-DT channel 21 (RF 22), was broadcasting on -2 and -3 with nothing on -1. They have recently switched to -1 and -2.

I did not think the lack of a -1 on one station could cause 7 others to be deleted after a reboot but you never know.

And for the record, WLIW-DT is no longer recognized by my 921. I get plenty of signal but it is no longer will be added to the list. WLIW is fine on my HIPIX card.

http://www.wliw.org/


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## RobbinMerritt (Jan 29, 2003)

Occasionally I've lost multiple stations after reboot but generally just this one:

Houston, TX
Signal strength is 80-100. The level does vary more on this station than the others.

Station: FOX KRIV-DT

General Information

Network Name: FOX 
Local Station: KRIV-DT 
Regular TV Channel: 26 
Broadcast City: 
Local Station Site: http://www.fox26.com/
Cable Only Channel: No 
Designated Market Area Information
Phone: (713) 479-2600

DMA Name: Houston, TX 
DMA Ranking: 11 out of 210

DTV Information

Supports DTV: yes 
DTV Channel(s): 27 
DTV Formats Used: 
Tower Information*

Location: 
Transmission Power: 261 kw DA 
HAAT: 1752 
Mile Coverage: 
Latitude: 29 ° 34 ' 28 " 
Longitude: 95 ° 29 ' 37 " 
* Source: 100000 Watts


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Simon, you'd be surprised at what a phone call from Dish will do...I know of 7 stations off the top of my head that a phone call did wonders...


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Bogney-

I have said for quite some time now that these channel mappings, including guide data are voodoo magic, left to the discretion of the station. I would hope that the FCC can step in and dictate a standard for all stations to adhere. Unfortunately, they haven't and what we have and will continue to have is lots of differences and no required standard. Even my VOOM receiver has channel mappings and guide data that is totally inaccurate, out of date, and a result of the station not following what VOOM thinks it should be doing. Basically, the deregulation of the Broadcast standard has left the consumer a real mess, hodge podge and few consumers understand that. The CEA has to try to deal with it and to date, is not doing well.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

I don't believe that this has anything to do with the transmissions. If there is something odd about the transmission, then why is it that the channel is lost *only* when the machine is booted? Why aren't there any problems adding the channels back? The transmission doesn't look like the culpret.

It looks more like there is a linked list that either gets corrupted, or not all of it gets saved to a file. The problem could be as simple as doing a strategically placed fflush(FILE *) and/or an fclose(FILE *). It just looks like the frequency info isn't getting saved. That also explains why some people don't have any problems, and why sometimes channels get remapped to other stations. 

In the case of those that have no problems, they may well be managing to execute a code path that does an fflush() and fclose(). Those that aren't, the frequency element of the channel struct could easily be random data. The result is that sometimes the random data remaps to a different channel that is viewable. Or, in the case that a link was added to the list (assuming they are sorted by the user displayed channels), the frequency element is equal to the frequency element of the last channel that used that space on the disk. In the event of those that loose the data all together, the frequency could be initialized to 0. There is no channel zero, right? It could also be a number bigger than 69. It's convenient to make the channel frequency an unsigned 8-bit number, so there are lots of possibilities to cause this to happen.

Here is another possibility. When you do a scan-dtv, or add-dtv, you augment your linked list, or array of channels, and you do an fflush() and/or fclose depending on how paranoid you are, is the code solid enough in that it looks at the global "errno" in the event of an fclose to see if there were any error codes? Does it look at ferror(FILE *stream) to see that NULL is returned?

I don't have the code to look at, and I can only guess, but the observations suggest this isn't a transmission problem.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> dishbacker-
> I believe last winter many were forgetting to put a check in the dot next to the channel before saving it when doing manual scan. This was causing the channel not to complete the process of listing it in the memory. Yes, I agree, this appears to be a redundant step but none the less, it is a requirement to do the channel add correctly.


Don, are you sure this is true? I've never put a checkmark next to the channels before saving. My usual process is to scan for local digital OTA, delete the ones I don't care about, and hit Save.

If you have to mark each channel before saving, I wonder why my NBC and PAX stations are always still available after a reboot? I hope this is the solution I've been looking for!


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

kmcnamara said:


> Don, are you sure this is true? I've never put a checkmark next to the channels before saving. My usual process is to scan for local digital OTA, delete the ones I don't care about, and hit Save.
> 
> If you have to mark each channel before saving, I wonder why my NBC and PAX stations are always still available after a reboot? I hope this is the solution I've been looking for!


Oh, that could well be the other code path I was looking for!


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Kelley- Not only do I have screwey problems whjen I don't check that dot before saving a newly added channel but this was a solution too, I believe, 4 people who e-mailed me after reading what I had posted about it. 

Anyway, in support of what you do is the manual, page 43 paragraph 4 that says "it doesn't matter if the channel you wish to save is checked or not." Now having said that I believe the manual is incorrect as when I do not check the channels just added, I will lose them after a reboot too. I should do an experiment and see if a newly added channel will drop when not checked. The fact is that I have been following my procedure of dot checking and manual scanning since February and since rebooting as a GSOD is pretty much gone now, I just don't have these same problems. Maybe it's what sanders was referring to. Maybe this is why people are having different results. Maybe this is a clue that will steer Eldon in the right direction on this issue. Maybe this is just an old fashion shotgun approach to brainstorming. 

As for transmission isues, I'm inclined to agree but don't want to rule it out as until it is proven not the cause. 

One thing that has never been resolved with certain stations is the bug that prevents us from recording or using any DVR function on certain channels. That one seems to have been forgotten. But that is another topic too.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

Well, I scanned for digital, marked the channels, Saved and rebooted. Same result - I still have NBC/PAX and lost everything else. Bummer.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

kmcnamara said:


> Well, I scanned for digital, marked the channels, Saved and rebooted. Same result - I still have NBC/PAX and lost everything else. Bummer.


Did you try deleting the channels in the list before you did that sequence?


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Simon, you'd be surprised at what a phone call from Dish will do...I know of 7 stations off the top of my head that a phone call did wonders...


OK, so what do the stations change when E* gives them marching orders?

Why doesn't E* simply publish their requirements? They can't be secret.

Etc, etc.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Not that it is a good thing.... but..... I was having trouble with KBHK for months, there was something about their PSIP transmission that the 921 didn't like. They didn't have a PSIP generator for that station actually. After some months, and a few of us calling, they added the hardware, and I am good to go now. 

In all honesty, if there is a problem with signal reception like that, Eldon SHOULD fix it, not the station managers. KBHK worked fine on the 6000 and the 921 would scan it with a signal strength of 106 (units??), but it wouldn't add it until the station added hardware. I figured that it was easier to get the station to respond, than to get Eldon to respond. In all honesty, I don't think the 921 ever got a fix for that problem. I've had the 921 since January. You can draw your own conclusions from that.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

I went through and did a digital scan and then saved them all without deleting any (I typically delete the Spanish language and shopping channels, etc). 

What I've learned is that all of the channels I lose after a reboot are broadcasting below UHF channel 40. All the ones that are broadcasting above UHF channel 40 remain after the reboot. Can some of you who are losing channels check to see what channel numbers they broadcast on?

One other thing I noticed is that a couple of channels remap to a channel # 1-off from what they should be. For example, KXTX (Telemundo) broadcasts on UHF channel 40 and antennaweb shows that it should be mapping to 40.1 but it's mapping as 39.1. Also KSTR (Univision) broadcasts on UHF 48 and should map to 49.1 but shows it's mapped at 48. I don't know if this provides any further info for some of you guru's.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

kmcnamara said:


> I went through and did a digital scan and then saved them all without deleting any (I typically delete the Spanish language and shopping channels, etc).
> 
> What I've learned is that all of the channels I lose after a reboot are broadcasting below UHF channel 40. All the ones that are broadcasting above UHF channel 40 remain after the reboot. Can some of you who are losing channels check to see what channel numbers they broadcast on?


That is an interesting observation.... Maybe we could also ask people who have no problems with loosing channels after a reboot to see if they have any channels in their list that are below 40 for the transmitter frequency too. Any takers?


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## ctdish (Apr 9, 2004)

I live in the fringe between several markets and have to turn the antenna on almost all channel changes and have never lost an OTA channel so I don't think a rescan can do anything at rebooting. Also I have WPRI on 13 and WTNH on 10 so all is well below 40, highest channel is on Long Island on 57 and a bunch in between. John


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## pculley (Dec 23, 2003)

I'm also in Houston area and lose channels. I lose KRIV-DT ch27=>26.1 and KHWB-DT ch38=>39.1

I don't do a channel scan because I don't care to see the religious and spanish stations, so I always manually add. I don't check the "dot" before saving. So I don't know if I might lose some additional stations. The stations I currently try to maintain are:

KPRC-DT 35 =>2.1, 2.2, 2.3
KUHT-DT 9 =>8.1, 8.2
KHOU-DT 31=>11.1
KTRK-DT 32=>13.1, 13.2, 13.3
KTXH-DT 19=>19.1
KRIV-DT 27=>26.1
KHWB-DT 38=>39.1, 39.2, 39.3

All generally get good signal strength (now that I have my antenna mounted higher), although I sometimes seem to get some unexplained dropouts, most recently on ch19. The info on missing channels is below, but I wonder if they are both at fault; I suspect that some change or inconsistancy in a single station causes the ones later in the list to lose it. I seem to recall that in the past ch19 also gets lost, although that has not occurred this week.

KRIV-DT 27=>26.1
http://www.fox26.com/
Phone: (713) 479-2600

KHWB-DT 38=>39.1, 39.2, 39.3
http://khwbtv.trb.com/
Phone: 713-781-3939


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## seadog320 (Dec 16, 2003)

I just had my 921 installed yesterday (Bought it from Vanns, intalled by local Dish Network technician). Everything great so far, but did lose OTAs overnight due to auto reset feature of L185. I'm in the DFW area (zipcode 75075) and experienced the same symptoms as kmcnamara.


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## pbrown (May 23, 2002)

I have problems with KING-5 in Seattle, Digital 5.1, transmitting on UHF 48. I have to delete and re-add every day now.

BTW, for people interested, a good source of contact info for TV Stations is http://www.tvjobs.com under Station Index, do a Quick Search.

KING (NBC), Seattle, Washington (12)

Address 333 Dexter Avenue, North
Seattle, WA, 98109 
Owner Belo Corp. 
Business Phone # (206) 448-5555 
Business Fax # (206) 448-3936 
E-Mail Address [email protected] 
Web Address http://www.king5.com/


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

I tried the DonLandis procedure last night, I deleted all of the channels, re-scanned them, then checked each one and saved the whole block. Then, I decided to let the 921 do a natural reboot of itself overnight to see what happened in the morning.

Of the aforementioned channels I had problems with, the following were GONE this morning:

2.1 (56), 4.1 (57), 5.1 (29), 7.1 (24), 9.1 (30), 11.1 (12), 14.1 (51) (still there), 20.1 (19), 26.1 (27), 36.1 (52), 38.1 (39), 42.1 (still there), 43.1 (still there), 45.1 (45) (still there), 48.1 (49), 65.1 (41), 66.1 (41)

I don't see any correlation to channel frequencies, I loose 2.1, which is 56, and I loose channel 11, which is actually VHF (digital 12).

I'm back to the drawing board on this one.....


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

This bug seems to be isolated entirely to the reboot channel acquisition. Yesterday I did a digital scan and saved. I then left my 921 on for 24 hours and did not lose 1 channel. This tells me that if there's anything in the data stream causing problems, it's not a problem for the tuner itself - it's a problem with the way the system tries to re-acquire the signal when booting. 

Therefore, it would seem that the 2 problems conflict - I can't reboot without losing digital channels and I can't guarantee my timers will fire without rebooting. I guess I'll just have to leave the 921 on most of the time for general viewing and then manually reboot a couple of times a week (followed by re-scanning my channels) to try to make sure the timers work.


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## lapplegate (Jan 17, 2003)

I didn't have a problem with losing ota channels, but since 185 I've had 2 out of 3 recordings to be 0 min. The only thing that has changed is the upgrade. All are ota w/o buffer.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

lapplegate said:


> I didn't have a problem with losing ota channels, but since 185 I've had 2 out of 3 recordings to be 0 min. The only thing that has changed is the upgrade. All are ota w/o buffer.


This was supposed to fix the timers not fired problem. I guess they fired, they were just 'duds'. :lol:


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

As of 8:50pm pst, there are 9 people who have problems loosing channels after reboot, there are 18 people that don't have this problem. Let's do the math, 100% * (9/(9 + 18)) = 33% of the people have problems with loosing channels after the reboot.

Now, let's ask what this means..... It makes me wonder how many test machines the developers have running. Let's say, they have ten of them. This problem doesn't appear to be related to geographical area, since the signals easily re-acquire with a channel scan. Now, wouldn't that mean that three of those ten machines would show some sort of failures?? Okay, let's say that he engineers' machines don't have any failures. How many formal beta testers are there, in all different geographical locations? Mark has no problems, does that mean that none of the other beta testers have no problems? I'm sure that isn't true. From what I can ascertain, Mark spends an enormous amount of time doing regression testing, providing valulable data from the field. I'm sure the other beta testers do too.

So, where is the disconnect? If we have a 33% failure rate with the reboot loosing OTA channels, why was this released? Is there a problem analyzing the data? Was the question asked, "Will doing a nightly reboot have any side effects on some of the machines in the field?" I don't know what went wrong, but a post-mortum review on this release needs to be done. This is text-book project mangement.

If you read the tone of what I am sayng, I am NOT by any means trying to bash Dish or Eldon here, please be clear of that! Obviously, I'm upset because I have one of the units affected. However, what I have said is information that is absolutely as important as writing a bug report. It is something that needs to be fixed.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

jsanders: You have nailed the key issue. Fixing this one will almost certainly lead to a vast improvement in everything else we see.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_" ...Let's do the math, 100% * (9/(9 + 18)) = 33% of the people have problems with loosing channels after the reboot.

Now, let's ask what this means....."_

What I see in this poll is that we have a 33% of *respondents* having problems. What we don't know from such a small sampling is what percentage of the 921 users have this problem, nor is it valid to extrapolate from the small sampling of data presented.

However, I do agree that if even one in a thousand 921 users has a problem, it deserves attention enough to get it fixed. The real root cause of a problem with so few having it while others don't may just be an issue that is not a part of the actual software. Let's guess based on past computer experience possible causes of such a problem could be related to operator error, memory and other hardware related defects including a bad smart card, and not excluding signal issues either.

Never forget all, yes ALL, my problems I had with the 921 in the first week of June were caused by an incompetent CSR who really messed up my account, sending all sorts of "fix" signals to the 921 to correct the errors nearly fried my Smart card until one adv tech was able to reprogram my entire card from the bird. The tech who was able to correct it all, explained that moving the 921 to a primary was not done correctly and this caused the tiers to become unstable, resulting in problems with all the channels dropping out over a short period of time. OTA btw as I recall were the first to go and then my premiums and finally my base sub channels.

We also know that in other cases, improper download of a new software version has led to having parts of both versions resident and active. The E* techs have told us this is so and is why a complete power off reboot is necessary to insure a correct install of the new software so that the old code will be 100% replaced.


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> C'mon rlewis52 - you have to tell me more than that. The reason for the contact info is so that the Dish engineers here in Denver can contact the stations to find out what they are transmitting that the 921 is not liking. At least give me the call letters of the stations. And the stations have to at least have web sites.


Mark I am on vacation, I also live in Dallas and as the previous author, I loose all of the stations above except 4 & 5. Keep two and loose the other six every time. When I get back on Monday I will get you every thing you want. I wonder if other OTA recievers have the same issues in the Dallas Market? GIVE ME THE OPTION TO TURN OFF THE AUTO RE-BOOT, TOMMORROW WOULD NOT BE SOON ENOUGH. I will control when to re-boot to save timers. I am ususally not condensending to Dish but this is getting very frustrating. It is a 200 dollar plane ticket from Denver to Dallas. Have them get on a plane and test it themselves. I am sure any Dealer would loan them thier facility.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

sgt940 said:


> GIVE ME THE OPTION TO TURN OFF THE AUTO RE-BOOT, TOMMORROW WOULD NOT BE SOON ENOUGH. I will control when to re-boot to save timers.


My understanding is that you already have this option. Do not put the 921 in standby and it should not reboot. Put a previously recorded program in pause if you are concerned about unnecessary reading and writing to the hard drive.


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## onethree (Jul 4, 2004)

I live in Oklahoma City. I have had problems adding back my locals since L185.

KFOR 4 (27) is the only channel that remains after reboot.

KOCO 5 (7) ABC
KWTV 9 (39) CBS
OETA 13 (32) PBS
KOKH 25 (24) FOX
KOCB 34 (33) WB
KSBI 52 (51) IND
KOPX 63 (50) PAX
These channels are will not show picture after reboot. They remain in the browser guide and in the add dtv listing but will not show a picture until I rescan channels.

I have a problem getting KSBI 52 (51) to lock in on the 921. The signal meeter jumps from 0 to 53 to 100 back to 0. However my MIT. TV has no problem locking in and showing a great picture. I have called dish 3 times and have been promised two return calls with no response.

I also have problems using my pvr features on KFOR 4 (27) and KWTV 9 (39). No record, pause, etc.

Hope this can be helpfull.


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## dishbacker (Jun 15, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> dishbacker-
> I believe last winter many were forgetting to put a check in the dot next to the channel before saving it when doing manual scan. This was causing the channel not to complete the process of listing it in the memory. Yes, I agree, this appears to be a redundant step but none the less, it is a requirement to do the channel add correctly.


I can't believe putting a check next to a recently added station is required to save it, but it did fix the problem. I deleted the lost channel, did the manual scan for it, and then checked the resulting stations (-1 and -2) and did save. Bingo.



DonLandis said:


> Aside from manual vs. auto scan differences, I'll offer that my only channel I lost (months ago) and never bothered to re-add was a deep fringe weak signal channel. Otherwise my strong signal channels never disappear anymore since L149.
> 
> Another station difference is that the HDTV channel (1080i) could be transmitted on digital channel -2 with nothing on channel -1. I got this from out local CE at a CBS affil station. Seems the cheaper encoders from Tanberg offer no channel assignment and have a preset default of all 1080i configured channels are output on the -2 subchannel. Then the receiver will auto map (most receivers) to another mapped channel but on -1 by default. Not all stations use these cheaper (Tanberg) encoders. That's about all I know about this difference except that we have at least 2 stations using them here and I don't have any problem losing them. One is FOX and they don't do 1080i so their output is -1 and 480P /widescreen. The CBS using it is 1080i and it outputs on -2 but remaps to the mapped channel -1. So, I doubt the channel mapping is an issue but thought I'd mention it to keep in the back of your minds.


Yeah, I understand the differences on -1 and -2. Went up in the attic and did some adjusting with the antenna. Was able to fix my problem channel (WFAA - 8 in Dallas) and had to be careful about not overcorrecting for another channel (KDFW - 4 in Dallas). attennaweb.org listed them as 160 and 162 degrees from my house (most others are at 161). Amazing what a little tap on the off air antenna can do to increase the signal strength.

All channels survived the auto-reboot last night, so I'm happy. Any way I can remove my vote for loosing a channel?


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_"I can't believe putting a check next to a recently added station is required to save it, but it did fix the problem. I deleted the lost channel, did the manual scan for it, and then checked the resulting stations (-1 and -2) and did save. Bingo."_

Even more incredible is that the manual for the 921 says you don't have to but I found it necessary to resolve the difficulty. So much for RTFM!

Glad you got it fixed and as for your antenna in the attic... Oh my, what can I say. It can be the source for many zany signal problems. Here one day, gone the next will be the rule you will live by. But, the biggest problem is that so many people fail to accept the fact that an attic mounted VHF/UHF antenna is just an iffy proposition. What you tweaked today will not hold for tomorrow. When it rains the pattern will change and your signal directional lobes will shift. As the daily sun heats up the roof, the lobes will shift. Bet you didn't know that either.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> What I see in this poll is that we have a 33% of *respondents* having problems. What we don't know from such a small sampling is what percentage of the 921 users have this problem, nor is it valid to extrapolate from the small sampling of data presented.


I was thinking about that too when I posted it, and I have a bit more to say about it. First, what I said was not referring to 33% of -respondents-, it was 33% of respondents using OTA reception.

As far as the sampling size goes, yes, I agree that it is a small sampling size. I was watching it for a while, and I saw that the percentages didn't vary a lot with time. In fact, at 8:41pm pst (7/4/04), the proportion is 37.5% with 12 having problems and 20 not having problems. There isn't much difference. Samples can be biased, regardless of sample size, depending how the poll is taken. For instance, any election polls taken by a republican web site may well show the incumbant to be winning. However, a democratic newspaper might have a poll that shows something different. The polls are biased because they are predominently polling their own ranks. A poll like this have no biases. The sample size is small, and will have a larger margin of error than a larger sample, but it can still be used as an *indicator* that there is a significant number of people having these problems. Significant enough that more consideration should have been given to this issue before release. Extrapolation is not done by looking at a snapshot of one sample, it is done by looking at multiple snapshots over time to develop a trend.



DonLandis said:


> Never forget all, yes ALL, my problems I had with the 921 in the first week of June were caused by an incompetent CSR who really messed up my account, sending all sorts of "fix" signals to the 921 to correct the errors nearly fried my Smart card until one adv tech was able to reprogram my entire card from the bird. The tech who was able to correct it all, explained that moving the 921 to a primary was not done correctly and this caused the tiers to become unstable, resulting in problems with all the channels dropping out over a short period of time. OTA btw as I recall were the first to go and then my premiums and finally my base sub channels.


That was absolutely tragic to read about, I still don't understand why that makes a difference. If it really does work that way, then I think that is another bug that should be fixed! The software should be idiot CSR proof, right?? :lol:

The 921 is my only receiver, so I hope I never see that sort of problem!

Regarding the manual on how to save scanned or added channels vs. your method, I think one of two things need to happen. Either they make it work like what is outlined in the manual, or write the manual to be in harmony with your method. Unfortunately, neither way seems to be effective for me. :nono2:


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## JackS (Jul 5, 2004)

This is my first posting. I've had a 921 since mid January and the biggest problem I had from the beginning was losing OTA stations from day to day. (I also have virtually not recorded any OTA programs.) I was so happy recently because at least channel lock had been stable. Now, with release 185, I lose most of them every day. These are Boston stations. I lose channel 7, 25, 38, and 44 every night. Sometimes I also lose 4 and 5. Generally channel 2 is still there. I will try the tricks on the previous posts.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

Jack, if you leave the unit powered on, the unit won't reboot at night so that should allow you to keep your channels. Of course, the rebooting is a bandaid for a timer bug so you can have either timers working correctly or keep your OTA channels, but not both.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

kmcnamara said:


> Jack, if you leave the unit powered on, the unit won't reboot at night so that should allow you to keep your channels. Of course, the rebooting is a bandaid for a timer bug so you can have either timers working correctly or keep your OTA channels, but not both.


Well, sort of.... You won't have your timers fire if you lost your OTA channels. Almost sounds like a chicken and egg problem....


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

jsanders said:


> I tried the DonLandis procedure last night, I deleted all of the channels, re-scanned them, then checked each one and saved the whole block. Then, I decided to let the 921 do a natural reboot of itself overnight to see what happened in the morning.
> 
> Of the aforementioned channels I had problems with, the following were GONE this morning:
> 
> ...


Tried it as well, un-fortunately it did not work.


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

Bogney said:


> My understanding is that you already have this option. Do not put the 921 in standby and it should not reboot. Put a previously recorded program in pause if you are concerned about unnecessary reading and writing to the hard drive.


Left on for three days while out of town. Good news did not loose OTAs, bad news system was very sluggish and had to reboot and re-scan to get back to normal operation.


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## dishbacker (Jun 15, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> Glad you got it fixed and as for your antenna in the attic... Oh my, what can I say. It can be the source for many zany signal problems. Here one day, gone the next will be the rule you will live by. But, the biggest problem is that so many people fail to accept the fact that an attic mounted VHF/UHF antenna is just an iffy proposition. What you tweaked today will not hold for tomorrow. When it rains the pattern will change and your signal directional lobes will shift. As the daily sun heats up the roof, the lobes will shift. Bet you didn't know that either.


While I completely agree with you, the better half would not allow anything else on the outside of the house (besides my dish 500). Don't know that I could even talk her into a second dish to get the CBS-HD feed, especially since we can get it OTA.

3 days and no lost channels yet. Now, I haven't been able to get all of the OTA available in the Dallas area, but I can get all of the main networks and that is enough for now. Have to wait for some cooler weather to get back up there and maybe try a couple of different locations in the attic to see if I can get the missing channels.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

I wish that Dish would have added an option in L185 so that you could force the unit to do an automatic digital channel scan during every reboot. That would fix the problem for me entirely (in a bandaid sort of way).


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## deweybrunner (Feb 8, 2004)

Mark, I voted wrong when the question first came out.. Every morning I have lost my NBC station channel 8(7 digital). When I turned off the 921 at night it was on ESPN. When I add the station back(and always) have a strong signal(over 100). If I leave the 921 on It's not lost.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

deweybrunner said:


> Mark, I voted wrong when the question first came out.. Every morning I have lost my NBC station channel 8(7 digital). When I turned off the 921 at night it was on ESPN. When I add the station back(and always) have a strong signal(over 100). If I leave the 921 on It's not lost.


Can you tell us the station's call letters, the geographic location, and maybe a website for the station?


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## deweybrunner (Feb 8, 2004)

Jsanders, the station is channel 8, WFLA, Tampa, Fl. WFLA.com. My signal strength is well above 100. All other stations come in in the morning. If I leave the 921 on overnight I don't lose channel 8. Thanks.


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## evyst (Jul 5, 2004)

I have had my 921 up and running four days now, L185 is installed, but every day so far I have had to rescan WTVG Toledo 13, digital channel 19. The other 5 Toledo stations have been OK. Also have tried recording twice on this station, and even though "record " light has been on for prescribed time I get "0 second recording" message when I try to play it back. Recorded a half hour of ESPN and also Toledo channel 11,digital 17, both o.k. Channel 13 is in Toledo Ohio at [email protected] or 419-531-1313


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## fjerina (Dec 20, 2003)

Since I got the new L185 load I have to manually re-add my local FOX (27-01), WB (29-01), UPN (45-01) and CBS (16-01) everytime the 921 reboots which is EVERY DAY!!! Please Please Please Dish fix this problem!!! I am tired of having to re-add these channels EVERY DAY !!!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

fjerina - what are the station call letters for those stations, websites, and contact info?


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## DanB33 (Nov 17, 2003)

I have had my DVR 921 for about a week. 
Card Version: DNASP103 Rev300
Boot Version: 140B
Flash Version: F052
SW Version: L185HECD-N
I had not put the 921 in standby for a couple of days, as I didn't on my former 501.
When I did put it in Standby overnite, I did reboot, I believe. The display went from 1080i to 480p. I had not moved the PIP to do that Reboot Check. I did loose WOOD-DT ATSC Channel 7, mapped 008-01 WOOD-HD, 008-02 WXSP (local cable and lowpower UPN) and 008-03 RADAR (Local Radar with NWS Radio). I lost all three. I did prove that the Reboot removes them by doing a power button Reboot. I lost them the first day, but thought I didn't save them correctly.
Contact Info:Chief Engineer Mike Leamars.
Website: WWW.WOODTV.COM
Another related question. When I do a scan DTV, I listings for the ATSC channel, ie 007-01 and the remapped channels 008-01, 008-2 and 008-03. Only the Remapped channels have video. It is this way for all ATSC channels except one which didn't remap because of a PSIP Error. When they correct their PSIP, It worked like the others, video only on the remapped channel. Is this normal.
Grand Rapids has TV stations in four directions from me. I have to say the 921 got all the channels on a Scan DTV but two when the antenna was pointed at the greatest concentration of stations. My Samsung SIR-t165 took three positions to get the same stations. The two I cannot get are behind a bluff about a block away. The antenna hits it about 1/3 the way up. I do not get a clean analog signal from those two stations. There are severe ghosts from several buildings in downtown Grand Rapids.
I find the 921 an amazing unit.

James Daniel Bishop


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## fjerina (Dec 20, 2003)

Mark, here are info you requested for our local Albuquerque stations. Just to bring you up-to-date, with all the digital stations added I performed a forced reboot (holding in the green button) then after coming back up the stations below had to be readded manually. If there is any thing that can be done to fix the problem then that would be great. Right now my main interest is getting our local channel 13 to remain there after any reboots. The others are of less interest right now since they are not broadcasting in high-def. Thanks.

KASA FOX 2 (Digital 27-01)
Dudley Bullock
Chief Engineer
[email protected]

KRQE 13 (Digital 16-01)
Frank Lilley
Director of Engineering
[email protected]

KASY WB (Digital 29-01) and UPN (Digital 45-01) (Acme TV)
Anthony Liparoto
Chief Engineer
[email protected]


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> fjerina - what are the station call letters for those stations, websites, and contact info?


FOX Local- KASA - www.kasa.com - Marsha Pollaro - (505) 246-2222
NBC Local - KOB - www.kobtv.com - Sean R. Anker - (505) 243-4411
CBS Local - KRQE - www.krqe.com - Fred Woskoff - (800) 283-4227
WB Local - KWBQ - www.wb19tv.com - 505-797-1919
UPN Local - KASY - www.upn50tv.com - 505-797-1919

This is in response to your question to fjerina. I am also in Albuquerque. I also left you the contact info for the local NBC station because I haven't been able to receive it since L180 or so because of a low signal.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

DanB33 said:


> When I did put it in Standby overnite, I did reboot, I believe. The display went from 1080i to 480p.


That is very interesting..... I've noticed that mine switches to 480p from 1080i when I get a software update (I'm guessing they do that on purpose), but I haven't seen it happen on Standby. Does that happen consistently for you??


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## DanB33 (Nov 17, 2003)

jsanders said:


> That is very interesting..... I've noticed that mine switches to 480p from 1080i when I get a software update (I'm guessing they do that on purpose), but I haven't seen it happen on Standby. Does that happen consistently for you??


I have only noticed it once. It did not reboot last night. But I am up and watching TV until 4 AM. 
I just did a power button Reboot and the unit stayed at 1080i, so the 480p may have been my fault. But I did loose WOOD-DT.
When I manually re-add the channels, do I have to check all the channels before a save, or will just checking the added ones suffice?

Thanks for you help.

James Daniel Bishop


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

DanB33 said:


> I just did a power button Reboot and the unit stayed at 1080i, so the 480p may have been my fault. But I did loose WOOD-DT.
> When I manually re-add the channels, do I have to check all the channels before a save, or will just checking the added ones suffice?


DonLandis has helped a number of peple not loose their channels by making sure they click the check button on each channel that is added before a save is done. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them though....  It just shows how varied our experiences are. There must be something to it because a lot of people have been helped by it, so try it, it might work great for you!


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

It might be interesting to look at the geographic locations of our respondents...

Of the 18 having problems:
9 haven't listed a geographic location in the profile.
Albuquerque, NM
Grand Rapids, MI
Boston, MA
San Jose, CA
Allen, TX (Dallas)
Las Vegas, NV
oklahoma
Renton, WA
Plano, TX

Of the 27 NOT having problems:
Laurel, MD
Owasso OK
Colorado
San Francisco Bay Area
New York
Connecticut
Jacksonville, FL
Sunny New Mexico
Coral Springs, FL
Albuquerque, NM
Denver, CO
Beaumont, Texas
Lebanon, Indiana
New Jersey
Marietta, GA
Winchester, VA
Wichita Falls, TX
Long Island, NY
Cleveland, Ohio
Syracuse, NY
9 didn't disclose their location

I do see one person having problems in Albuquerque, and one not having problems in Albuquerque.

Also, One having problems in the SF Bay area (me), and one not having problems in the SF Bay area.

There are a few Texans having problems and a few Texans not having problems. I don't know if they are able to see the same stations or not though. We only asked for the stations of people having problems, not those w/o problems.


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

fjerina said:


> Since I got the new L185 load I have to manually re-add my local FOX (27-01), WB (29-01), UPN (45-01) and CBS (16-01) everytime the 921 reboots which is EVERY DAY!!! Please Please Please Dish fix this problem!!! I am tired of having to re-add these channels EVERY DAY !!!


This is not consistent with what I am seeing, Fred. (( Gosh, do any of us 921 owners expect consistancy at this point :lol: ))

I am not losing FOX (KASA 027-01) or CBS (KRQE 013-01) or UPN (KASY 045-01) they are all fine - every day.

I am losing WB (KWBQ 029-01) and sometimes PBS (KNME 005-01 and 005-02) The WB always needs to be added back, but PBS only needs to be added back on some days and not others. All the other OTA channels are fine.

NBC (KOB 026-01) has their xmitter at only 40% power for a few days, so I cannot check them properly now, but the signal is there.

.....G


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

guruka said:


> This is not consistent with what I am seeing, Fred. (( Gosh, do any of us 921 owners expect consistancy at this point :lol: ))


I think that might be a good thing in this case Guruka!

You and fjerina are both from Albuquerque.
fjerina is loosing "FOX (27-01), WB (29-01), UPN (45-01) and CBS (16-01)"

You are loosing "WB (KWBQ 029-01) and sometimes PBS (KNME 005-01 and 005-02), but FOX (KASA 027-01) or CBS (KRQE 013-01) or UPN (KASY 045-01) they are all fine."

So here is the question, "does this make it sound like the problem is based on geographic location, or just with the 921 rebooting?"


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

jsanders said:


> You and fjerina are both from Albuquerque.
> fjerina is loosing "FOX (27-01), WB (29-01), UPN (45-01) and CBS (16-01)"
> 
> You are loosing "WB (KWBQ 029-01) and sometimes PBS (KNME 005-01 and 005-02), but FOX (KASA 027-01) or CBS (KRQE 013-01) or UPN (KASY 045-01) they are all fine."


It would be interesting to see the results if you guys could swap units for a couple of days.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Bogney said:


> It would be interesting to see the results if you guys could swap units for a couple of days.


That is the cool thing about this board, sometimes people see things from angles that you will never even think of! Okay Albuquerque users, want to try it?? :lol:

So, if I understand correctly, you have found the solution to our problems! Our 921s are all location dependant. There are east coast models, west coast models, mountain models, southern models, and a few of those canadian models that are sort in the closet! So, the 921s that don't have any problems at all are in their proper homes. Those that do have problems are not in their right geographic location! Mine doesn't work in California, but it might work just fine in Anchorage. I should either move there (which I've long considered), or just swap with someone in Anchorage! We need to put our 921s up for adoption so they can find themselves! !rolling

Seriously though, it isn't a bad idea Bogney.... You never know what will happen using the 921.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

DanB33-

I only "check" the most recent channel added before saving and exiting. 

jsanders-
Nice analytical thought process you are doing. Some other things to also consider besides geographical location and station differences-
Let's try to break down what may be happening that causes a 921 to lose channels or just some of them after a reboot. First let's ask what happens during the add and save channel operations. I will suggest the add and save channels happens two separate ways. One is where the add function puts the channel to your list in a volatile memory only, and a second procedure adds it to volatile memory and also to non-volatile memory (hard disk). The software is running from a booted program in RAM (Volatile). When you save and exit it should add it to a data base on the hard drive so next time the 921 boots it loads that (complete) database as last saved in the hard drive file to operate from. I suspect that the reason many are having trouble not seeing the channels they have added after a reboot is that those channels were not really saved to the hard drive and only existed temporarily in the RAM volatile database. The hard drive database is either empty (no channels after reboot) or it has some channels but not those recently added to the list. (meaning at some point in time they were able to add some channels to the database file on their hard drive). If this is what is happening, we need to investigate what one needs to do to be sure the list as seen before rebooting is saved to the hard drive and reappears after a reboot.
There is very little we have control of in the 921 software. Two things that we can do are:
1. Add the check to the dot in the save channel added before exiting. The manual says this is not necessary but I, personally, found it is for it to work for me. We have the option so I suggest we do it.
2. The second thing we can do is re-enter the manual scan and check that same channel again and save to exit more than just once before we reboot! Do it a couple of times. By comparison to PC's this would be akin to saving multiple times before exiting the software to be absolutely sure you have your latest file data saved to the hard drive.

I believe these are our only two options to make sure we have added the channel to a non-volatile memory on the hard drive that will load after a reboot. Tell me if I missed something else.


There could be other issues that based on my discussion with one of the development engineers tells me that a possibility exists with having more than one database file crosslinked on the hard drive. The developers who can look at the file structure on the hard drive will need to determine if an affected 921 with loss of added OTA channels has such a multiple and crosslinked file structure. I don't know of anyway we can tell if this is the case.


For those who want to get serious with some hard core testing/experimenting. Try some of my suggestions above. 
Follow this suggested procedure-
1. Use just one of the channels you have been experiencing trouble with keeping after a reboot. 
2. Begin by power plugging your 921.
3. Add the missing channel with a check in the dot.
4. verify you have the channel by tuning it from the remote numbers and from the guide.
5. Return to the manual add menu and verify it is still there.
6. Power button the 921 to standby
7. Unplug the 921 for 3 or more minutes.
8. Plug it back in and wait until it cycles through the 5 minutes boot process and then check to see if the channel is still there.

If not there, repeat the above beginning at step 3. Then repeat the process steps 3,4 and 5. 5 times. I arbitrarily selected 5 repeats hoping that this many times one of them will work to save the database with that channel added to the hard drive. 
Now, after the 5th time, do steps 6,7 and 8. 

If it is there, proceed to add the second problem channel following the same procedure you did that worked with the first successfully defined process. 


Investigative science like this is a slow tedious process because you are working with one change at a time to isolate the root coause or in this case the specific procedure that consistently works for you. It is quite possible that nothing works. But if you follow a disciplined procedure, you can safely eliminate this as the source of your problems. And, keep in mind, that even this procedure is quite limited to draw conclusions because we really do not have any analytical tools to see what's really going on on the hard drive file structure. WE can only guess and use statistical probability that multiple saving attempts will result in at least one becoming effective. If your downloaded software is corrupt then you may just not be able to save a database to the hard drive no matter how many times you try. If that is the case, then waiting until the next version may be the only recourse other than getting a new 921.


Suggestion-
I believe that Eldon should build into their OS a way for the user to force a NEW download of the current software in case there is suspect that the current download was corrupted somehow. 

Let's see if this helps some of you to get a constantly lost channel saved for rebooting.

I wonder if the 921's OS allows for an automatic scan disk, check for x-linked files and correct them like windows does when it gets a surprise shutdown. I would bet it doesn't. What sort of self reparing of the file structure does exist now on the 921 OS? Mark can you try to find out?


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> I suspect that the reason many are having trouble not seeing the channels they have added after a reboot is that those channels were not really saved to the hard drive and only existed temporarily in the RAM volatile database. The hard drive database is either empty (no channels after reboot) or it has some channels but not those recently added to the list. (meaning at some point in time they were able to add some channels to the database file on their hard drive).


Don, in my case, the 921 knows which channels it should have after the reboot - so it's at least saving the channel numbers themselves. It's just that when I try to tune to them following the reboot, it says "Channel not found" or something like that. It seems to me that the problem is that during the reboot, it's not able to re-acquire the channels it knows it should re-acquire (e.g. All the OTA channels still appear in the guide and in the channel order but the problematic ones will not tune).


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

That was quite a mouthful DonLandis, and very much worth a try. 

Here is a question for you... I can't remember if you ever experienced this problem personally or not.

Here is the scenario: You scan the channels (save them), then watch them, then reboot. Now, you see the message on the black screen, "Channel xx.x not found". The channel was lost, so you re-scan, save again, and then you can view the channel then.

If nothing at all was saved, then would you see the message, "Channel xx.x not found."? How would it know anything about Channel xx.x? When you first take your 921 out of the box, and you try to switch to channel xx.x, what happens? It doesn't say "Channel xx.x not found." That is because "Channel xx.x" is not in the database. What it does is switch to the nearest channel that it knows about. It will probably switch to channel 101.

The fact that it says, "Channel xx.x not found." tells you that at least the information about what the channel mapped to WAS saved to disk. You try to change the channel to xx.x, it then looks up in the database what DT frequency that channel is on, and then it runs into a problem. The frequency information is wrong. 

Here is a test for you to try yourself:

Tune to an OTA station, view the channel.
Now, tune to a satellite station, view that channel.
Disconnect the OTA antenna.
Re-tune to that same OTA station.
You get the message "Channel x-x Not Found. Please wait, or Channel Up/Down"
Now, tune back to the satellite channel
Re-connect the OTA antenna
Tune back to that same OTA station
Voila! The picture comes back!

Here is what is happening: You type in channel x-x with your remote. The 921 looks at channel x-x as an index into it's database to find out what digital frequency that channel is mapped to. It tunes to that frequency. When it can't find a signal on that frequency, you get the "Channel x-x Not Found" message.

Here is what is happening. The channel is saved in the database. You type that channel, the 921 does a lookup to see what that channel maps to. But, in this case, the digital transmission frequency is WRONG! Let's say that channel 7.1 maps to digital 24. Unfortunately, the corrupted database says it maps to channel 0, or channel 255, or channel 69. The 921 tries to tune to channel 0, or 255, or 69 and gets static. Then it shows the "Channel 7-1 Not Found" message.

Here is another twist to it. People have said that some channels get re-mapped to others. Channel 5.1 mapped to the frequency of channel 9.1 for me. Others have tuned to CBS to find they got FOX. This is the same problem! The frequency info on the datbase is corrupted.

Information in the 921 database IS getting saved! The problem is that the frequency information is either not saved, or gets corrupted, or gets written over by another channel.

This is so obvious of a problem that anyone that has taken a simple class in data structures and linked lists and arrays could solve it. It is not that hard! The Eldon people have probably already solved it and just haven't told us that we can stop now.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Hey Mark - have we given enough information for those guys to isolate the problem? I know your not allowed to tell us if they have solved it or not, but it seems that you might be able to get permission from them to tell us whether we have beaten this one to death enough and can move onto the next subject or not...


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Excellent, Excellent Excellent!

The first question is Yes, I have seen the Channel not found but I believe the last time I saw that was with L180. Since then all my channels have been steady and never lost.(unless I did something to cause it) But back then, your point is well taken, something had to be recorded to the hard drive for it to know that a specific channel was once listed but now can't be found. I understand what you later suggest that the database was recorded but when it became corrupted, it may be the remapping part that has become lost or changed. Makes sense.

_"Tune to an OTA station, view the channel.
Now, tune to a satellite station, view that channel.
Disconnect the OTA antenna.
Re-tune to that same OTA station.
You get the message "Channel x-x Not Found. Please wait, or Channel Up/Down"
Now, tune back to the satellite channel
Re-connect the OTA antenna
Tune back to that same OTA station
Voila! The picture comes back!"_

Well, not an experiment but I recently had this happen as I had disconnected the 921's OTA feed to connect to the DTC-100 for something else I was doing and forgot to reconnect it. Yes, all the channels returned as I would expect. In addition, I had gone 2 days with the OTA antenna disconnected from the 921 and during that time my Lamp timer had rebooted the 921 twice. Help me understand what you wanted me to see with this?

I agree with your analysis of the database being recorded but maybe not properly. This may be the crosslinked files I was talking about, or, just parts of the database becoming corrupted. Again, only those with hard drive diagnostics or software to open up a display of the actual databases themselves will be able to get into the file structures and see what is becoming so messed up on some 921's while others, like mine and the people who aren't having any problems have "perfect" recorded databases.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

jsanders said:


> Hey Mark - have we given enough information for those guys to isolate the problem? I know your not allowed to tell us if they have solved it or not, but it seems that you might be able to get permission from them to tell us whether we have beaten this one to death enough and can move onto the next subject or not...


(Sitting here muttering under my breath very much, so that I don't say what I really would like to say about all of this...and the muttering has nothing to do with you guys - your process here sounds strikingly familiar to what I was doing a couple of months ago...)

Yup.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

I have previously mentioned that I used to lose OTA channels all the time. Now they are there all the time. 

One thing that has changed is channel 40 in New York City. In the past, the 921 would see plenty of signal strength but would not add it to the list. Channel 40 apparently changed something in their PSIP since it is now on the list and watchable. 

Could the lack of proper PSIP of one station cause this problem? I obviously do not know, but if so it could explain the apparent geographic nature of this problem.

When your 921 does a scan and says it has found X amount of channels, can you account for all those channels in the list?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> Well, not an experiment but I recently had this happen as I had disconnected the 921's OTA feed to connect to the DTC-100 for something else I was doing and forgot to reconnect it. Yes, all the channels returned as I would expect. In addition, I had gone 2 days with the OTA antenna disconnected from the 921 and during that time my Lamp timer had rebooted the 921 twice. Help me understand what you wanted me to see with this?


Sorry if I wasn't good at explaining why that is important. Here is the point: When you watch an OTA channel, then disconnect the antenna, and get that message, you are setting a baseline. The database is not corrupted at this point. You know that you are looking at the right frequency, but the signal isn't there. This tells you the behavior of the 921 when it finds static on a given frequency.

Now, when you loose your OTA channels, you see the message, "Channel not found". You understand that now to mean that the 921 sees static on that frequency. You re-scan the channels, and you see the picture again. That means that the signal was indeed there this time, but when you got the "Channel not found" message, the 921 was just seeing static.

If the 921 was seeing static, and the signal was indeed there, then the 921 was trying to look at a different signal! That means the database was telling it to look at the wrong frequency when it tried to look into the database and see what frequency the channel was mapped to.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> (Sitting here muttering under my breath very much, so that I don't say what I really would like to say about all of this...and the muttering has nothing to do with you guys - your process here sounds strikingly familiar to what I was doing a couple of months ago...)


Wow. That is a long time ago Mark! This ain't that hard to figure out, or at least it doesn't appear to be! I love trying to debug these kinds of problems, because on some machines they are so easy to reproduce, they are determinisitic, and you don't have to wait 10 hours for them to happen. It happens every time I reboot.

The second reason is that it is so easy to put colored dye into the database. Here is how I might debug this. There are 69 digital channels, and the smallest element they would probably choose is an unsigned char, which gives you a range from 0-255. 70-255 are not used. 0 is also not used, unless they have some weird special case for the aux channel.

Anyway, I would initialize the database frequency to, say, '71'. That way, if I ever go in to look in the corrupted database, and I see a frequency of '71', I would know that most likely the data was initialized, but, nothing ever got saved afterward. Then, any state following, I would increment through this number. Put in '72' for the next state, '73' for the state after that, etc.. If I get a number between 2 and 69, then I know that it at least tried to write it in. If I got something above 70, then the number would tell me what state I got to. Just doing this as a first pass would narrow things. It doesn't sound like a months ago type of thing. On the surface, it looks like an afternoon to fix.

Anything you might want to add SimpleSimon (without compromising your trade of course)?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I have more to say about this, but won't be able to until next week...


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## DVDDAD (Dec 21, 2002)

Mark,

I lost all my digital OTA channels a few months ago and haven't been able to get them back since. When they didn't show up in my favorites list, just after a reboot after receiving L180 (I believe that was the update that did it, but I could be wrong), I deleted the channels and could not add them back in either by scanning or manually. At the time Dish (and you too) had suggested that it was my antenna and not my 921. I never have received any analog stations off my antenna, so I have nothing to hook up and check the antenna, except my 921. Plus, the timing of my antenna breaking down was just too coincidental, so I suspect it's my 921.

After the latest software version was released I decided enough was enough and asked Dish to send me another 921. They did offer this to me originally, but I decided to wait for a software fix. Now when I called I was told that losing all stations and not being able to get them back was a known software issue. I was told that I should wait for a software fix. Can you tell me if this is in deed the case? I was also told that Dish is not returning any 921's due to any OTA issues. Have you heard of this policy? Please tell me what you can under your NDA. I don't want to wait another month or two to find out it was in deed my antenna. Thank you.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

DVDDAD said:


> At the time Dish (and you too) had suggested that it was my antenna and not my 921. I never have received any analog stations off my antenna, so I have nothing to hook up and check the antenna, except my 921.


If you are interested, I could bring my 921 to your location to see if it is your antenna or 921 at fault.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Adam, it might be software, and ties very much into what I can't say until next week. Suffice to say it _most likely_ won't take another month or two to find out...

And, as for that policy - that's the first I've heard of it.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

jsanders said:


> Wow. That is a long time ago Mark! This ain't that hard to figure out, or at least it doesn't appear to be! I love trying to debug these kinds of problems, because on some machines they are so easy to reproduce, they are determinisitic, and you don't have to wait 10 hours for them to happen. It happens every time I reboot.
> 
> The second reason is that it is so easy to put colored dye into the database. Here is how I might debug this. There are 69 digital channels, and the smallest element they would probably choose is an unsigned char, which gives you a range from 0-255. 70-255 are not used. 0 is also not used, unless they have some weird special case for the aux channel.
> 
> ...


You describe one common technique of helping to ensure database integrity.

There are many, and often more than one is used. It used to be a real pain to implement, but now with object-oriented (or even simple modular) programming, it's trivial, and there's no excuse to not do it. This box has more than enough CPU & RAM to support such methods.

Heck, 25 years ago, just about within sight of where E* is, at a little place called United Airlines, the reservations system (then named Apollo) had *100%* database integrity, and supported tens of thousands of terminals with less than one-tenth the machine resources the 921 has. So again I assert, there's no excuse to not do it.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Mark, Are we supposed to read between the lines about this next week hint?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Don, I'll talk more about it next week, if I can. it would be very premature to say anything else at this point...


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Don, I'll talk more about it next week, if I can. it would be very premature to say anything else at this point...


Sounds like it is time to go scuba diving, or fly an R/C helicopter, or something that gets us outside to enjoy life and forget about the 921 for a while. :bang


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## angiodan (Sep 2, 2002)

I don't lose any channels on a reboot, I just can't ever tune them in. One day no problem, 90% of the time 'channel not found'


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

Well I fooled with my terk 44 clip on antenna and reaimed it and I am getting all the analog and all the digital in my area. Strength of my ABC station was the weakest and now am getting a 88-90 range . MY Cbs station is in the 90 -93 range and my Nbc station is in the 78-80 range. We don't have a digital Fox station yet . The result is I am getting strong picture and no pixelation or drop outs or freezes . The 921 is recording my ota channels just fine I am proud to report. I can actually rely on it to record most of my favorite shows. I just wish this receiver had 2 ota tuners like the hd tivo. I could really use them. I am also glad I am getting Dish locals as well for conflicts.

Not bragging just happy and I am sorry for those who can't get them. I am sure it is frustrating as hell.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

angiodan said:


> I don't lose any channels on a reboot, I just can't ever tune them in. One day no problem, 90% of the time 'channel not found'


If you get the "Channel not found" message, that is the symptom that we all have when we loose our channels after reboot. Have you tried re-scanning your channels when you get that message, or adding them manually with the "Add DTV" when you get that message?

This is the same as asking, if a tree falls, and nobody is there to hear it, did it fall? If you are getting that message, "Channel not found", and you don't re-scan your channels, then there is no way to know whether you lost them or not.....


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mike D-CO5 said:


> I just wish this receiver had 2 ota tuners like the hd tivo. I could really use them. I am also glad I am getting Dish locals as well for conflicts.


I've gotten around the two OTA tuners bit a little bit by getting the CBS-HD channel. The network stuff is all the same. I can record CSI on CBS-HD (satellite), and then watch or record something else OTA. That one channel removes a ton of conflict for me. Hopefully we will get network feeds of the network stations in HD someday, I could care less if they are local or not because I get all of the HD locals OTA. That should take care of the problem.


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## DVDDAD (Dec 21, 2002)

Bogney said:


> If you are interested, I could bring my 921 to your location to see if it is your antenna or 921 at fault.


Bogney, You'd do that for me? What a guy! I'm in Huntington. I could also bring my 921 to you to see if it's my 921. Whatever you'd prefer. Let's wait until next week when Mark may be able to say more. I'll be in touch. Thank you.


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## DVDDAD (Dec 21, 2002)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Adam, it might be software, and ties very much into what I can't say until next week. Suffice to say it _most likely_ won't take another month or two to find out...


Thanks, Mark. I'll be a little more patient.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

SimpleSimon said:


> Heck, 25 years ago, just about within sight of where E* is, at a little place called United Airlines, the reservations system (then named Apollo) had *100%* database integrity, and supported tens of thousands of terminals with less than one-tenth the machine resources the 921 has. So again I assert, there's no excuse to not do it.


Come on now! You can't compare UAL to E* like that!  UAL is a hugely complicated database with a large, variable number of i/o terminals! They had to worry about the race condition scenario of what happens when two people tried to reserve a seat at the same time! This is so simple it almost doesn't even register on the "radar" so to speak! You're right. They had 1/10th the horsepower, and 25,000 times the job to do. They didn't have the debugging tools we have either. It wasn't as bad as punch cards at that time, but i'm sure they were stuck to dumb terminals and probably fortran or cobol. Maybe some teletypes were in there too.


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## RobbinMerritt (Jan 29, 2003)

Bit of a change for me this week, my channel 11 (DT 31) is being lost instead of 26 (DT 27).


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

jsanders said:


> Come on now! You can't compare UAL to E* like that!  UAL is a hugely complicated database with a large, variable number of i/o terminals! They had to worry about the race condition scenario of what happens when two people tried to reserve a seat at the same time! This is so simple it almost doesn't even register on the "radar" so to speak! You're right. They had 1/10th the horsepower, and 25,000 times the job to do. They didn't have the debugging tools we have either. It wasn't as bad as punch cards at that time, but i'm sure they were stuck to dumb terminals and probably fortran or cobol. Maybe some teletypes were in there too.


Two People! :jump3: !rolling FORTRAN? COBOL? :jump3: !rolling

Try mostly pure assembler language. Some of the newer stuff was written in structured assembler - somewhat similar to what "C" is now. Most of the application code was written to run attached to the "kernel" because we couldn't afford the state switch to protected mode. Ya kinda had to have code reviews and mebbe a little testing before releasing a change. 

All dumb terminals - including TTY-level devices. Hundreds of applications, thousands of terminals, millions of database records.

How? Because UAL hired programmers. Real ones. People that actually understood computers. Minimum 10 years experience each. If you couldn't read object code and disassemble it in your head, on the fly, you didn't stand much chance of getting in.

Funny thing is, adjusted for time & inflation and all that, today's "programmers" make around the same amount of money for a LOT less skill, and a lot of us old farts are put out to pasture - until they need something that actually works.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

I have only had my 921 for a day, but I'd have to say the OTA tuner is bizarre. I cannot get KCOP (ch 66 sb 13.1) in LA at all. I tried to add it manually, and found the station has plenty of signal strength.... but it won't add. Now, I think that KCOP is odd because my Mits box would tune it in ok as 66-1, but couldn't remap it as 13.1. It also didn't know the call letters. 

When I scanned the first time, I only found a few stations. When I went to view the stations that were added by the scan, most returned "Not Found". I rescanned and got better results. But, stations seem to disappear. ABC ch 53 (7.1,2,3) was coming in fine, I turned the box off for about 15 minutes and ... no ABC, no KCET, no KLCS, etc. Also, Ch 50 was coming in on the channel labelled 5-1.

I'm somewhat surprised by this. Digital OTA tuners have been around for a while now. My 3 year old Mits box grabs everything on a single scan, labels it properly (with the exception of the UPN station (KCOP 66/13). Also, accoriding to the Mits box, I'm getting nearly max signals on every channel. My OTA antenna has a straight shot down the valley towards Mt Wilson, and I'm not more than a few miles from the antenna farms.

Some of my problems may be due to my lack of experience with the 921, but when I set up the Mits box, I didn't have any experience with it either.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Simon-

You bring back memories-
My first introduction to computers was open house at AirForce Security on the Univac. I was just a kid. My Dad was a board jumper programmer. He wired jumpers on circuit boards to program. Predates machine language, I think. Much later I learned Fortran on the Dartmouth Computer via a terminal using punch tape. I was a Chem Engineering major so that was my limit until I got my first RatShack Model 1 and suffered through learning Rat Shack assembly langauge, Basic, and finally, what seemed like many years later- SQL where I wrote a complete software system for a small chemical mfg. operation, accounting, inventory control, Raw materials requisition, formulation, and batch making. 3 months of programming and debugging it ran bug free. That ran on a IBM PS2 PC, circa 1985. Today, I'm challenged to do lookups in excel spreadsheet. It isn't that today's programmers aren't competant, I believe they are just asked to do more with factors they have no control over. Back when I did that massive chemical programming job I can honestly say, everything I did was under my control and therefore when I corrected all my math mistakes, it just worked. Today, the 921 is asked to control stuff like TV signals that are not only unregulated (no two ATSC stations do it alike), but also suffer atmospheric (read weather) changes. I don't believe it is fair to say these 921 programmers are incompetant. Just because I could write a complete chemical manufacturing software package debugged to bug free in 3 months, doesn't mean any of us as a team effort could write software to control, bug free, a system like is what is demanded of the 921 which has to function under the whims of so many uncontrollables. Remember your engineering 101- First you need to accurately define your problem before can postulate any solution. If you quickly pass off the problems in the 921 as something you could easily fix, then maybe you really don't understand what all the issues are, especially those issues that are inconcistent or uncontrollable by you.
I've had two major carreers, Chemical Engineering and now Broadcasting. I have found in both that those who felt something was easy to do were those who weren't responsible to come up with the solution. If they were given an opportunity to show their stuff, they too soon became as "incompetant" (as defined by the challenger) as the rest of the team that had been working on the project.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

Looks like this is becoming the the home for over the hill programmers. I've been in the Electronics business since 65, and took over a major computer center in 77 when I was the senior bureaucrat with nothing better to do. It's been my experience that when software projects go awry, it isn't the programmers, per se, but bad management. Turf wars often contribute to these problems. 

From what I've read, the 921 has suffered from a free floating baseline with rapidly changing requirements. My own experience tells me that this is usually a recipe for disaster. Other management failures come from being sold a bill of goods by programmers who want to re-invent the wheel. Case in point is this thread.... OTA tuners have been around for years. It appears to me that somebody convinced management that they could "do it better" than any of the systems currently on the market. 

It is a well known fact that engineers stand on each others shouldersl but programmers stand on each others feet.

As to the crowd who claims that this failure seems to be unique to E*, I can recall really big time (<$100M) failures by BofA, State of CA, NASA, etc. How about JPL putting a Mars probe into the dirt by failing to know that one team was working in meters, the other in feet.

Nuff said. Damage has been done. Time for Charlie to create a tiger team (if he hasn't already) to get the 921 problems put to bed.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Don: I did NOT call the Eldon guys incompetent - at least not by today's standards.

I agree with you that OTA is complex due to the broadcasters being all over the map - so to speak.  However, that does NOT excuse the many usability issues, and non-OTA bugs that exist in the 921. I do NOT use OTA at all, and have many beefs with the 921.

BTW, I programmed a couple of IBM 407 boards in my time. 

rbyers: Yes, management certainly plays a huge part in the 921's tale of woe, as does scope creep, etc., but there ARE certain things visible that ARE simple programming & technical design errors.

Yes, E* needs to 'reboot' the 921's development team. Will he? I doubt it.


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

SimpleSimon said:


> Don: I did NOT call the Eldon guys incompetent - at least not by today's standards.
> 
> I agree with you that OTA is complex due to the broadcasters being all over the map - so to speak.  However, that does NOT excuse the many usability issues, and non-OTA bugs that exist in the 921. I do NOT use OTA at all, and have many beefs with the 921.
> 
> ...


Every TV manufacture has figured out how to in-corporate a HD OTA tunner into thier sets that works with all stations every where, it also appears TIVO has one that works across the board as well and yes even Dish knows how as evidence of the 6000 and 811. That only leaves the software or software-Hardware interface of the 921 as the culprit. But hey let's blame the stations.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

The only issue you can blame the stations for is the program guide data. There is no standard required by any agency that can inforce it. It is all voluntary and this is why the stations often have such inaccuracy.


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## Topanga (Aug 11, 2002)

After the overnight reboot I'm missing KCBS-60, KNBC-36, KTLA-31 and I can't program KCOP-66 even though it shows 100+ signal strength. I never lose all the stations every night usually one or two. When I do a scan it maps quite a few stations that don't exist along with missing a few. I hope they come up with a fix soon.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

Topanga said:


> After the overnight reboot I'm missing KCBS-60, KNBC-36, KTLA-31 and I can't program KCOP-66 even though it shows 100+ signal strength. I never lose all the stations every night usually one or two. When I do a scan it maps quite a few stations that don't exist along with missing a few. I hope they come up with a fix soon.


I'm also in SoCal, not far from Mt Wilson, and the stations that I have problems with are KOCE-50, KLCS-58, and KCOP-66. I've reported the KCOP problem as a bug because It wound add at all, and because I know that the station has a wacky signal.


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## SpenceJT (Dec 27, 2002)

You need to add another voting option.

"what OTA channels, my 921 can't get a lock on anything" (it wasn't a problem with the old 6000 and 95% okay on my 811). :grin:


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## jamullian (May 7, 2004)

I lose KPBS-15 (ch 30) (both -1 HD and -2 DT) [The channels stay in the Guide, but can not be found if requested]. Doing a manual Add DTV restores it.


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## Redster (Jan 14, 2004)

Never really noticed this because I rarely watch the channel. But it seems I am losing my local OTA channel 4 on reboots, I have to rescan to get it back. WTTV / WB4 in Indy. Channel # 04-01 . Phone number for programming department is (317) 715-2761


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## THX1138 (Jun 23, 2004)

Mark,
When I originally saw this thread I was not having any problems. However, now I have to add KAUZ-DT 22, and KFDX-DT 28 manually every day. The automatic reboot apparently causes them to be dropped every time.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

lujan said:


> FOX Local- KASA - www.kasa.com - Marsha Pollaro - (505) 246-2222
> NBC Local - KOB - www.kobtv.com - Sean R. Anker - (505) 243-4411
> CBS Local - KRQE - www.krqe.com - Fred Woskoff - (800) 283-4227
> WB Local - KWBQ - www.wb19tv.com - 505-797-1919
> ...


Even after the latest software upgrade (L186), I am still unable to get a lock on the local NBC station (KOB)? I have left the contact information before, has anyone from Dish checked on this? I was able to receive them before L180. The channel is DT 26 remapped to channel 4.1. I have contacted the local station myself and they say it is something with the 921 and that they broadcast static PSIP data. Please respond with any suggestions. Is this still a yet to be released software that will correct?


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

Yeah, I can't get a lock on KOB up here in Espanola either, Fred. So I emailed Sean Anker (KOB Chief Engineer) and here's his reply:



> Guruka - I was just up on the mountain this morning, and we're reduced in power about 40% right now. We should have that back up sometime next week.
> 
> Overall, we are only at about 1/4 of our final power, so we will indeed have
> a less powerful signal into Espanola. We actually need to build a new tower
> ...


-----------------------------------------


This message was last week so, "next week" means this week. Sean is really excited about setting up their newly purchased HD equipment and about carrying the NBC feed of the Olympics in HD.

.....G


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

guruka said:


> Yeah, I can't get a lock on KOB up here in Espanola either, Fred. So I emailed Sean Anker (KOB Chief Engineer) and here's his reply:
> 
> -----------------------------------------
> 
> ...


I'm only 12 miles from the transmitter here in Albuquerque so KOB should come in clear I beleive? I was getting the signal great prior to L180.


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

> I'm only 12 miles from the transmitter here in Albuquerque so KOB should come in clear I beleive? I was getting the signal great prior to L180.


I don't think it has anything to do with the 921 or the 921 software version.

KOB is now back on the air this afternoon on low power - I'm getting a steady 45 on the 921 signal strength meter. I think Sean may have installed his HD equipment this weekend and is bringing the xmitter signal back up slowly. Hopefully we'll see KOB in HD next week.

.....G


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

guruka said:


> I don't think it has anything to do with the 921 or the 921 software version.
> 
> KOB is now back on the air this afternoon on low power - I'm getting a steady 45 on the 921 signal strength meter. I think Sean may have installed his HD equipment this weekend and is bringing the xmitter signal back up slowly. Hopefully we'll see KOB in HD next week.
> 
> .....G


I don't get anything on the signal strength meter for KOB?


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

KOB read a steady 60 on the signal strentgh meter this morning and allowed me to lock and save the station. PSIP reads KOB station ID correctly.

Today they are still at low power and still broadcasting 480i DT.

.....G


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

guruka said:


> KOB read a steady 60 on the signal strentgh meter this morning and allowed me to lock and save the station. PSIP reads KOB station ID correctly.
> 
> Today they are still at low power and still broadcasting 480i DT.
> 
> .....G


I wish we would get some kind of response from Mark because I don't know whether to call Dish support or assume that it is a misaligned antenna? The last time I spoke to my local retailer where I purchased the 921, he said that he's almost sure it's not the antenna because all of the OTA DT stations are at either 5 or 6 degrees in antanna elevation, so it should not be the antenna. Then again Guruka is getting KOB from 75 miles or so away when I can't get it at 12 miles away? What should I do next?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I don't know what to tell you. First thing I'd try is adjusting your antenna position. If G is getting the channel from 75 miles away, then absolutely you should get it from 12 miles away UNLESS there is something between your antenna and the tower that is blocking the signal (like a mountain, or a tall building). Also, if the station is currently installing their equipment, they are undoubtably down and not broadcasting a fair amount of the time during the installation. If you try to pick up their station when they're down, you obviously won't be able to get it. 

When you say that your installer told you that "OTA DT stations are either 5 or 6 degrees in antenna elevation", that right there would be a flag to me that your antenna may not be pointed in the right direction because that statement makes no sense at all. Antennaweb may not give you the correct broadcast location, so if you aren't absolutely sure where the tower is located with respect to your location, call the station to find out. Then make sure that your antenna is pointed in the right direction. 

Are you using an outdoor antenna, or trying to do this with an indoor one? If you are using an indoor one, and are located in the city, you may be having a problem with multipath (we have a big problem with that in Denver). In that case, you will need to use a much more directional antenna to have any success.

Once all of those issues are resolved, then you start to look at your 921 to see if it's a hardware defect. Although, if you get other channels with it, it's very unlikely your tuner has gone bad. Then, we start looking at software problems that might cause you not to get the station, but don't affect G. 

That's my response.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

Thanks Mark! I'll call my installer and insist that they come and take a look at the attenna position next.


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

FWIW, I am using a highly directional roof-mounted hi-gain (20dB UHF) Winegard HD8200p 71 element antenna with a Channelmaster model 7777 Titan 2 mast-mounted, hi-gain (29dB) preamp. This far from Sandia Peak, I need a lot of gain.

KOB has been going up and down. I'll shoot off an email to Sean Anker and ask him what his plan is.

.....G


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

My email:

From: <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 17:58:00 -0600
To: Sean Anker <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Transmitter status?

Hi Sean - Just looking for a status update on KOB DT. Your signal up here has been up and down. Perhaps you are in a testing phase. When it's up, it's still low-power and barely locks - with nearly constant pixelization.

Are you in a DT testing phase? Have you tested your new HD statmux and encoder? When do you plan to resume at 1/4 power? I'm still hoping to be able to watch the NBC HD feed of the Athens Olympics and hope you will be putting out enough power for me to receive it clearly.

Sean's reply:



> We had to ship a couple of the amps back to the manufacturer for repair.
> They understand clearly that we will be back at power for the Olympics, whether using our amps or loaner amps from them!
> 
> We put upconverted HD on the air today! By mid-week next week we should actually be putting NBC's HD material on the air.
> ...


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

So anyone know how we're doing on this front? Any progress?

What happened with L186 that caused channels that previously worked perfectly to be spontaneously lost when the 921 reboots? Here in Chicago, we have WMAQ (NBC), which is 5-1 (29.1). This channel used to always work correctly, in terms of being able to be tuned, added, PVRed, etc. But with L186, every night when the 921 does its auto-reboot, the channel can't be tuned and has to be manually re-added. The manual re-add fixes the problem, but only until the next day.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Yes, progress is being made. More later in the new forum announcement.


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