I bought an OTA antenna to receive my local channels in HD. Hooking it directly to the TV my signal strength is 90+ on all local stations. Now switching and running it through the satellite box it will not detect any of the local channels. The thing that gets me is that my brother-in-law who lives half a mile from me with the same OTA antenna with 70-90 signal strength and his Dish VIP722 picks up all the locals. Searching for ideas here. Any comments or suggestions? Hoping I will not have to pay for dish to come out and swap boxes if the box is the problem.
This may be a silly question, but first things first: After you connected the antenna to the Dish box, did you go back through the Setup/Installation and tell your Dish receiver what zip code you are in, etc.? Your receiver has to be told that it's receiving locals.
It is either an antenna problem, something is broken or not right, or your location. I have seen reception problems just from one side of the street to the other...
First step would be to test the antenna system with analog NTSC stations to make sure it is working...
Richard, analog stations do work. Also, plugging the antenna into the TV, bypassing the receiver, all digital local HD stations come in beautifully. 90+ signal strength on all stations.
That is a valid question. You are correct I should have mentioned it earlier. Yes I did go through the setup procedure.
So, in the setup procedure you told the 622 that you want your locals to come via your antenna rather than Dish network. Moreover, you setup in the guide/preferences to have all your channels (can go back to all subscriptions once the problem is resolved) displayed? All of this sounds to me like there's a step missing in your config. I actually have a 622 where I receive OTA HD locals. I'm away from home today. However, I will check it this evening for you to give you the exact steps.
Called DISH tech support last night. Went through some steps with them and they determined that the receiver must be bad since I am able to pick up all the locals when connected to the TV directly. Shipping me a new box this week. Still curious if something was missing during the setup.
Rather than have that ...622.. replaced in-kind... consider
"bugging" them for a free or discount deal, free upgrade...to their better ..VIP-722.
eli whitney
P.S. - Why have DISH TV involved w/ your OTA at all ? Just feed that antenna coax right into
that HDTVs "RF" input & stop paying DISH for this 'option' ?
Yes, at least in our market, DISH ( not DIRECT ) does access a small monthly fee & absolutely, that recording is one good reason. But, with his OTA coax hooked directly into the set, they'd be out of the loop, at least.
eli whitney
Unfortunately - ( our youngest is still 'learning', apparently ) - in order to have those locals go thru that DISH Recorder unit, he is being charged an additional or extra small monthly fee + their $49.99 originally for the actual additional OTA antenna itself !
But, as members of the "over-the-hill" bunch, we couldn't explain it. Obviously, " we couldn't understand."
By-the-way --- their explanation was it goes back to their (out in space unit) & then is fed back...
You have to go into setup, then local channels (9), then scan for channels. No zip codes needed. It will add all locals HD and STD, then you can add or delete the one you don't want.
Boy I never paid DISH 50 bucks for hooking up my OTA antenna. Just hooked it up, changed the setup, did the scan, picked my channels and was off and running. I still have one channel where the program guide sez "Digital programming " or some such. Otherwise it works fine.
I live in an area surrounded by stations so I have to do some manual scanning. Set the antenna in a different direction and then go through the channels (if you're not sure the "real" numbers) and watch for 'em to lock in. Takes some time but not a bigdeal.
I have noticed that the Dish Receivers "dampen" the signal from OTA. Direct to TV the signal is much stronger than going through the receiver. It shouldn't be that way.
After scanning for 8VSB HD channels make sure your program guide is set to "all channels" or "all subscribed channels", if it's set to a favorites and you haven't manually added the new channels to your favorites you will not see the new channels in the program guide.
The Dish 622 does not support NTSC analog, it has an 8VSB HD tuner only.
DISH does not charge for use of the 8VSB tuner, however the HD 8VSB locals will not populate the program guide with data (shame on you DISH, DirecTV is doing this today without forcing consumers to pay for local into local.) Only way around this is to subscribe to the local into local for your area (either SD or HD if available in your area.)
Someone asked why connect the OTA antenna into your Vip 622s tuner input, to use the DVR function!
There are advantages to running the antenna straight into the TV and advantages to running it into my DVR (VIP 622) so I do both. I ran the coax cable from the antenna into my den and then attached a splitter so I could run the signal directly into the coax input on my TV and also to run it separately into my receiver. When watching the signal straight from the antenna on my HDTV, I notice that the picture and audio is better since I guess the signal is completely uncompressed. However, the picture and sound are still great when I watch the OTA channels through my DVR, maybe just a little softer but certainly comparable to DISH's own HD programming, but this way I can record OTA programming on the DVR and I can also pause programming just like I can programs from the satellite.
I wouldn't call it completely uncompressed. I would definitely say it's less compressed than the signal from the sat.
The 622 receiver has a better tuner than cheaper TV's. However, I do agree that the OTA signal straight into the display on my 1080P Mits looks cleaner than the one from my 622 (also OTA). However, I would be hard pressed to tell the difference w/ my 32" 768P Westy and my 211 (both OTA). Both ways (receiver, direct to TV) look better than "HD-lite," so I'm happy sending OTA into my Dish receivers.
There shouldn't be any difference in compression. The difference would be that it's using a different path from the tuner to the display (internal vs. external input w/cables). The user settings might also be different depending on the TV.
Edit: forgot to mention that the scaler could also be different if you're letting the dish receiver upscale or downscale to the TV's native resolution. If you're sending it to the TV unaltered then they would both be using the TV scaler.
I have the ViP 222, and while it picked up all of the local OTA channels I wanted, it was not as good as the tuner in my HDTV (Samsung DLP 5076S). The TV was able to pick up channels that the ViP 222 couldn't.
My issue, is that while the 222 downconverts and sends the sat signals out its "Home Distribution" spigot for the second (SD) TV, it DOES NOT transmit the received OTA signals out this spigot. This is annoying because a) the local station signals via Dish are very poor visually, and b) I now have to employ splitters, cabling, etc. to get the OTA signals to every TV in the house.
Dish charges for local channels. This would be for your Standard Definition and High Definition channels if availalble. Your VIP unit will add the OTA channels at no additional charge. You do have to add the channels you want when doing the setup. One amazing feature of your VIP unit is that it integrates the local OTA channels with their satellite channels. However, be sure you have the correct Guide setting so that you can tune to the locals.
One amazing feature of your VIP unit is that it integrates the local OTA channels with their satellite channels.
That's not so amazing to DirecTV customers - they've been doing that for several years now.
Given the patent office ruling on the Tivo "time warp" patent and the lawsuit against Dish - does this mean the DVRs will have to be disabled until Dish puts out new software or do you think Dish will agree to pay the Tivo license fees?
I have two 622 used in different rooms in my house. My OTA is split and amplified at the rooftop, using two different cable runs to the two 622's. One run is 65 feet the other 44 feet. For unknown reasons, my signal strength and stations received is different, and did not change after I switched leads at the splitter. Not really a problem for me because I picked up 17 stations on one lead and 22 on the other lead. Very redundant as all I get really is FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CW and PBS.
And it's coming to an end. The latest line of DirecTV receivers don't even have OTA tuners anymore.
OMG! I had no idea but you're absolutely correct - the HR21 HD DVR has no OTA input. I guess they're saving money not putting in the ATSC tuner now that they have so many local markets covered with HD. I end up watching the locals off the satellite anyway so it won't affect me but I can see this being a big issue for some.
I live in the Dayton, OH market ... usually about 50th on the list of markets to get "new" stuff from the DBS companies. I'm not holding my breath on HD locals ... and the locals we get now are a joke. I've seen better quality on YouTube!
My HR20 will be the last DirecTV unit I buy. I'll limp along on this for another year at most then switch to Dish.
Dish is charging you for using the OTA tuner 