DirecTV - I'm beyond mad......

[InTheHole]

Fellas, I'm fuming over here...

Been a DTV subscriber for about 7 years now, and generally have had no problems, until this week...

Got back from vacation Sunday. Go to the entertainment room to turn on the Hi-def receiver, and it aint working. No signal.

I go through all of the usual troubleshooting BS, all to no avail.....

I call tech support, and go thru all the usual bs with the guy. I can tell he is running out of answers after he basically guaranteed me that it would be no problem to fix. He proceeds to ask me what kind of TV I had. I tell him Samsung plasma. He then says "oh, yea, we have had other calls like yours, it is occurring across the nation. Sounds like a crock, but I say ok, we'll see what happens in a day or so.

Well here it is Thursday night, and its still without a signal. I call them back tonight (I have been super busy since being back) and say "hey, wtf?" Not only do they want to charge me $80 for the tech to come out, but it won't be for another week, i tell the girl this is bs and not acceptable, but she says she can do nothing.

Guys, I'm pissed here. Im a low maintenance customer who never bitches about anything, but being without this TV in the Entertainment room for 2 weeks is a joke. My family room TV with the normal receiver works, but I don't hang out in that part of the house. I'm about ready to call them back and pitch a fit.

Anybody else had this problem?

Try another TV but the Plasma excuse is bs.

[mathdotcom]

If your digital receiver is not getting any signal, it has absolutely nothing to do with your TV. If your receiver has a red light on it, or is otherwise showing no signal, there can only be 3 things that can cause it:

bad receiver
bad cable
bad dish/alignment

Keep phoning back asking them to do troubleshooting. In the mean time, there are a number of things you can try to get it working again yourself. If it's the receiver, then unplugging the power to it, then unplugging the coax cable from the dish and leaving it for a bit (then putting back in) fixes 95% of problems. DirecTV should be able to walk you through more complicated resets.

If it's the cable, make sure there are no splitters on the cable coming down from the dish to your receiver. That's the main cause of cable issues. Also make sure it is RG6 cable and not RG59 cable (used for regular TV cable - not strong enough for satellite frequencies).

If it's the dish you'll need a tech.

BOL

[mathdotcom]

Another thing: if the receiver is actually getting signal from the dish, then you can check whether or not it's the TV or the receiver causing the problem. If you're using HDMI or DVI cables from the receiver to the TV, then try hooking up component cables and seeing if they work.

Some receivers you can hold the power button for 10seconds and it'll restart it.
Again keep calling them until you get a competent tech support geek.

[bigboydan]

it seems to me if you are not subscribed to their protection plan $5.99 a month they will send you weak signal until you subscribe

I don't think that is even possible sir. The signal test would show that your signal is either strong or weak. I mean if your getting a slow signal then odds are you either have some sorta blockage (trees/sun spots) or your LNB is bad.

[mathdotcom]

Often if it's the LNB then you will get intermittent rather than consistently low signal.

If you have easy access to your dish, make sure there are no holes in your lnb (the eye of the dish)

[ShamsWoof10]

It could be a few things... I have had some issues in the past and one particular one I had happen a few times and for some reason it seemed like no one knew how to deal with it expect the supervisors at Tech. Support...

I would have to ask you a few questions to know what it is but I have an idea of what could be the problem..

[mathdotcom]

I did satellite tech support for 2 years to pay off gambling debts. I don't know DirectTV receivers specifically. Definitely wanna badger tech support til u finally get someone (or a supervisor) to fix it for you. Odds are you don't even need a service call.

[onlooker]

My son's HD receiver went black today. I disconnected and reconnected the HDMI cable and it came back up. It wasn't sending a signal to the TV. Maybe try that.