Not too happy with DirecTV now

[bobinraymoremo]

A cautionary tale which I had heard rumors of a few years ago but never encountered a problem. We went fulltiming in Sept 2009 and bought a winegard hd traveler. We got two HD DVRs at that time with no problem. Called DirecTV a few months later when one of the DVRs went on the fritz with no problem. Recently upgraded to SWM technology on the old traveler and got a Genie DVR and client with no problems. Now the Genie is acting up and DirecTV says they won't work on my system or get me a new receiver because of the Winegard dish.

Genie is rebooting about every 10-12 hours, when it reboots it has the guide and starts setting up programs but then loses the guide and programs. Some of the menu items also disappear.

When the technician was here he was thrown by the automatic dish and was looking for a reason to leave. The signal strength on the all the satellites was high but a couple of transponders on a couple of satellites, 99 and 103, were in the high 70s. He said they had to be in the 80s for him to close out the job so he couldn't try a new receiver to see if that was the problem, he just left. After four years of looking at the signal strengths these readings have been that way since we got it. Winegard told us that any reading above 70 is ok for watching television and we agree, we have never had trouble watching, with the exception of nasty rainstorms or snow storms if you can believe that 🙂

When I called DirecTV they told me the same thing, they cannot work on our system because of the winegard. Like I said I had heard rumors about this 4 years ago but until now have never seen it ourselves.

This is scary because we are not sure how to get it fixed.

[schneid]

mikestock wrote:
I have never heard that you can't get a setup with some transponders in the 70's to work. When in northern latitudes like Maine and the Dakotas my best signals from the Ku satellites were in the 70's but I still could watch HD without a hitch. Keep in mind that this was not a real Slimline reflector but a smaller dish I have adapted for the SWM3. Thus the weaker signals.

I'm with Mike and use the same "Frankendish". Sometimes I'm happy to be in 50's. Digital is digital. There or it ain't. The techs do have to pass "validation" but that can be over-ruled with a phone call. These guys use a script and aren't prepared for our world.

[Big_Katuna]

It isn't the signal strength, some LNB's don't send signal through transponders that the diags in the box are looking for. You can have a 95% strength and the box will fail because it isn't getting a signal through a specific transponder. I wish I had made note of which transponder it was. A second level tech at DTV knew about it.

[mikestock]

I have never heard that you can't get a setup with some transponders in the 70's to work. When in northern latitudes like Maine and the Dakotas my best signals from the Ku satellites were in the 70's but I still could watch HD without a hitch. Keep in mind that this was not a real Slimline reflector but a smaller dish I have adapted for the SWM3. Thus the weaker signals.

[Bill_Satellite]

donn0128 wrote:
Fix? You need to upgrade to a SWM antenna. I am struggling trying to get my traveler to simply work. It has been dead for over a year. It has been back to Winegard and now its at a dealer to troubleshoot the system and tell Winegard the same thing i have been telling them.
But he bottom line, Winehard makes a SWM version of the traveler. I suspect you will need to upgrade it to the swm. I would be willing to bet the traveler control board is different. And what is happening is your receiver is formsome reason loosing signal.

No, you don't need to do any of that.
Bottom line, you have already done what's necessary by adding the SWM8 kit to your Trav'ler. This is just DirecTV stupidity but difficult to get beyond. You might want to see if the DTV tech is willing to setup a ground dish for testing and just run the one required coax through the window and to the Genie. I have only had my Genie for a couple of months but it's one of my big concerns....Just how is this thing going to hold up long term and what am I going to do if things go bad.

[bobinraymoremo]

Big Katuna wrote:
The Traveler LNBs don't pass all the transponders that the box looks for during updates and diags. If you reset your box and update it on a true DTV dish, then I am betting it will work with the Traveler until the next time.

WOW, did not know that! Has not been an issue since 2009 until now. Where does a wayward traveler find a "true" DTV dish hundreds of miles from home? Would a DirecTV retailer be able to do this for us?

[Big_Katuna]

The Traveler LNBs don't pass all the transponders that the box looks for during updates and diags. If you reset your box and update it on a true DTV dish, then I am betting it will work with the Traveler until the next time.

[K_Charles]

Tell the technician to bring you a portable dish and when he finds out that the box is bad tell him you don't want the dish.

[donn0128]

Fix? You need to upgrade to a SWM antenna. I am struggling trying to get my traveler to simply work. It has been dead for over a year. It has been back to Winegard and now its at a dealer to troubleshoot the system and tell Winegard the same thing i have been telling them.
But he bottom line, Winehard makes a SWM version of the traveler. I suspect you will need to upgrade it to the swm. I would be willing to bet the traveler control board is different. And what is happening is your receiver is formsome reason loosing signal.