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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clarkebelt" data-source="post: 1094954" data-attributes="member: 148422">Well, I thought it was up through yesterday.  Then I replaced an aging LNB on the Ku dish and after firing that up, it seemed like I had all kinds of problems, specifically on one channel that I haven't had issues with recently.  And the problem was really strange - it would work fine for maybe the first five minutes after tuning it in, then get progressively worse, as if the station were drifting off frequency or something.  And the strangest part was, this channel is NOT one that is received by the LNB we replaced, although I was having issues with some attempts to use the new LNB also. It finally dawned on me that the thing these had in common was that they both came through the same tuner and DiSEqC switch.  So I disabled that tuner temporarily, forcing the use of the other side of the dual LNB's which go through a different DiSEqC switch, and suddenly no problems.  So then I tried swapping out the DiSEqC switch on that tuner and re-enabling it and I have been playing that problem channel for over an hour now with no issues.One theory is that that DiSEqC switch was already failing, but the most recent power down/up cycle was what pushed it over the edge.  I do believe that was the oldest DiSEqC switch in the mix, and the one that had been used for quite some time with a standalone receiver.  Strangely the switch I replaced it with was a really cheap spare that I had purchased several years ago in case I ever needed a spare switch in a hurry.I see lots of comments in various forums where people seem to think that DiSEqC switches (at least the ones sold in North America) tend to be really flakey.  I know you have to power down the computer before making connections, or you can fry the DiSEqC, but even with that precaution they have a tendency to fail for no particular reason.  The Chieta switches we are using (including the one that failed) are supposed to be the best of the reasonably-priced switches; they cost about double what the cheapest models cost but I have read you can also buy ones costing a lot more that are supposed to be even more reliable.  Personally I wonder whether the best approach would be to buy a "good" switch and hope it lasts (I imagine even a "good" one could be taken out by nearby lightning), or just keep buying inexpensive ones and replace them as they fail.Anyway I am not quite prepared to say that absolutely everything is sorted (still haven't been able to figure out how to tune Ku without entering equivalent pseudo-C band frequencies, but then again I haven't spent any more time on that since I got it working by using fakeout C-band frequencies), but for the moment it seems that most of the issues are being dealt with, one by one.  I just wish there weren't quite so many times where it feels like I take one step forward and two steps back.  But I have made considerable progress since first starting this, in large part thanks to your help.I wonder is there is such a thing as a reliable 4-port DiSEqC 2.0 switch that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?  Probably should ask that in a different thread, since I suppose it's off-topic for this one.</blockquote>

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