Unfortunately, this sounds like something is wrong with the receiver to me as well. Do you by chance have a way to borrow another receiver from a friend or buy one somewhere that you can take it back without a restocking fee? That would be the easiest way to rule out the receiver without making yourself nuts.
Also, to get through faster troubleshooting, I'd definitely recommend you call Axiom rather than waiting for Alan to respond here. He does check in regularly but I don't think he sees every post, so to speed things up, you might want to give them a ring.
Jason
