DISH Program Guide Download VIP211/Tailgater

I understand that this is all worked out, but I wanted to jump in here as I ran into this with another camper a couple of years ago, and wanted to get it covered in case the thread was found via a search:

You run a Check Switch once. That's it. If the check does not indicate a problem and the "...important information" is successfully saved, you do not run it again unless you change receivers or dishes. It is a set up for equipment only. You do not re-run a check switch when changing locations.

Again, I'm glad the OP has it sorted out. I just thought this ought to be said for completeness.

Well to summarize many hours of screwing around with this and other issues: the Tailgater antenna is bad. I just bit the bullet today, went to Camping World and purchased a new Winegard Playmaker. Everything including the Program Guide download now works perfectly.

With the 211Z, the best bet for getting the whole program guide to download is to unplug the receiver for at least 10 seconds to do a hard reset prior to plugging it back in and scanning for satellites. Following this procedure, the full program guides downloads for me about 85 - 90% of the time (and takes about 10 minutes - but this will vary based on how many channels you have). Other times, I have to give it some time... sometimes overnight with the nightly updates... for a week's worth of programming to download.

Rob

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Try changing channels. The Tailgater can only see 1 satellite and the guide might be downloading from a different satellite. I would guess 119 but possibly also 129. It's unlikely you would get it if pointed to 110.

Could have been my problem this year. In years past we were constantly recording USA and History channel programs on 119. This year we had so many recordings already we justed recorded locals and were typically on 110. Thanks for the info.

Try changing channels. The Tailgater can only see 1 satellite and the guide might be downloading from a different satellite. I would guess 119 but possibly also 129. It's unlikely you would get it if pointed to 110.

BB_TX wrote:
I have the vip211k and Tailgater and the full program guide always downloads automatically as the last step on power up. It does take 5-10 minutes for the full download, but has always completed it sooner or later.

well it's not happening for me. I've had it work successfully but for the last few days the "downloading program guide screen" comes up but the bar stays blank. After about 10 mins I'm back to the tv screen and the guide still says "no info available."

I have the vip211k and Tailgater and the full program guide always downloads automatically as the last step on power up. It does take 5-10 minutes for the full download, but has always completed it sooner or later.

We had a lot of guide problems this summer while traveling. You can try turning off the receiver for 10 seconds and going through the check switch again. It will do the check switch, then acquire signal then go for the guide. You need to wait a few minutes on the guide screen until a green bar occurs and then wait until it is done. If after 5 minutes you get no green bar then skip it. If you skip it, it should come in overnight. Ours is set at 5:00 am to do updates. It came in overnight without fail, but not always during initial setup.

I've been aligning my Dish at home and going thru this same thing. It does take about 10 minutes, but I've never seen it jump right back to programming before completing the download. I'm guessing you have an alignment problem and your dish is loosing the satellite it needs to download the program guide from. For the Western arc you'd normally align to 119 but I think the program guide is on 110. Probably need a bit of a tweak on elevation to get 110. A good alignment on 119 should give you a strong signal on 110 though.

I don't remember how long it takes because I never left the guide on to watch it, but it takes a while.