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General discussion

Freaky DirecTV Receiver Happenings

Jan 25, 2005 10:21AM PST

This is going to sound absolutely crazy, but here goes. I just replaced a DirecTV receiver that had been acting up. It would continuously break up and the screen would prism; and every night at 9:00pm, the screen would go black for about 1 1/2 minutes. I eliminated it being the access card by replacing it several times. Just last week I activated a brand new receiver. The signal no longer prisms or breaks up; but the 9:00pm blackout is right on schedule. I have 6 receivers and this does not happen to any of them. The receiver in question is hooked up to our 19" Phillips Magnavox. I don't see how this could have anything to do with the satellite. I am beginning to wonder if the tv is the culprit. Could the sleep timer be malfunctioning? The tv is not programmed to go off at any certain time; nor do I think it is capable of being programmed to shut off at a certain time. If anyone knows of a good exorcist I would really appreciate it.

Discussion is locked

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Best way to check it
Jan 25, 2005 7:46PM PST

would be to hook up that receiver to a different tv and see if it blacks out on schedule....using a different cable line, of course. I have dishnetwork here and one of my tv's doesn't black out but gets alot of snow every once in a while and it was from a cable line that a mouse under my house had decided to nibble on (live in the country with no basement, just a dirt crawlspace). I had that line replaced during some other construction work being done here and the problem went away. I only mention this because mice will nibble on the plastic covering of the cable line even if it's stapled up against your house if they can get access to it....and if a normal scan or re-set at DirectTV is being done on schedule every night at 9PM and you have a break in the cable line anywhere that may be the culprit. My dish receiver has to be activated via the phone line (to order movies, etc) and it is always updating itself through the phone line automatically....perhaps you don't notice the scanning going on with the other tvs/receivers because they are hooked up to the phone line and this particular receiver isn't?

I know next to nothing about receivers and how they operate with the satellite companies so I may be way off base here, but tossing out suggestions.

TONI

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Educated guess...
Jan 25, 2005 10:45PM PST

I had DirecTV for sometime until I got rid of it. At times it would go black and it *seems* to be silver bullet action, in other words trying to disable unwanted users. Because, you mention a timeframe that repeats thats very possible. Understand also any time the signal gets weak, prisming as you say is a liekly result. What causes that can be anything from snow on dish, a tree swinging in the path, bad cables, corrision at connections, plus dish not ordinated right. Your guess is as good as mine, but usually for me, it was snow or weather related.

good luck -----Willy