# Bolt Tuner Issues



## COseminative (Feb 8, 2020)

We've been running a Bolt for a couple of years as a cord cutter with an outdoor antenna, and it worked flawlessly until about 5 months ago. Suddenly we could not get a signal on Ch 7. Then a few weeks later we started getting significant noise on other channels in the higher VHF range, and eventually they became virtually unwatchable. We put a 10db amp on the antenna and it improved things slightly, but still had noise. We then tried connecting the Bolt cable directly to the TV set and it worked perfectly on all channels and we discovered several new channels. We had the same result with a second 2012 era TV. We also ran the diagnostics on the tuners, and #2 does have a somewhat higher S/N ratio, but we can still watch the same channels on it as on the others. Has anyone else had this kind of problem?


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## LarryAtHome (Feb 18, 2008)

I had lost my ch10 when I moved my BOLT to another location. A Channel Master LTE filter fixed it for me, as it turned out to be an issue with LTE interference. There are 2 versions with the same model number as the filter cut off point was changed for the recent channel selloff. Like you, when the antenna was connected directly to the TV, the channels were fine. It was just the BOLT that was sensitive to the LTE interference.


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## COseminative (Feb 8, 2020)

Thanks for your suggestion. Since we had some new cell tower installs last fall getting ready for 5G, your suggestion seemed to be a good one. Unfortunately, the filter didn't improve things noticeably, and we still had several missing channels in the upper VHF spectrum. It now appears that perhaps tuner 2 (actually #1 in the diagnostics) is the issue. More testing by moving things around and recording at the same time may yield more insight on the problem.

Update 2-15-2020 - turns out all the tuners behave essentially the same - it seems that all of the upper VHF band from chs 7 13 are either marginal or unwatchable. Yet with the same signal, the Panasonic TV shows signal levels between 92% and 100% and there is no noise displayed.


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## washerebefore (Jul 28, 2014)

I'm noticing a similar issue. Seams when I connect the Antenna cable to back of TV I get more channels. The channels do come in with the use of a much larger antenna on the Tivo Box. But the tuner built into the TV works fine with any of my 3 antennas.. It seams the DIGITAL tuner built inside the Bolt is just not as good. I tried this with 2 TV's just to be sure and 3 different antennas. The TV's all ok. Tivo needs way too much signal to get same channels. You would think a $99.00 32inch TV would not work that good but with the price o) They also need too fix the reboot issue with DTV signal scan.


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## COseminative (Feb 8, 2020)

It turns out that apparently the tuner(s) had gone bad on the TiVo, which is hard to explain, as my understanding is that they are digital tuners on a chip???

However, another TiVo in the same configuration works like a champ, and gets nearly all the same channels as we get directly on either TV. Now the challenge is to get the TiVo Minis on 2 other TVs to recognize the different Bolt. Two steps forward, one back - at least it's not the other way.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

What's your ODT on the bad BOLT? It seems to me that over time many BOLT tuners are getting cooked. Your report is not the first like this. Is the coax connector VERY hot when you touch it?

Best,
craigr


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## COseminative (Feb 8, 2020)

I keep seeing the acronym ODT - I presume it has something to do with temperature of the box. In any event, yes the box did get pretty warm as it was mounted on a shelf near the top of the room, and that may well have done it in, although the hard drive seemed to be just fine. Thanks for your input.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

ODT is On Die Temperature. My signature has a link to many abbreviations. Also see: TiVo Holiday Trade-In, Trade-Up Sale: trade in your Roamio OTA/VOX (plus $299.98) for a Bolt OTA post 32


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