Puzzling problem with Dish

Bill.Satellite wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
The cable in the rv is the wrong cable for HD is the problem

I do not usually disagree with Bill and in many cases this is not important (in short he is effectively right) but. You can skip to part 2 of this reply if you like.


This answer is wrong. ALL coax will handle HD.

True and not so true.. There are many different cables. There are several differences betewen cables but I use RG-8/58/8X a lot this is a 50-52 ohm cable used for TRANSMITTERS.. And I also use RG 6 a lot (72ohm TV/Sat cable) and some RG-59 (Also 72ohm but higher loss)

The three main differences are
Size (Diamater)
Loss at frequency
and Impedance (50/52 70/72(

RG 59 can be very lossy at Sat frequencies 50 feet of RG-59 can easily have as much loss as 200 Feet of RG 6 or more and 300 feet of RG-11

So not all coax is the same. Oh 3 feet of it won't matter much but when we run from the front down the pillar and all the way to the rear we may well have 50 or more feet of cable.

That said Part 2:

The Park cable in the RV runs to a box of electronics (The wall plate that selects ant or cable) there it ends a 2nd cable runs from there to the TV and to the roof and a 3rd to the roof top antenna BUT to use the already in place cable for sat tv you got to DISCONNECT it from that switch plate and extend it to the sat box.

The box prevents power from getting to the sat antenna. it's a powered antenna. The antenna is also a "Smart" antenna (2 or more antennas in one) and the box prevents the signals that tell it what antenna is desired. So it's the switch box that can be the problem.

Bill.Satellite wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
The cable in the rv is the wrong cable for HD is the problem

This answer is wrong. ALL coax will handle HD.

Bill,

Could the issue be that the COAX size in the rig is not capable of passing enough power to the Playmaker?

I use 100’ routinely with my Pathway. And that’s not including another 25’ of RV wiring.

But I use 211Z not a Wally.

We did get the 802 software downloaded so that shouldn't be the problem. Both domes were Winegard Playmakers; the only difference was about three years in age. In order to get to a clearing, we had to use the 50 foot cable. Maybe that is why we could get it to work wired direct. We were using standard RG 6U 75 ohm coax. Would different coax work better? Or maybe we need to get a 40 foot coax to get around the 50 foot overall length problem.

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.

newman fulltimer wrote:
The cable in the rv is the wrong cable for HD is the problem

This answer is wrong. ALL coax will handle HD.

Can you read a voltmeter?

Auto seek dishes get DC power from the sat box.
Not every box puts out the same voltage.

That’s why shorter better cables can work better. Less voltage drop and better connectors.

Measure the DC voltage at the end of the cable. Org sat boxes. Compare.

I have a Winegard Pathway with a 211Z. I bought the heavy duty cable from Home Depot and go 100’ on occasion. I used to have problems until I got the better cable.

The cable in the rv is the wrong cable for HD is the problem