Dish Network Switched to 8PSK / Need King #1844 Tool

Dish Network turned off almost all of their QPSK modulated transponders on Feb 10th (funny, it was fine Feb 6th). Sure enough all I can get now are SD channels on some Western satellites.

I have a King 9704LP-30 S/N 601*** receiver.

There's a couple of fixes
1.) Take the motorhome to a King Controls dealer miles away, probably leave it (requiring a 2nd driver)and pay $$ to have them update the receiver (software update. I read where some dealers gouge their customers with minimum # of hours.

2.) Purchase the King #1844 Diagnostic tool and do it myself. Amazon's price was $112 and while I was procrastinating the price jumped to $169. Ugh.

3.) Purchase the King #1844 from King Controls for $225 and return it with a %15 restocking fee. Add shipping both ways and my "rental" runs $40-$50. Then there's the next time I need it . . . .

A new 3 LNB dish is $78. Not nearly as convenient but puts some of the other solution costs in perspective.

The question is, does anyone have a King #1844 Diagnostic Tool they'd like to rent, sell or loan out? I'm in Atlanta NE area, or UPS . . . .

Thanks for the consideration.

Best,
- bob

dan-nickie wrote:
This info was posted by King Dome:

Earlier this year, DISH began an effort to convert most of its satellite TV signals from QPSK encoding to a new 8PSK format. The new signals allow more content to be streamed through the same bandwidth and provide greater utilization of satellites, although these signals cannot be decoded by many mobile satellite antennas or the older DISH Network satellite receivers including models 301, 2800, 3700, 3900, 4900, 1000/1500, 3000/3500, 4000/4500, 5000/5500, 501, 508, 510 receivers.

Since 1998, KING has manufactured a variety of mobile satellite antennas using several different proprietary methods of finding and identifying satellite signals. Some of these models relied on the QPSK signal in order to identify satellites and will be affected by these changes from DISH. Other models manufactured by KING either do not rely on this type of information to lock-on and identify the satellites, or they were designed with a special tuner that has the ability to identify the 8PSK signals from DISH and therefore are not affected by these changes. We expect that DISH will continue to transmit QPSK encoded signals from at least a single transponder on each DISH satellite for some time, so most KING satellite antennas that rely on that signal can be programmed to look for the remaining QPSK signals.

A historical list of KING satellite antenna models and the related impact of this change on each model is listed below:

KING-DOME

9700/9702/9702-LP/9630/9630-LP
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK

9704/9704-LP
*S/N #611325 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool (higher S/N already use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

9754/9754-LP
*S/N #702321 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool (higher S/N already use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

KD2200
*S/N #B06292 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool (higher S/N already use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

KD3200
*S/N #C05888 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool (higher S/N already use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

KD2000
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK, already uses 8PSK tuner

KD3000
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK, already uses 8PSK tuner


TRAC-KING

9760/9762/9762-LP
*S/N #370864 and higher may be re-programed from end user controller to track active QPSK transponder on satellites 110/119/129. Additional support for the Trac-King model antennas is no longer available.


VUQUBE

VQ1000/VQV10
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK

VQ2000
*S/N #106-4989 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool or upgrade to 8PSK tuner (higher S/N use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

VQ3000
*S/N #107-1526 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool or upgrade to 8PSK tuner (higher S/N use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

VQV20
*S/N #104-1186 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool or upgrade to 8PSK tuner (higher S/N use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)

VQV30
*S/N #105-1418 or lower requires software re-programming with KING #1844 dealer installation & diagnostic tool or upgrade to 8PSK tuner (higher S/N use 8PSK tuner and are not affected)


FLEX/ROVER

VQ2100
Models built prior to 1/6/15 require USB thumb drive software update (contact KING)

KD1500
Models built prior to 12/22/14 require USB thumb drive software update (contact KING)


TAILGATER/RELAY

VQ2500/KD5500
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK


KING QUEST

VQ4100
Models built prior to 4/10/15 require USB thumb drive software update (contact KING)


KING TAILGATER

VQ4500
*Unaffected by DISH transition to 8PSK

For additional information, please contact KING’s customer service department at (952) 922-6889 extension 173.