Winegard mission

clear view of the southern sky?

Verify that you have power to the antenna.
Verify that the coaxial cable goes directly from receiver to the dish without any devices.

if you're connecting the antenna to the receiver using the coach's connector in an outside compartment try running the coax directly to the receiver thru a window or door and see if that helps.

Op, there is a cable marked sat that comes out of the wall, it is plugged into receiver. You can hear the antenna trying to seek. At one point where you check for strength out of 30 boxes, only 2 boxes showed numbers.

IIRC, you cannot have the signal strength meter displayed while the antenna is doing it's search.
Also, the setting in the receiver can be critical to the success of the search. Go into the receiver setup menu and ensure the receiver is set to 18" round and Multi-Switch. I don't care what you have read elsewhere, those are the settings that will make your antenna work properly assuming the receiver is activated and has been on line and watching DTV recently.

Maybe this is the problem. In the “book” for the dish type, it says “select 3-LNB (18x20)
So my direct box model should work?

tarnold wrote:
Maybe this is the problem. In the “book” for the dish type, it says “select 3-LNB (18x20)
So my direct box model should work?

As I said, "mo matter what else....." use 18" round and be sure it's set to Multi-switch and not SWM for best results. DTV only broadcasts from the 101 satellite these days so 3 satellite reception is not necessary (3 LNB) and the 18" round option looks for the 101 only.
If the D12 was working previously, it should also work now but may stop working sometime in the future when HD only is broadcast as the D12 is a SD receiver only.

OP:
Suggest you start fresh.
Does the dish make any noise like it is searching for satelite.
If no, then you could have a power problem. Verify wiring per instructions.
If yes, verify dish settings as suggested by others.

Op. When do system info shows dish type as slimline-3s (Swm)
Have read all above posts, but no amount of left right up down button pushing will get me to where I can change the dish type? How get there?

Has the receiver ever worked?
Are you entering the "setup"? The get to satellite?
Have you tried using buttons on the receiver?