Posted: 11/30/2008 10:20:19 AM EDT
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I've got Directv with HD. All of the regular channels work great but I would say 50-75% of the time the HD channels freeze and/or pixilates or the picture just won't come in at all making it impossible to watch. I'm trying to watch football and it sucks!
AnY help? |
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You might try resetting your receiver by unplugging it for about 30 to 60 seconds and then plugging it back in and letting it reload. This will take a few minutes but it might work.
Also have you checked the signal strength coming in? You might have just a little alignment issue. |
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Maybe poor dish alignment…
Go here for help figuring out the problem... they will help. http://forums.directv.com/pe/index.jsp And here http://www.dbstalk.com/index.php? |
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The HD signals come from Ka-band satellites, which are higher frequency and narrower beamwidth. For this reason, the dish must be much more precisely aligned in order to keep those Ka signals high. The DirecTV HD dish has a heavy-duty fine-tuning mechanism to accomplish this.
The HD signals come from sats located at 99W and 103W. Post your signal strengths in this format: Satellite transponders (6 total at 99º(s)) [or 99º(b)] [Local HD channels for some cities] 1-8 0 0 49 0 0 0 NA NA 9-16 NA NA NA NA NA NA 77 83 17-24 76 80 0 84 0 0 72 79 [Note: these can be very slow to appear] Satellite transponders (14 total at 99º(c)) [or 99º(a)] [New national HD channels] 1-8 58 56 57 54 61 60 62 60 9-16 64 64 62 60 66 65 NA NA [Note, these can be very slow to appear] Satellite transponders (16 total at 103º(s)) [or 103º(a)] [Local HD channels for some cities] 1-8 47 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA 9-16 NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 0 17-24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [Note, these can be very slow to appear] Satellite transponders (16 total at 103º(c)) [or 103º(b)] [Most national HD channels] 1-8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9-16 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA 17-24 0 NA NA NA NA 0 NA NA -Troy |
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Quoted:
You might try resetting your receiver by unplugging it for about 30 to 60 seconds and then plugging it back in and letting it reload. This will take a few minutes but it might work. Also have you checked the signal strength coming in? You might have just a little alignment issue. Yup, tried all that already. Just finally gave up and called directv to come out for a service call on Tuesday. |
Yesterday I spent a couple of excrutiatingly irritating hours watching DirecTV bozos install my upgraded HD system. They insisted that only the "101" satellite was needed. The lead installer clearly had no idea how to mount the dish base correctly, and tonights windy conditions are visibly shaking the dish. He also used some crap cable tv coax, instead of RG-6 the spec calls for. And did not ground the dish properly. Argghhh!
I'd advise digging out your documentation and try tweaking the dish alignment yourself using the systems built in signal meter. Especially if the service call will cost you money, and aholes will show up to do the work. Paladin |
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Quoted:
Everybody but the last guy had good info. I have had Dtv for 8 years or so. I just moved. My HD is sketchy, but my dish peers through the trees. Everything else is just the way it has been for 8 or so years.... phenomenal. What part is wrong? I checked my signal meter screen, and the only satellite showing is the 101. HDTV is not the same as the old direct TV system. My new dish is pointed differently from the older one, which I installed 11 years ago and has performed flawlessly. But what do I know. I've only held an FCC license with Radar endorsements for about 25 years, and was a lead installer doing microwave dish installs and alignments. Your dish's azimuth for GA is probably not the same as Texas. Paladin |
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Quoted:
Yesterday I spent a couple of excrutiatingly irritating hours watching DirecTV bozos install my upgraded HD system. They insisted that only the "101" satellite was needed. The lead installer clearly had no idea how to mount the dish base correctly, and tonights windy conditions are visibly shaking the dish. He also used some crap cable tv coax, instead of RG-6 the spec calls for. And did not ground the dish properly. Argghhh!
Paladin You need to call DirecTV and complain. Normally I'd tell you to call the installer back directly so he doesn't get charged back, but these guys are incompetent and shouldn't be installing. You need someone else. *Most* people no longer need to see the sats at 110W and 119W now that the few legacy HD channels that were there have been mirrored in MPEG4 on the new Ka-band HD satellites at 99W and 103W. Most customers only need 99/101/103, and there's a new LNB pack for the Slimline HD dish that just has these three LNBs (combined into one feedhorn, since they're so close together). This is important because 119 is very low on the horizon for folks on the East coast, and not having it used to mean no HD. You still need 119 if you subscribe to any of the Spanish-language packages or the Chinese-language "Jade World" package. The HD dish has to pick up both Ku- and Ka-band sat signals, and Ka-band signals require much greater aiming precision, and therefore much greater stability of the dish. If the mast isn't solidly installed with 6 bolts in the foot and 2 additional support arms, the dish is going to move and you'll lose HD signal. Unfortunately, DirecTV doesn't value their installers much, so the pay is low and the treatment of them is bad, even illegal. As you would imagine, turn-over is very high, enough that at any given time, at least half of the installers have less than 2 month's experience. Hopefully next time you'll get someone who has managed to survive longer than that. Once installed, DirecTV is a fantastic product, and it's worth the hassles that are unfortunately all too common with the installation process. -Troy |