# Two new 211K receivers today!



## Cap'n Preshoot (Jul 16, 2006)

As scheduled, the Dish Network guy showed up this afternoon to replace the 222 we've had ongoing problems with. Santa came early and brought a new 40" Sony flat screen which he hung on the bedroom wall (with care) in hopes that HD soon would be there. :hurah:

I was expecting a pair of the older model 211 receivers, but to my surprise they brought the new 211k. Boy, that's sure a nice looking (and small!) HD receiver.

Out of the box the firmware version reports L454. We also have experienced (so far) no problems with the IR falsing (that nearly drove us nuts with the 222).

Sadly no native pass-thru  but that was as expected. Unsure at this point what I'm going to do about DVR'ing one or both. We already have a 722 in the family room which so far seems to suffice for DVR'ing. Of course with only a $39.95 one-time payment (plus the cost of an EHD) I may still add it to one of them just to be able to tinker.  
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## jscudder (Jan 18, 2006)

Cap'n Preshoot;1930198 said:


> As scheduled, the Dish Network guy showed up this afternoon to replace the 222 we've had ongoing problems with. Santa came early and brought a new 40" Sony flat screen which he hung on the bedroom wall (with care) in hopes that HD soon would be there. :hurah:
> 
> I was expecting a pair of the older model 211 receivers, but to my surprise they brought the new 211k. Boy, that's sure a nice looking (and small!) HD receiver.
> 
> ...


How does the OTA tuner in the 211k compare to the tuner in the 211 as far as pulling in marginal signals? I found the tuner technology in the DTVPal to be superior to that of the tuner in the 211. Just wondering if Dish has upgraded the 211k tuner to perform better.

John


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## Cap'n Preshoot (Jul 16, 2006)

jscudder said:


> How does the OTA tuner in the 211k compare to the tuner in the 211 as far as pulling in marginal signals? I found the tuner technology in the DTVPal to be superior to that of the tuner in the 211. Just wondering if Dish has upgraded the 211k tuner to perform better.
> 
> John


Right now I cannot say because I've not hooked that back up, but may dig into it today. The tech kind of made "the sign of the cross" when he looked inside the home node panel in the wall, so for the moment all the sat cables (except for the 722) are tied directly to their corresponding receivers. Some things we were able to do with backfeeding OTA to the 222 will need to be reconfigured & seeing the somewhat perplexed look on his face, I told the tech to just get it working and I'd take it from there.

So far we're pretty happy. The small size is really nice. The only negative is the bright green LED on the front of the 211K is a noticeable annoyance when the receiver is just below the TV and you're viewing in a dark bedroom. A piece of Scotch-88 will fix that.

The 211K seems to run substantially cooler than any HD receiver I've ever had.


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## Cap'n Preshoot (Jul 16, 2006)

OK - (Later)
Just got finished hooking up OTA (via diplexers) & all went well. ATSC tuner sensitivity with the 211k seems good; certainly no worse than on the 222. I did notice that the 2150 Mhz diplexers I originally bought at FRY's a few years ago (JVI #35-SDX100) seemed to have considerably less OTA attenuation than the Holland DPD2's that E* furnishes with their 222/622 2nd room backfeed installations. *see edit below*

Granted, this is all very unscientific, as I had no convenient means of measuring. I just tried both and the OTA signal level reported onscreen was significantly better with the JVI's, so I left them in. The Holland diplexers were arguably better shielded (soldered backs vs epoxy'd backs on the JVI) - I don't know what the freq. specs of the Holland diplexer is. Could be it's working as designed (poorly)

For reference, I am only 20 miles from the antenna farm, with most stations there running 1 megawatt & 2000' towers. You can dangle a wet noodle out the window and get signal. I'm using a Radios Hack UHF corner reflector sitting on a 5' mast that's below the fence line. There were 23 digitals found, all with a signal level of 80 or greater. Fox and NBC had sig. levels of 100. I'm not using any preamp or "Super Home Node" device. YMMV.

edit 12/22/08: Disregard the above remarks about the Holland diplexers. When properly installed they work fine, at least or near equal to the JVI's

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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

jscudder said:


> How does the OTA tuner in the 211k compare to the tuner in the 211 as far as pulling in marginal signals? I found the tuner technology in the DTVPal to be superior to that of the tuner in the 211. Just wondering if Dish has upgraded the 211k tuner to perform better.
> 
> John


I think the next question is did you order them with OTA modules?


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

As conversation pieces? They're too heavy to be Christmas ornaments but don't look heavy enough to make good bookends. 

The 211k has one built-in OTA tuner. The only receivers so far that take the OTA module are the 222k and 722k.


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## Cap'n Preshoot (Jul 16, 2006)

BobaBird said:


> As conversation pieces? They're too heavy to be Christmas ornaments but don't look heavy enough to make good bookends.
> 
> The 211k has one built-in OTA tuner. The only receivers so far that take the OTA module are the 222k and 722k.


Correct. Don't let the "K" fool you. The 211k is an all-new 211 literally from the ground-up. Functionally it is identical to the original 211, including an ATSC OTA tuner. However, cosmetically the new "K" model is much smaller and is in a black housing. The new smaller size (and cooler operation) gives one reason to believe that the guts are also quite different. Firmware version = L454.

The remotes are identical to those used with the 222, 622, 722, except for the 211 they are I/R only.

I don't know how commonplace the new 211 "K" model is, but the tech that installed our two on Satd'y had 4 more on his truck and said they had lots of them in the warehouse and the only 211's they had were K models.

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## DavidRobert (Apr 6, 2008)

Hello Captain,
I'd like to ask you some questions directly about your new experience with Dish HD and the new Sony. Can we do that off line some how? I just didn't want to divert the issue here.
Dave in VA


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## Cap'n Preshoot (Jul 16, 2006)

I PM'd your answer.


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