No Stereo Sound on FOX

[markmi300]

Hello All,

I'm a newbe to the forums with an issue I hope someone else has seen or have. Dish Network seems to think I'm the subscriber with this issue. It's been going on since August of 2007 and Dish Network has failed to resolve it.

This problem is isolated to FOX Detroit (WJBK) and occurs on all of my DISH recievers / DVRS (301, 510 & 625). According to the information I've been provided by Dish Network technical staff as well as my local FOX station, over the past summer, Dish Network implemented some changes to the way they broadcast the local signals. This has resulted in sporadic bad picture quality for channels 8033 and 2 and has also caused the loss of the stereo audio signal. All broadcast on those channels are now mono (FOX 2 WJBK only). Every other station appears to be coming in normally.

These are standard definition recievers and does not involve HD signals.

I called Dish Support on this for the first time in late July or early August time frame. I was told at that time that this has been a known problem since early July and Dish Network was working on it. After several weeks without a fix, I called back and was told I should call my local FOX station for a resolution. I talked to our local Detroit FOX station management. They told me that they are aware of the problem and it can only be resolved by Dish Network. According to the engineer at FOX-2 Detroit, Dish went from a Fibre broadcast signal to an over-the-air antenna signal during the summer of 2007 in an effort to cut cost.

I can receive stereo audio if I by-pass DISH and go with an antenna hook up, but the picutre quality sucks and I obviously loose my DVR capability. This also proves that the local FOX station is broadcasting in stereo.
Has anyone else experienced this or knows of this issue? Any helpful info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Mark

 

[kstuart]

Emaiil to:

DishQuality AT echostar DOT com

Please do not repost that email address anywhere else, and especially not as a clickable address link.

That address gets you in touch with the actual Dish engineers, who will give you the best support that you can get on channel quality issues.

I might add that in 2008, the perception is that someone who wants quality is going to want the HD feed of the channel, so that less effort and resources are put into SD feeds. Dish does carry the HD feed of that channel, by the way.

For example, in Southern Oregon, all networks broadcast in HD with 5.1 surround sound, while some of their SD feeds are still in mono - as they have been for decades...

 

[markmi300]

Thanks for the info


Thanks for the info. I had a voicemail yesterday from someone at Dish Technical Operations. He didn't leave a callback number, so hopefully he'll call me today. If I don't hear from him by end of day, then I'll send an email off to the address you gave me. Thanks again.

 

[T.A.C]

Is there anyone else experiencing the same issue on WJBK - FOX Detroit where they are not getting Stereo sound?

 

[markmi300]

Is there anyone else experiencing the same issue on WJBK - FOX Detroit where they are not getting Stereo sound?

I don't know anyone else that has DISH, but I did talk to one of the Dish Network retailers in the area. The only thing they would tell me is that they have had some complaints from their customers about FOX-2, but they weren't specific so I don't know if they were HD issues or the problem I'm experiencing. I did get a call back from the DISH Technical Operations today and he is going to personally work with me to try to find out where and what the problem is.

 

[markmi300]

Not sure if anyone is still reading this or not, but I haven't had any updates until now. The Executive Tech that has been working with me from Dish Network sent out one of their lead Service Technicians Saturday. Because of the amount of snow we had gotten a day before, he was not able to go on the roof, but just from observation, he believes my problem (which turns out to be isolated Damnit!) is due to the cabling to/from the Dish.

When I added the 625 DVR two years ago, the techs ran the additional feeds from the Dish to the room where the 625 is. Apparently, the proper way to do it was to run all the leads to a central location ground them and branch out to the various rooms from there.

He also mentioned that from what he could see from the ground, there may be some wear and degradation of the cables and connectors. He used a couple of technical terms, that for the life of me I can't remember now.

Provided we get decent weather, Dish Network is set to come out this weekend and re-do the installation which we hope should correct the problem.

One more note: He also mentioned that a great deal of the complaints / problems that he deals with in regards to the LOCAL stations are about FOX-2 reception. So having said that, even though my sound problem appears to be isolated to me (figures!) other subscribers have been complaining about poor reception (audio sync, video distortion).

I'll update everyone with what the final results are. Kudos to Thomas from Dish for following through and getting the proper people involved to work this problem.

Later

 

[markmi300]

Update: My Dish Network Rep was able to get one of their top Technicians out to my house Saturday to do the DISH re-install and upgrade to HD. They put in the new DISH, ran new cables to the house and swapped out any cables in the house that didn't meet code. After several hours of work, we were ready for the test on the existing 625 DVR and the new 722. The 722 HD channels came in crisp and clear. We toggled over to FOX-2 HD which was showing the movie RAW DEAL at the time. That had some nice sound separation so the test of whether I was getting a stereo signal from FOX-2 was evident. All looked good. However, when we went to FOX-2 Standard, low and behold --- MONO. So for tuner 1 that goes to my HD – 5.1 system, I can get stereo on FOX-2 HD, however the Standard signals to the other TV's are still mono. The 625 only picks up Standard so those signals are obviously mono as well. I can live with that since my main DVR viewing is on the HD – 5.1 setup. But I would still like to know what the root cause of this is. I don't like mysteries.

 

[markmi300]

Update to the Update:
GOOD NEWS. It has been confirmed that OTHER people in my area are experincing the same FOX-2 issue. So here's where the fun begins for Dish Network in trying to sort out where the issue is. I'll let you know when I hear something.

 

[markmi300]

Update# 3: Once it was established that other people in my area were having the Stereo issue (and just didn't report it), Dish was able to resolve the problem Tuesday. They have not disclosed what the actual problem was, but our area now has clear picture and stereo sound for FOX-2 on standard as well as HD broadcast. Yeah!