Hidden Secret Service Menu in Dish TV DTH Set Top Box

Hidden Secret Service Menu in Dish TV DTH Set Top Box

There are many DTH (Direct-To-Home) television service providers in India such as Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance Big TV, Videocon D2H, Sun Direct, etc and Tata Sky and Dish TV are the most popular brands among them.

In past we have shared a secret trick to access hidden service menu in Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV Set Top Box which allows you to setup LNB, format hard disk, perform master reset and much more:

Revealing Hidden Secret Service Menu in Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV DTH Set Top Box

Today its turn of Dish TV. Last week my cousin sister got a new Dish TV connection. It was an HD+ connection i.e. the set top box provides a few HD (high-definition) channels and also allows to pause, rewind, record live TV channels.

When the service guys finished installation of dish antenna, she asked me to check the quality of new connection and adjust various built-in settings. When I was looking into menus, I found an interesting menu "Utility" present in STB Info -> Setup section. When I tried to open the menu, it asked for a password.

I tried various password combinations such as 0000, 1234, 12345, 123456, 1111, etc but none of them worked. I was not able to access the Utility menu. I contacted Dish TV customer care and asked them about the password but as usual they had no idea about it. Then I contacted one of my friends who works in Dish TV and he told me the correct password. When I entered the password, I was able to access a hidden secret service menu in Dish TV set top box which was quite similar to Tata Sky service menu.

So today in this article, I'm going to tell you the correct password of Utility menu present in Dish TV set top box settings which will help you in accessing a secret service menu.

I'll also tell you a secret trick to change home transponder frequency of Dish TV to watch FTA (Free-To-Air) channels or to use Dish TV in places where you don't receive NSS-6 satellite signals.

If you are a Dish TV user, you'll definitely love it.

1. Open Dish TV settings and go to Help tab. Now open STB Info option as shown in following image:

 2. It'll open a new page where some information is shown related to Dish TV STB. Now press Red button on your remote to enter into STB Setup screen.

 

 3. It'll open "Installation Main Menu" screen where you'll find various menus such as Home frequency, LNB Setup, Forced software upgrade, Restore factory settings, etc.

3.A. To Change Dish TV Home Transponder (TP) Frequency:

Select "Home Frequency" option and it'll show a list of all Dish TV TPs. By default Dish TV doesn't allow you to modify transponder values but there is a hidden secret code to edit TP settings. Select any TP using the up/down buttons and press 9523 buttons on your remote quickly. It'll open a secret screen which will allow you to enter new values for the transponder. You can enter any desired frequency and other TP details for example you can enter DD Direct+ (aka Free Dish) TP details to watch its FTA channels. Once you enter correct parameters, you should get good signal quality and strength for that TP. Save the changes and exit from the screen. Dish TV STB will restart and now you can perform channel search. It'll add all channels available on your selected transponder. Before modifying transponder values, make sure to write down old default values so that you can restore them later.

3.B. To Access Hidden Secret "Utility" Menu:

Among all options present in "Installation Main Menu" screen, you'll find Utility option present at 7th position. Try to open it and it'll ask for password. The correct password of Utility menu is 86427531. Enter the password and now you'll be able to open Utility menu.

 Utility menu contains following 2 options:

• Download
• Format Hard disk

I have no idea what the "Download" option does. It might be possible that this option was put to download and install latest firmware of Dish TV set top box but I'm not sure.
"Format Hard disk" option will format the USB device attached to set top box which is used to record TV programs.
Please keep in mind that both these options don't ask for confirmation. If you select any option, it'll immediately start performing its action. So think twice before selecting any option.

That's it. If you are a Dish TV DTH subscriber, feel free to test the password and service menu and share your feedback in your comment...