No, he went from the Sat. reciever to the vcr with coax cable. He did the same with the tv. Sat. reciever then to the tv. He tried both coax and RCA's. Worked fine like that, hooked to the tv. He went back to the vcr and poof. He has another vcr hooked up right now and it seems to be working. He hasn't tried to record from the dish yet, but so far so good. Maybe just a string of bad luck? Thanks for the input.