G7503 No Signal

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steveyWN

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#63272 23-Jun-2010 20:21

Terrible time for this to happen when I want to watch the All Whites in HiDef.......Had this decoder (same as Zimwell, I think) since '08 Olympics, and has worked fine right up until now. All of a sudden it's saying "No Signal." Thinking it must be an aerial problem, I bought an indoor UHF Aerial. Checked the RF cable is plugged in firmly. Still No Signal. Nothing has changed to the outside aerial though, so I am lost for ideas. Has worked fine for almost 2 years, and this problem has only occurred now. Any ideas?

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1961 posts

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#345541 26-Jun-2010 16:22

Not sure where you are but I'm North Shore, Auckland with same problem and same box which I installed 2 years ago. All been going fine til about a couple of weeks back. All of a sudden "No Signal" during daytime but reappearing late afternoon. Likewise I figured antenna problem and found it wasa bit corroded. Installed new antenna about 2m higher up and RG6 coax. No significant improvement in signal strength and quality but do get a picture most of the time. I'm now considering the problem may be at the Transmitter end as the antenna is direct line of sight at 18km.

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B1GGLZ

1961 posts

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#345991 28-Jun-2010 11:29

It's got progressively worse over the weekend (no signal and only occasional Strength and quality bars below 50% this morning) so I've decided to bin it and get a new one but not from DSE this time. Looks like the box has been deteriorating for some time. Maybe last year's lightning strike which killed the DVD Recorder started it's demise?

cyril7

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#346021 28-Jun-2010 12:52

Interesting, I have had two customers with Zinwells in the past week that complained of no signal, checked the with my field strength meter all seemed good, tried with another brand STB all good. So maybe it is an issue with the signal itself and the way the Zinwells are decoding.

Cyril

graemeh

2078 posts

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#346030 28-Jun-2010 13:33

steveyWN: Terrible time for this to happen when I want to watch the All Whites in HiDef.......Had this decoder (same as Zimwell, I think) since '08 Olympics, and has worked fine right up until now. All of a sudden it's saying "No Signal." Thinking it must be an aerial problem, I bought an indoor UHF Aerial. Checked the RF cable is plugged in firmly. Still No Signal. Nothing has changed to the outside aerial though, so I am lost for ideas. Has worked fine for almost 2 years, and this problem has only occurred now. Any ideas?

Time to take it back to DSE and make them fix it. It's unacceptable that a box costing probably $400 at the time you bought it should totally fail within two years.

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

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#346253 29-Jun-2010 10:16

graemeh:
steveyWN: Terrible time for this to happen when I want to watch the All Whites in HiDef.......Had this decoder (same as Zimwell, I think) since '08 Olympics, and has worked fine right up until now. All of a sudden it's saying "No Signal." Thinking it must be an aerial problem, I bought an indoor UHF Aerial. Checked the RF cable is plugged in firmly. Still No Signal. Nothing has changed to the outside aerial though, so I am lost for ideas. Has worked fine for almost 2 years, and this problem has only occurred now. Any ideas?

Time to take it back to DSE and make them fix it. It's unacceptable that a box costing probably $400 at the time you bought it should totally fail within two years.

I agree. If you have the receipt take it back and demand action under the Consumer Guarantees Act.

My problem is solved with the arrival of my new HDT HD801S this morning which is installed and working perfectly.

The old DSE Box reports "no signal" all the time now since I removed it to a cooler operating environment. It only gets a picture when extremely hot. If I could find the receipt I would return it and make a claim as "not fit for the purpose"! Judging from what I've researched and read in Forums in the last few days the DSE and Zinwell boxes (both the same) appear to be products to avoid. Mine had been causing occasional pixellation and dropout problems since new but just thought that was normal as I had nothing to compare it with. It has obviously been below par since new.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

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#346278 29-Jun-2010 11:06

steveyWN: Terrible time for this to happen when I want to watch the All Whites in HiDef.......Had this decoder (same as Zimwell, I think) since '08 Olympics, and has worked fine right up until now. All of a sudden it's saying "No Signal." Thinking it must be an aerial problem, I bought an indoor UHF Aerial. Checked the RF cable is plugged in firmly. Still No Signal. Nothing has changed to the outside aerial though, so I am lost for ideas. Has worked fine for almost 2 years, and this problem has only occurred now. Any ideas?

Have you had any other appliances die recently?
One poster above has commented that a power surge has taken out his DVD recorder... and may have done damage to his STB at the same time.
You 'may' be in the same boat?

Just speculating on the reason for the products death.

steveyWN

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#346366 29-Jun-2010 14:28

Thanks for all your replies, folks.......Unfortunately I can't find my receipt, so I can't take it back to DSE. It's almost 2 years old anyways......I suspect it would be out of its warranty period.......I'm guessing a 12 month warranty on these boxes. I'm in Petone Bigglz, and I am in line of sight with the transmitter on Mt Kau Kau.......as the crow flies, probably only about 3 or 4 kilometers. No, I haven't had any power surges or anything like that. In any case, the box hasn't "died" as such........it still works. It's just that it's reporting "no signal." I think reading from some of your comments, it's time to buy another one, and this time not a Zinwell.

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

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#346379 29-Jun-2010 15:03

steveyWN: Thanks for all your replies, folks.......Unfortunately I can't find my receipt, so I can't take it back to DSE. It's almost 2 years old anyways......I suspect it would be out of its warranty period.......I'm guessing a 12 month warranty on these boxes. I'm in Petone Bigglz, and I am in line of sight with the transmitter on Mt Kau Kau.......as the crow flies, probably only about 3 or 4 kilometers. No, I haven't had any power surges or anything like that. In any case, the box hasn't "died" as such........it still works. It's just that it's reporting "no signal." I think reading from some of your comments, it's time to buy another one, and this time not a Zinwell.

If you know where and when you bought it take it back anyway. Although I can't find my receipt I emailed DSE Customer Support with my details of the fault and Date of Purchase (28 Apl 2008 recorded on my VISA statement) and where purchased claiming replacement under the Consumer Guarantees Act. They replied swiftly asking me to take it in to my nearest store for assessment. I live in hope.

graemeh

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#346386 29-Jun-2010 15:31

They will probably just give you a replacement unit.

I saw Harvey Norman pricing these at $188 on the weekend. I don't think they will be on the market for much longer now that pretty much all new TVs seem to have built in HD Tuners.

BlakJak

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#431042 25-Jan-2011 14:37

For the record my MIL's unit - same model - has had exactly the same fault come up. Unit is 2 years old almost to the day, it began playing up a few months ago and now is solidly broken nomatter how many times you reset it. That is, no RF reception indicated at all, despite good RF passing through to the TV as FTA broadcast.

I visited DSE on the weekend, they told me to ring Head Office Service Dept during the week.

Done this, was asked to email them the story.

That was yesterday, nothing heard as yet. Am hoping to use CGA to have DSE remediate this, my MIL can't afford to replace her FreeviewHD unit every 2 years due to crappy quality! She's a retired benificiary who is not technically literate, it's not fair on her.
Hoping DSE will come to the party while i'm down in Welly to help MIL sort it.

No signature to see here, move along...

BlakJak

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#435627 5-Feb-2011 12:14

For the record DSE head office followed up with me after about 3 days, told me to have the unit returned to the local store, and to speak with the Manager as a CGA issue;

DSE store took the item in as if for a warranty service;

Head Office chased up with me a couple of times to get the detials so they could expedite attention (v.good!).

Within a couple of days MIL advised that she'd been contacted and that the unit was to be replaced, and with a newer model since the G7503 has been superceded.

Aside from an initial cockup (store, when calling MIL, didn't ask her to bring all the ancillary bits that were not sent away; she had to go back home and get them before they'd exchange the unit (repairs dont usually want all the other bits; however replacement requires them)) however once this was sorted not only did she get a newer unit, but she got a $12 refund (cost difference).

Havn't laid eyes on the new box yet (now i'm back in Auckland) but SIL set it up for her the other day and it's all working. So DSE's service department get 5 stars, DSE Queensgate only get 4 due to the communications error.... still a good resolution, and worth pursuing if others have similar issues.

No signature to see here, move along...

tristanb

89 posts

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#435957 6-Feb-2011 18:44

I have also had my DSE Freeview box play up like that. The first time was around October, when I lost the Kordia mux (Prime TV etc) but kept everything else. This self-corrected after about a month or so.

In the last few weeks we have lost both the Kordia mux and the TV3/C4/etc. TVNZ still works perfectly.

I wonder if the tuner in the box is what is broken. The reception is still perfect for VHF on analog TV. When I doa manual scan of channels the signal flickers between nothing at 80-90%.

I mentioned my October problem in another forum but never got to the bottom of what was causing it. I have moved to another aerial plug in the house - away from any other electronics which may be distracting it, but it's the same thing.

It's either our apartment aerial (which I doubt because I the high quality TVNZ digital and analog signal) or the box itself. Like most of us, our set-top box is out of warranty.

richrdh18

208 posts

Master Geek

#435969 6-Feb-2011 19:11

Same here, i had a DSE freeview box and a few weeks ago it started playing up, the picture started pixellating or breakingup, then one day, no signal.

Called an TV antenna guy in, he found that the balum on the UHF aerial was rusted out, replaced that, no problems with the picture since then. Great signal strength etc, still DSE box not working.

This was all a prompt to move to a Magic TV box, excellent unit, simple setup with more capacity than MySky, just recorded the whole NZI Sevens, to re-live later on.

tristanb

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#437873 10-Feb-2011 17:21

My problems were a false alarm about the STB.

The landlord's fixed the aerial, and our reception problems are now gone. It's interesting that we could still get perfect TV1 in HD (538MHz), but TV3 (570MHz) and Prime (666MHz) were completely gone. I guess that's just the all-or-none nature of digital TV.

Jaxson

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#438191 11-Feb-2011 10:02

tristanb: The landlord's fixed the aerial, and our reception problems are now gone. It's interesting that we could still get perfect TV1 in HD (538MHz), but TV3 (570MHz) and Prime (666MHz) were completely gone. I guess that's just the all-or-none nature of digital TV.

Remember there are 3 muxes on terrestrial TV / freeview HD and they are all on different frequencies. An aerial will work best over a certain frequency range and as it starts to fail then it's possible it will begin to drop off performance on one of the muxes before the others.

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