Scrambled or Bad Channel

Jiggy · #1 (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 10:25 PM

I have a Lifetime Ultra Receiver, just got it Sunday, hook it up and all chnls were working fine, when turned off at night and turned back ON next day i get nothing, did some kinda reset on my own and it came......then turned it off and back on again next day, now i get this message "Scrambled or Bad Channel"........

can anybody help me on this ??

DruzeTito · #2 (**permalink**) 12-07-2005, 12:01 AM

which satellite ?

Sadoun · #3 (**permalink**) 12-07-2005, 04:57 PM

"Scrambled or Bad Channel"...... means the channel is not an FTA channel and is only available by subscription.

wejones · #4 (**permalink**) 12-08-2005, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jiggy

I have a Lifetime Ultra Receiver, just got it Sunday, hook it up and all chnls were working fine, when turned off at night and turned back ON next day i get nothing, did some kinda reset on my own and it came......then turned it off and back on again next day, now i get this message "Scrambled or Bad Channel"........

Need more info re your setup. "Scrambled or Bad Channel" can mean what Sadoun said, and it could just be that you tuned to channels that were FTA, but changed back to encrypted, which is common for some channels, however if ALL your channels are like that, I'd guess it is something else. "Scrambled or Bad Channel" however can also mean other things. I get it all the time on channels that aren't scrambled. It can mean that it is locking on the signal, but that the PIDs aren't correct, which can happen for a number of reasons, such as if your LO freq gets changed or something and it is locking on a different signal than it thinks it is. I assume that if you just got the receiver, that you haven't overloaded the memory yet, but if you've done a lot of blind search scans, and your # of transponders gets higher than the maximum number, all sorts of weird things happen to the memory, the settings get changed, and the symptoms you describe become common.
First check to see if the settings for the sat and channel you're trying to receive have changed, such as the LNBF TYPE, LO freqs, the DiseqC settings if you're using a switch, and the freq, SR and PIDs of the channels. I've seen all these things change when the memory gets overloaded. If they have changed, you can change them back and it will work for a while, but you'll probably have to eventually do a factory reset then go in and delete all but one of the transponders on most sats, but particularly on sats that you don't use, and after deleting the transponders on those, delete the sats as well. I think the max # of transponders is something like 1200, and the Ultra comes with nearly that many, so it doesn't take long to overload the memory. Mine started behaving strangely and losing settings, and I checked, and I was up to over 1500 transponders. After I deleted all unused transponders and satellites, I got down to about 500 and everything was working fine then.

dougw1 · #5 (**permalink**) 12-18-2005, 11:03 AM

I have just set up my Fortec lifetime ultra receiver, and am on IA6.
I am tuned to 11865 V 3.516. I know this to be a free channel.
Some times during the program I will get "scrambled or bad channel". My real problem with this is unless I manually flip to another channel and then flip back this will not correct itself. Is there something I can set up to get my program back on without my intervention? I record this program at times when I'm not there during the day, and it is not possible to be there when this happens.

Sun -- p.m.
I did as was suggested in earlier post to jiggy, and eliminated some sats. and xponders... channel has stayed up all day with no interuptions, I guess that seems to be the solution. thnx. :mozilla_cool:

](*,) my mistake... we are having increasing instances of "scrambled or bad channel". The original question is how to have it reset itself? 8-[

wejones · #6 (**permalink**) 12-21-2005, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougw1

I have just set up my Fortec lifetime ultra receiver, and am on IA6.
I am tuned to 11865 V 3.516. I know this to be a free channel.
Some times during the program I will get "scrambled or bad channel". My real problem with this is unless I manually flip to another channel and then flip back this will not correct itself. Is there something I can set up to get my program back on without my intervention? I record this program at times when I'm not there during the day, and it is not possible to be there when this happens.

Sun -- p.m.
I did as was suggested in earlier post to jiggy, and eliminated some sats. and xponders... channel has stayed up all day with no interuptions, I guess that seems to be the solution. thnx. :mozilla_cool:

](*,) my mistake... we are having increasing instances of "scrambled or bad channel". The original question is how to have it reset itself? 8-[

I don't have an answer. I have seen this occasionally myself, but not very often. For example, I tuned in a PBS channel on AMC3 last Saturday, and it is still playing fine. I get the impression that the receiver must get some bad data that get's it confused, and it stays confused as long as the signal is still there, whereas if the signal goes away (ie by turning to another sat, not using Ultra) then comes back, the thing resets (I think).
While I don't know a cure, I think that the way to minimize this is to have a good quality signal, so that the receiver won't pick up corrupted data. In your example, you are watching a rather narrow transponder, and if your lnb drifts badly, you have your signal occasionally interrupted. I'd be curious whether you observe this behavior on wide transponders, ie those with higher SR values, like 15,000 or greater. On wide channels, I don't think that lnb drift is quite as significant.
If you find you only get the problem on narrow transponders, getting a more stable lnb might be your best bet. Also, if you don't have up to date firmware in the receiver, you might try upgrading the software, as Fortec may have addressed this issue.

dougw1 · #7 (**permalink**) 12-21-2005, 11:27 AM

thx for the help, I'll check to see what I can do about a better lnb. I had it forward in the mount, and set it back as per the basic instructions. ( When all else fails..yda..yda #-o ) that seems to be working today. and I'll check and see what Fortec has for updates.
:mozilla_smile: Merry Christmas.. :mozilla_smile: Doug

wejones · #8 (**permalink**) 12-21-2005, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougw1

thx for the help, I'll check to see what I can do about a better lnb.

I wouldn't spend money on new lnbf unless you only see this problem on the narrow signals, and even then, I'd research it carefully, as there are different kinds of lnbs. Some are more stable relative to freq drift, and some are more stable relative to phase noise. The digital lnbs can be pretty expensive, and they may not solve your problem, so I would only try that as a last resort. I had been using ten year old lnbs, and recently upgraded, and didn't see much improvement. What I got as an upgrade (lnb, not lnbf) did seem to help a bit on narrow transponders, but I lost sensitivity, so there may be tradeoffs.
I just didn't want my post to cause you to jump into spending money that might not help. I'd make sure your dish aim was optimized, and do some more experimentation re to which transponders give the problems before resorting to hardware replacement.