Puzzling problem with Dish

jrs1871 wrote:
We recently bought a Dish Wally receiver and Playmaker antenna for our RV. Last week was our first chance to use it. Since we previously had Direct TV in the RV, we knew our connections worked.
We set up the Wally and attempted to activate it, acquire a signal, etc. No bueno. After several lengthy calls with Dish, we determined that we need a software upgrade. However we couldn't get the receiver to download the upgrade.
Finally our neighbor hooked up his older model Playmaker to our Wally and we were able to download the update and watch TV. Our new Playmaker worked with his 211Z receiver although it cut out a couple of times. In both cases the Playmakers were attached through the satellite port on the RV. We switched back to our Playmaker. The only way we could get TV was to hook directly from the Playmaker to the Wally receiver.
Since our Direct TV was SD and the Wally is HD, I am wondering if different connections are required. But why would we be able to get TV with our friend's older Playmaker and not our new one? Any ideas on how to track this down?

Dish screwed up the software to the Wally receiver so that might be part of the problem. I think ver. 802 is current and 801 is the bad software.
You mention Playmaker. Are both of these actually brand named Playmaker or are they similar domes by different manufacturers? The latest Winegard portable domes do not work well with coax runs over 50 feet. If the coax from the dome to the satellite port on the dome PLUS the distance from that input to the receiver is anywhere close to 50 feet you might have a problem. You could also have a loose connection inside or outside of either the input our output plates where you connect the dome and/or the receiver.