I have a RCA DTC210 HD receiver(DirectTV). It has work pretty good until
about a month ago. I started getting pixelization and drop-out on some HD
channels. Now I have pretty much lost 3 of the 5 channels. I can still
watch channels 74 & 78 fine, but the other 3 channels(73, 76, 79) either
don't tune at all or blink in and out making it impossible to watch.

I've done soft boots and hard boots, checked alignment, switched cables on
LNB and still have the problem. I get a 90%+ on Sat A, 88%+ on Sat C, and
0% on Sat B.

The unit is 6 months old. Any known defects with this receiver?

What can I do?

Thanks,
--
Tom

"That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest."
-Henry Thoreau

"The original point and click interface is a Smith and Wesson"

Tom wrote:
: I have a RCA DTC210 HD receiver(DirectTV). It has work pretty good until
: about a month ago. I started getting pixelization and drop-out on some HD
: channels. Now I have pretty much lost 3 of the 5 channels. I can still
: watch channels 74 & 78 fine, but the other 3 channels(73, 76, 79) either
: don't tune at all or blink in and out making it impossible to watch.

: I've done soft boots and hard boots, checked alignment, switched cables on
: LNB and still have the problem. I get a 90%+ on Sat A, 88%+ on Sat C, and
: 0% on Sat B.

: The unit is 6 months old. Any known defects with this receiver?

Dunno about the receiver (I have an older dct-100) but it's possible the "B"
LNB just crapped out being you are getting a zero reading, or the dish went
out of alignment.

I know they moved things around but was under the impression some of the HD
stuff was mostly fed off the C though. They have some test channels around
490-496 I think that is a barker channel for each satellite and polarity.

One thought, on the dct-100, there is a config menu for dish type, not sure
if it was carried over but you need to tell the receiver the type of antenna
you have, single, dual or triple. If it's not on triple, it doesn't send the
correct tone signals to the multiswitch, so again, C or B could be missing
because of that.

The receiver going bad is always possible but not likely in this case.

Can't say a simple troubleshooting process but in order:

1) improper configuration on the receiver
2) dish alignment, especially "tilt"
3) bad lnb
4) bad jumper on lnb to multiswitch assembly if it's the older type
5) bad multiswitch

-bruce

As Bruce Esquibel so eloquently stated:

Dunno about the receiver (I have an older dct-100) but it's possible the
"B" LNB just crapped out being you are getting a zero reading, or the
dish went out of alignment.

I know they moved things around but was under the impression some of the
HD stuff was mostly fed off the C though. They have some test channels
around 490-496 I think that is a barker channel for each satellite and
polarity.

One thought, on the dct-100, there is a config menu for dish type, not
sure if it was carried over but you need to tell the receiver the type
of antenna you have, single, dual or triple. If it's not on triple, it
doesn't send the correct tone signals to the multiswitch, so again, C or
B could be missing because of that.

The receiver going bad is always possible but not likely in this case.

Can't say a simple troubleshooting process but in order:

1) improper configuration on the receiver
2) dish alignment, especially "tilt"
3) bad lnb
4) bad jumper on lnb to multiswitch assembly if it's the older type
5) bad multiswitch

-bruce



Thanks for the info.

I think I've narrowed it down to the LNB(multiswitch). It just ticks me off
that it went bad in 6 months. And DirectTV want to charge me $70 to replace
it(service call) since it only carries a 3 month warranty and one year
parts.

Thanks,
--
Tom

"That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest."
-Henry Thoreau

"The original point and click interface is a Smith and Wesson"