... The signal strength shows high 90s.
I am guessing that's on the TracStar. I am asking about the built-in meter on the
receiver (the box from Dish Network). You access that via the Dish remote and it displays on the TV.
I did a troubleshoot with dish and they said the tv is not getting a signal from the dish. So here is what I think might be the problem. I checked voltage on the cable into the tv. I go nothing.
There is no DC voltage on the cable going to the TV, so this doesn't tell you anything. The only voltage carried on a coax here is LNB power, which only goes
from the Dish receiver,
to the TracStar/antenna.
The cable from the tracstar main box shows voltage. It travels to another box that has three jacks, the input and two outputs. The sticker on that threeway box says "the cable has to go through the box for single or dual cable". So going into that box the cable is carrying voltage. I got nothing coming out of that box. The two output cables go to the dishbox for the tv. No voltage is getting to the dishbox. The tech on the telephone said I should have around 20 volts tithe dishbox through that cable.
Again, no. It's the other way around -- the Dish receiver
sends voltage to the antenna. Nothing goes
to the Dish receiver
I don't know what that box is or what it does. There is no on off or power switch on the box. I am kind of thinking that box is bad.
and
Here is a pic of the box I was talking about.
This is a "dual downconverter," intended to allow you to connect two receivers in different rooms to the same satellite antenna.
I have voltage in the cable to the right side input Jack. I got no voltage from the other two output jacks on the left.
Again, there isn't supposed to be any voltage at the two outputs. The voltage goes the other way. You should read about 18 volts at the "input" jack.
The confusion here has to do with the way satellite antennas work. The same coax cable is doing two different things, and those things go in opposite directions.
The main function of the coax is to bring the radio frequency (RF) signal
from the LNB (Low Noise Block downconverter) on the antenna
to the receiver(s). In this regard it is no different, really, than a standard radio or TV antenna.
The LNB, however, requires power to work. Complicating matters, the LNB can receive two different signals from the satellite, known as Vertically Polarized and Horizontally Polarized, and it knows which signal to try to pick up by the voltage of the supplied power. The DC voltage used to power the LNB and also to tell it which polarization to pick up is
sent to the LNB over the very same coax cable that brings the RF signal
back from the LNB.
When a coax jack on satellite TV equipment is marked "Input" that marking pertains to the RF signal. In reality, that Input is also an "Output" for this control voltage, which is going the other way.
Make sense?
I suspect that when you bring up the signal meter on the receiver, you will see a zero signal strength on all transponders, but if you see something else there we need to know that.
Zero signal would mean that either you are pointed to the wrong bird, or the LNB is defective or not getting power. Note that the meter on the TracStar will show good signal strength if you are pointed to the wrong bird, because it does not distinguish between the different signals provided by different birds. For example, if your receiver is a Dish Network receiver, it will not recognize the signal from the DirecTV satellite, but the TracStar, which works with both, will still see a good signal there.
-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com
