No Wonder Coolsats are getting such a bad rap!

[davidki]

OK, for 2 weeks I have been trying to get an answer from Coolsat requards to my problem with the reception of Over The Air Channel 4 (10 digital) on the ATSC side of the 8100hd. I have send this unit back 2 times and they completely ignore the issue. So, after several more emails I decided to contact them once again... I spoke with Jason, completly explained the issue and mentioned that I have sent the unit in for the same issue 2 previous times with repair cost of over $50.00. He said that he would talk to his engineers and get back to me.... well, the answer is, the receiver seems to have a bit of a problem, and if I wanted to send the unit back in for a 3rd time they could change the tuner again but it seems like "The tuner is not that good"..

I gathered all my notes, refferenced my previous RMa's and specific problem and today I get an email that I can again send the unit in, fill out their form, pay for shipping and pay them another $30.00 service charge...

This is crazy, this is a $400.00 receiver and the only answer is I can send it back in and pay them again..

I have been a good supporter of the brand, I have 2 CS7000's (which are currently door stops) and the 8100 hd with a faulty tuner.

I guess you can say my frustruation is startingn to show!

I guess that is why I can't find anyone on this site that has a working 8100hd and using it for ATSC over the air digital reception.

[buddyjh]

Uh a new cs8100 file came out this morning...and I hope you did a factory default or loaded latest factory file on that stb before sending it back.

[Jacques d'Boeuf]

lots of locals are N 3. so the ota tuner just got a lot more important. is your cable's shield connected to a grounding block? If you are using an indoor antenna this isnt important. static could be eating those tuners. there are also surge suppressors available to clean static up also

[davidki]

Buddy, I have not sent the unit back yet, I still hold firm, this is still the issue that I have had on both return trips to coolsat and they did not fix it then. I have all the documentation all they have to do is look at it. I kind of look at is as if it were your car,you buy a new car, the cd player does not play the whole disc. You take it in for service and pay a slight fee and then have to keep taking it back because it is not getting fixed so, why would I keep having to pay that fee?

What new CS8100?

Jacques, the cable is just fine, I can hook the same cable up to 3 other receviers (not coolsats) and the channels come in fine with 90%+ signal strenght on the other units. but, thanks for the suggetions, I will double check as well.

[davidki]

Ok, here is the deal... I had someone suggest another frequency to plug in manually and I got channel 4 now, great signal and quality. So, that problem is fixed.. but the issue I have is whey didn't the auto scan pick up the channel. The issue my have something to do with how the DTV channels are allocated, now, instead of 6 meg spacing the receiver has to see channels with in the channels.. so, I"m going to play around and see if I can come up with the answer and then tell the folks at Coolsat what I found because I'm sure others are having the same problem I had.. I know my brother had the same issue and I"ve told him the fix...

So, although this was not a defect it's something coolsat should be aware of and I will give them all the details to try to help them.

I appreciate everyones help here and I wanted to make sure I posted my results not things are working (and I have to tell you I love the PVR function of the 8100hd for true HD recroding of off the air channels).

[boboisno1]

Thanks for the update. I know you have given me some insight about this receiver that I had no idea about. Maybe in the future if I come across someone else with the same issues I can help them out by passing along your findings. Thanks.

[davidki]

Your welcome I am a fair person, if I have a problem I'll bring it up, if I solve it, I"ll let you know how... I love the coolsat quality, the picture is stunning. The ATSC tuner works great and I have a 500gb drive hooked up, so I can record all my Off the Air shows in true HD and watch it later in true hd rather than my TIVO that compresses the heck out of it.

I hope we see some mods for n3 in the future, but if it's just an ATSC tuner with the PVR function I'll be happy with that until something else comes along.

Now,what I would like to do is find out what format the CS7000 Hard Drive files are so I can encode the movies I have and put them on a hard drive and play them with my CS7000 as a media server.. so far, I have not figured that out but I'm working on it :-)