# 811 vs. 211 OTA long range towers



## fixoman (Dec 23, 2003)

Was very excited to connect the 211 today with great hopes with the OTA tuner. The closet tower to me is about 50 miles. My setup is a winegard pr-9032 with a channelmaster 7777 preamp. The old faithful 811 pulled in all of Big four stations from two different markets (Roanoke VA. and Greensboro NC.) I had hopes that the 211 would give me some of the Raleigh market which I can pickup mostly at night on the 811 but boy was I in for a suprise!!! The 211 could not even pick up two of channels that the 811 was picking up in the low 80's The 211 would bounce from 65 to 60 causing picture to distort. I tried moving the antenna all over the place but no luck. The 211 may be great at blocking mulipath but has to bow to the 811 for pulling in long range stations. Also have tv connected via hdmi to dvi cable and picture is off centered and and on espn hd the bottom scroll is almost cut off. I wish Dish would have left the screen position as an option but oh well at least the HDMI port is working


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## John W (Dec 20, 2005)

fixoman said:


> Was very excited to connect the 211 today with great hopes with the OTA tuner. The closet tower to me is about 50 miles. My setup is a winegard pr-9032 with a channelmaster 7777 preamp. The old faithful 811 pulled in all of Big four stations from two different markets (Roanoke VA. and Greensboro NC.) I had hopes that the 211 would give me some of the Raleigh market which I can pickup mostly at night on the 811 but boy was I in for a suprise!!! The 211 could not even pick up two of channels that the 811 was picking up in the low 80's The 211 would bounce from 65 to 60 causing picture to distort. I tried moving the antenna all over the place but no luck. The 211 may be great at blocking mulipath but has to bow to the 811 for pulling in long range stations. Also have tv connected via hdmi to dvi cable and picture is off centered and and on espn hd the bottom scroll is almost cut off. I wish Dish would have left the screen position as an option but oh well at least the HDMI port is working


I can center it with a tv control, but, also miss that up & down ability that 811 had.


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. I upgraded to the 211 from my 811 as well. Did I actually do a "downgrade" and pay extra for it?!!!

I'm impressed you're getting signals at 50 miles away, but you do have a powerful antenna. I was thinking about getting a yagi like that, but at 23 miles from my locals, on a very flat, non-mountainous plane, I was getting signals of 94-100 on a dual bowtie settop antenna... that, was on my 811.

The signal on strength most of the stations now shows just a bit lower in the 85's to 98's, but the real problem now is the frequency of signal dropouts annd lost signal messages (a few times per minute sometimes) with the 211. Even with signal strengths of 85 I should get a decent consistent experience with no dropouts. 

My local OTA signals are from a different area (Sacramento, CA), whereas my Dish locals are from San Francisco. So Dish is still getting my bucks for alternate locals.

It just doesn't make sense.


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## fixoman (Dec 23, 2003)

Well after experimenting with antenna positioning and turning the attenuator up and down I decided to remove the attenuator which was needed with the 811 but when I did I received only 1 OTA channel and it was in the low 70's. so it was back the the drawing board. I knew the 7777 pre-amp had a built in FM Trap which I had selected it on during install so I climbed the ladder and positioned it to off but made things worse so I turned it back on. I had another radio shack FM trap in my (junk drawer) so I decided to install it also in the line running to the receiver and what do you know all of the stations that the 811 was picking up now the 211 was receiving them too, even the Raleigh market even though the signal on several stations were 5-10 below what the 811 was doing but there were no drop outs at all. So all in all I guess the 211 tuner is more sensitive that's the only reason I can come up with with having to run two FM traps but what ever works.


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

Fixoman,

Prevously you said;

"The 211 may be great at blocking mulipath but has to bow to the 811 for pulling in long range stations."

Has your opinion changed to "it's lousy at blocking multipath, but pulls in the stations better than the 811"?


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## fixoman (Dec 23, 2003)

Spirit said:


> Fixoman,
> 
> Prevously you said;
> 
> ...


Yes it has but I did not think I had to rig two FM traps to do so.


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

fixoman said:


> Yes it has but I did not think I had to rig two FM traps to do so.


Okay, I found a solution. I did not believe that the Vip 211 receiver was bad. Maybe their QA is not that good, or the design changes the OTA circuitry during shipping, jossling the box around. But, here's my story;

I'm located in about 23 miles from Walnut Grove, California where *all* the Sacramento antenna towers are located for the stations listed below. For channel 40, with a height of 624.5 m, it's one of the tallest constructions in the world. I've got flat terrain, so on a clear day I can see the towers (with binoculars) ... so close and direct line-of-site was not a problem.

I get 95-100 signal strength from these stations, all located on towers within a few degrees of each other in the same location;
58 KQCA
31 KMAX
29 PAX
13 KOVR
03 KCRA

Frequencies of the above stations are between 21.1 and 46.1.

But, on the 211 I get a very low or often very erratic and choppy strength from
the following stations, again, located on the same Walnut Grove towers;
40 KTXL
10 KXTV
06 KVIE

Frequencies above are between 53.1 and 61.1. Note: these three are all the highest 3 frequencies of my list.

On my former Dish 811 OTA receiver, I used to get all 8 of the above channels with strengths between 95-100. But now, on the newer Dish 211 OTA receiver - those three higher frequency ones, now start out at 95-100 strength for a second, then drop much lower and to zero... well below a receptivity strength and/or rise & fall to be too choppy to watch. This is with the same set top antenna with no changes in obstructions or direction.

I tried everything from buying a directional 75 mile UHF antenna (got a lower signal) to adding FM filters etc..

I contacted the station engineers and got several replies for suggestions. One was to have the receiver replaced. :-/

I complained to Dish that I can see those three channels clearly on my 811 still from the same antenna (switching it between the 811 & the 211. But, those three are unwatchable or don't come in at all on the 211. They said they did not have a report or "known problem" like this with the 211.

We tried rebooting, unplugging, rescanning locals, etc., but the same problem. Soooo, they sent me out a new 211 receiver. I did not truly believe that would solve it, but it did!!!

Who knows, but after setting it up last night and doing a Locals rescan, all of the channels came back and the 3 problem ones are now back at 100 signal strength with *no* dropouts. Go figure.


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

I'm wondering if perhaps those three were overdriving the tuner input. I would have liked to try an attenuator to see it that would fix the problem.


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## teachsac (Jun 10, 2006)

This is a known issue to engineering. They are currently evaluating some software that they hope addresses this issue. No date for release as of yet.

Scott


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

Grandude said:


> I'm wondering if perhaps those three were overdriving the tuner input. I would have liked to try an attenuator to see it that would fix the problem.


I tried all that! I aimed my antenna in reverse, layed it down on the floor, tried an FM trap, tried putting a couple splitters in between (reduces the db a tad with each) and longer cables. I also bought a 75 mile yagi uhf antenna from Radio Shack ($25) to increase the signal. Nothing worked as good on any of the other channels as the old Radio Shack Bowtie I got back in the 80's.

http://www.voicecrystal.com/Pics/OldRadioShack_OTA_Antenna.jpg

But, as soon as I got the new 211 replacement and Dish "un-subscribed" the old unit and "re-subscribed" the new unit on the phone, all the main channels I watch - 3,6,10,13,31,40,58 - coming from towers located in the same area in Walnut Grove, California, 23 miles away, come in at 100% across the board. There was a slight drop-out period on channel 3 last night, but today it's been solid.

All the turning off, rebooting, rescanning OTA channels did NOT work. And, I suspect it was not the 211 which was bad, but that a complete clearing and resetting up my subscription, solved it, which requires about 10-20 minutes for all your subscribed channels to come back. I think this IS different than a simple software download, checking-switch, rescan locals, etc.!

The satelliteguys.us forum has reported this as well. And the chief engineer at channel 40 was mentioning that all of those three channels (3,6,10) were sending HD in 720P format, which Dish had been having a problem with and was working on.

Note: My software is L345 (211 Menu + 6 + 1 + 3)


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## Fathead12 (Mar 25, 2007)

I want to replace my 811 that I have had for a few years with the vip 211. I have a 2 dish setup with a dish 500 and another pointed at 61.5. The first dish rep told me that it would work and they could send me a 211 for $50. After about 20 min on hold they said that he could not send it to me..but they would have to come install it. Basically I want to know if I buy a 211 can I just plug it in to replace the 811 or do I really need to have a professional come install it?


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

:welcome_s to DBSTalk!

You can just plug it in. However, if you want the get the STL HD locals from Dish, your Dish 500 will need to be replaced with a Plus dish to pick up 118.75°. You can either keep the 2nd dish at 61.5° or move its LNB onto the Plus dish to get 129° instead. That installation I believe also comes with a DPP44 switch so you're getting a lot for the upgrade.


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