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deb1919's profile

Contributor

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4 Messages

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023 1:14 PM

Trying to switch to SWM

I used to install DirecTV back before they started doing it themselves, and was a customer 'till 2017. One of my clients has a Slimline dish with an older 4-port LNB connected directly to 3 H21-200's, but the cables are nearly 20 years old and sunburnt, dried up and corroded. There is no running new lines to the dish location (roof) but I do have one extra in the attic that's in good shape. So I tried changing their dish to SWM.

After I got everything connected (see diagrams below), and the LNB switched out, the receivers booted up and ran thru their data collection with the progress bar (occasionally flashing "searching for signal" messages), and then gave the message "DirecTV acquiring guide data. Thanks for your patience.". And there it stayed, forever. The only action it offered was "more info", which displayed the "if this hasn't finished in 2 minutes, reset the receiver" screen. No access to any menus or settings.

Before and after diagrams attached. Am I missing something, or should this work?



ACE - New Member

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5.1K Messages

1 year ago

That seems to be fine and should work as expected. You may need to go into the H21 menu to configure it for SWM. Choose Menu, Repeat Satellite Setup, press the (-) DASH button, choose SWM rather than Multiswitch for 2, and then choose SL3 LNB (SWM) for the first selection. You should then go to Signal Strength to ensure that all of the signals have populated. If the receiver (s) say “SWM not detected” then they are unable to communicate with the SWM LNB. Whether this be due to a bad receiver, bad cable run, bad splitter, or bad LNB, you’ll need to rule it out. I doubt this will be an issue though. 

As a note, be sure to disconnect all b-band converters from the H21s as they are not needed with SWM. In the past, when I worked with H21s, they were extremely finicky with SWM and had the “Acquiring Guide Data, thanks for your patience” message ALL the time. If you still keep receiving these issues, it may be a good idea to upgrade those H21s. They are quite old boxes. 

A good recommendation would be upgrading to H25s or H24s (if the customer doesn’t want DVRs) or an HR54 and remaining H25s (if they want DVR). DIRECTV may or may not have H25s in stock so you may need to check. 

ACE - Professor

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1.9K Messages

1 year ago

@deb1919

I would suggest --Powering the All the receivers down (unplplug ac power) Then try Bringing one receiver up at a time.

The Receiver should find the correct Lnb on start up if not rerun sat setup for Swm3lnb - The receiver have been NON swim for along time -be sure your using SAT 1 input on the receiver. 

If you can get one to work --then move to next location.


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