Possible power surge or lightning strike questions

Grumpy_Bob · Post by **Grumpy_Bob** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:37 pm

We had either a power surge or a lightning strike last weekend. Now my SIR-t165 can only get NBC on the digital side. All the analog stations are fine. TBS-DT, CBS-DT, and FOX-DT are "no signal" and ABC-DT causes the receiver to reboot over and over.

Is there any chance it's just the signal amp that got fried, since I can still get NBC? It would seem odd to me that the receiver would only burn out on certain channels, and others would be fine.

In other words, when a receiver gets fried, do you lose everything? And if so, does my problem lie upstream in the signal path?

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:46 pm

Interesting - did you try rebooting the receiver? If you remember that NBC is VHF (channel 10) and all the rest are UHF then either your UHF tuner is fried or (if you're using one) maybe the pre-amp UHF side is fubar'd.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:52 pm

Grumpy,

Check your antenna condition by using NTSC instead. If you have done this before you will know right away if you have a problem.

It sounds like you lost the UHF band since our NBC is VHF. Yes, that is a separate part of a tuner and you can only lose one section.

Crossing my fingers for you...

Grumpy_Bob · Post by **Grumpy_Bob** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:48 pm

I'll have to double check when I get home tonight (I'm on the night shift), but I can get UPN-DT, which is 43 (I think) and as far as NTSC, they are all fine. A little fuzzy, but they are "there".

Yes, I rebooted many times, and yes, I tried to rescan for all channels.

Thanks for the replies... I know I haven't been around for a while. The funny thing is, the reason I haven't been on the boards is that the whole system has been working so well, I've just been enjoying it without giving it a second thought!

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 7:00 pm

I've just been enjoying it without giving it a second thought!

Cool

Nice hearing from you though...

Geez, sounds like you may have lost your STB if the NTSC reception has not changed.

kq6qv · Post by **kq6qv** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:52 pm

Bob- You might have to rescan once with the antenna disconnected to get the unit to forget everything it thinks it knows. If it still thinks it has some digital channels, you should delete them manually from memory, then reboot and rescan with an antenna connected. -Ken

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 7:49 pm

whoops... both Allen and I missed that one...

Thanks Ken!

Grumpy_Bob · Post by **Grumpy_Bob** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:54 pm

That sounds simple enough. I can try that Thurday morning.

Funny thing though, CBS at 19-1 started flickering in last night. It's almost like I'm in multipath hell. I'm wondering if the selectivity (I think that's what one of you called it once) has been damaged.

Hmm. So what's the current "hot" STB that will do: OTA, standard cable, component AND RGB out. I've really enjoyed the SIR-T165 but it may be dead.

BTW, the house alarm guy was there today to replace all the door and window triggers. Every single one of them was fused shut internally, and the teeny resisters in the control box were literally blown apart - the insulators with the little colored lines were shattered and missing. Certainly looks like a lightning strike. I don't have any outlets burned and the PD box is fine, so I'm thinking it was not a direct hit, but rather a near miss with a field effect that was picked up by the alarm signal wires... and my antenna... which IS grounded. At least the house didn't burn and nobody got hurt.

Grumpy_Bob · Post by **Grumpy_Bob** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:58 am

The "unplug the cable and search" method delivered the same results.

The good news, is that I borrowed back my old SIR-T151 and set it up, with the exact same results. That would certainly suggest that it's not the STB at fault.

So I figure it's either the pre-amp or the antenna, with strong suspicion towards the pre-amp.

However, CAN an antenna be damaged in such a way that it looks fine from the ground, but only pulls in certain stations? Keeping in mind that all of the analog stuff comes in fine, it pretty much has to be the cheapo RS pre-amp, right? Anyway, it's a good excuse to upgrade to the Channel Master pre-amp. Which model is the current favorite for use with a combo-style antenna, keeping in mind that I may end up with a 4228 in the near future?

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:15 am

CM 7777. Probably a good upgrade even if that's not the problem, but given the troubleshooting info I'd say it's a 95% chance that will fix it.