Satellite Info Error

[Philips Fan]

That's the message I keep getting when my Philips DSR 704 or 708 tries to retrieve info from my Direct TV dish. My leads are fine,...it's a round dish, with 1 LNB, and two cables coming out of it, and both of them work great with the original Hughes receivers. I bought two Philips DSRs, used on eBay, both from Direct TV customers who upgraded to HD models. Both of the Philips dial-in to Tivo with no problem. Watching programs left on the harddrives by the previous owners is no problem. Going through Guided Set-up is no problem. But every time I have either of them try to get info from the dish it comes back with the same message: "Satellite 101: right side not detected." And that's for BOTH Sat. 1 IN, and Sat. 2 IN. Now here's the punchline: I run the satellite signal strength test and I get great readings (80s and 90s, a couple of 100s) from all the transponders on Sat. 2 IN, but only 2 transponders show any reading (80s and 90s again), on the Sat. 1 IN! If I switch the leads I still get the same readings! So, it's definitely not the dish, or the cables. Funniest thing is that the 708 shows a strong signal on only two transponders, but they're NOT the same transponders that show a strong signal on the 704! I'm assuming this has something to do with the previous owners' set-up, (two different owners with two different dishes), but I'm stumped as to how to fix it. But the Direct TV reps tell me that I've done all the troubleshooting that they would do if they came out to my place,...so why don't I just cut my losses and get a new DVR from them? Not an option,...I refuse to give up! Any ideas? Philips Fan

[WK-Michael]

Your round dish must really be a dual LNB dish, no? Otherwise, that could explain the problems.

But assuming it's a dual LNB dish and wired properly, then you should try a "clear and delete everything" from one of the units and see if the through the resulting setup, the problem gets resolved.

Finally, this seems to be the nature of lots of eBay sales: the units have problems that aren't disclosed ahead of time.

[Philips Fan]

Satellite Info Error

I'm not sure I'm using the terminology correctly,...all I know is that when I got the dish in 2001 it only had one LNB with two leads coming out of it. Each lead went to a separate Hughes receiver,...one in the living room, one in the bedroom. Both Hughes units worked, and still are working, flawlessly. Fast forward to present day: I buy a DSR 708 from an eBayer who upgrades his DVR to Direct TV's HD model. On his old DSR 708 everything works, (dialing-in through my Vonage, watching what he left on the harddrive), but when I go through the Guided Set-up and wait for it to get info from the dish, it says the same for Sat 1 IN and Sat 2 IN: right side not detected. Yet, when I test for satellite strength, Sat 2 IN shows great readings on all transponders, while Sat 1 IN shows great readings on transponder 21 and 23, and nothing anywhere else! The result is exactly the same if I SWITCH THE LEADS: Sat 1 IN shows just two transponders, (yes, this is the SAME cable that just gave me everything hooked-up to Sat 2 IN!), and now the other cable shows all transponders available on Sat 2 IN. I buy another Philips a week later, a DSR 704, and I get the same results EXCEPT the one or two transponders I get now AREN"T 21 and 23, they're 11 and 20! The 704 was originally set up with an Oval dish and 3 LNBs, or at least that's the setting he had it left on when I went into the Guided Set-up and changed it to Round dish with two cables. What the 708 was originally set-up for I don't know. Makes me think that it's a software problem, or an Access Card problem, though Direct TV tells me they've changed over the account to me with the access card I'm using. I've done everything I can think of including powering it down, having it "look" for the sats without them hooked-up, and then connecting them, (it didn't work), so I'm stumped,...but, hopefully, not for long. How, exactly, do I clear everything and start all over? I see where I can clear suggestions and such, but it didn't look like any of those four choices were what I was looking for. What did I miss?

[WK-Michael]

So if you only have two leads coming of the dish, and they're going in to different rooms, how do you have two wires connected to the DTV TiVo?

[Philips Fan]

They WERE going into two separate Hughes receivers. I hooked-up both of them to my 708 when I got it two weeks ago. Then I tried one only to Sat 1 In, and every other combination you can think of. Decided the machine was faulty. Did the same thing again to the 704 when it came last week: same result. Again, remember, eventhough I get great signal strength on Sat 2 IN on BOTH machines, I only get 2 transponders to show up on Sat 1 In, on either machine...and they AREN'T the same transponders! The 708 shows two different active transponders than the 704. After running the Sat Info Test the results are the same no matter what machine, or combination of connected cables, I try: right side not detected. Yet I get the transponder results I mentioned earlier. ??? Any geniuses out there? I'm stumped!

[WK-Michael]

Certainly lots of units with bad tuners are showing up on eBay all the time, so likely that's what you've gotten twice, with similar but different results. We have units here that are fully tested before we send them out:

http://www.weaknees.com/directv-tivo.php