Satellite Dish Woes!

I've got Dish TV and after a year, it seems that the slightest wind or cloud cover interrupts my service. Just 5 minutes ago, a wind came up and I lost my signal. A couple of days ago, it rained heavily and my signal was lost for over half an hour.

Should I call and get the dish repositioned? Should I just accept it as an anomaly?

Marty

i don't have one, but from my experience at others houses that do, it takes a good thunder storm to cause you to loose a signal. which can get real annoying while watching something important. like hockey or football.

Marty. Go to the instalation menu and check your signal strength. It should be about 90. Unless you have a loose dish mount, it should not have moved. Look for trees or shrubs that may have grown up into the signal path and trim them. I have installed about six BUD's (Big Ugly Dish) and one DirectTv dish. The little one was so easy I thought I missed some step.

BTW, the only way a BUD loses a signal it to have it fill up with snow flakes.

sunspot..No snow here in L.A. but the signal strength was only 65 when I checked this A.M.

I called Dish and, because I lease the equipment, they will send someone out tomorrow to see what the problem is. There are no trees or other obstructions so the dish itself may have come loose.

Thanks for your help.

Marty

Originally posted by Marty Weiner:I lease the equipment

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If thats the case, by all means, call your providor. You should only lose your signal during violent storms.

I guess you don't use a hacker, aheem, test card.

Just as an FYI, I have the echostar system (Dishnetwork) and after about 3 years, the LNB unit itself went south. We get LOTS of icing during the winter, and after all the expansion due to water seepage, eventually some of the innards of the LNB becomes "detuned" and thus even the slightest drizzle of a cloudburst will cause an outage. Replaced the LNB and everything was as good as new. I knew that the dish didn't drift out of alignment as it is attached to the side of our house which is solid stonewall. Not going anywhere unless we get a quake or even worse, a "new-cue-lar" blast. (See sig line)

Ed.

Marty,

65 is low.

Remember, there are (I think) 32 transponders, and you have to get a good signal on all of them.

There are 32 "antennas" on the satalite, and you have to get a good (90+) on all 32 antennas.

Also, if wind knocks your sat out, your dish or something is loose. That dish should be rock solid.

Now while signal strength is important signal QUALITY is either YES or NO. You will not notice a "better" picture or "Better" sound with a 90 vs a 65 signal strength. Just letting you know that when you were watching TV, you were not missing out on anything.

Also, if "rain fade" affects you a lot, you can purchase an optional 24 or 30 inch dish. The bigger the dish, the more clouds and rain it takes to block the signal. People in seattle I hear use the larger dishes because of all the rain.

Also, just a general note, put the dish were it is easy for you to access. The satalite is 22,500 miles in space, putting the dish 2 feet or 20 feet off the ground makes no difference in the signal!

Marty: I have 2 Dishnetwork Satellites on the south side of my place. We had 90-105MPH winds up here two weeks ago. Still running 90 on one dish and 76 on the other (I am in a valley up in the hills, not too good for reception).

I used to lose a few channels last month until I bought a satellite multimeter ($15?). It just goes inline between the RG6 (somewhere next to the dish). It gets power from your receiver on the other end. All it does is measure voltage 0 - 15V (I think).

All you do is make sure the sytem is on and unscrew the dish and just adjust it until the multimeter reaches the max.

So much better than the old method of turning up the TV and listening for the strength sounds.

Only took 20 minutes to get both dishes to the best they can and I haven't experienced and lost channels and even after the 90 -105MPH winds, it's still working (haven't checked the signal strengths since then though).

Thank you all for your input. The bottom line is that I have 150 channels and even when the dish is working well, there's nothing worthwhile to watch anyhow.

Ed..I live in So. Cal. A "deep freeze" is in the 50's .

BuddTX..Your right. I either get a perfect picture or no picture at all.

axolotls..I don't lose some channels, I lose them all during these outages but I will talk to the technician about a multimeter. The dish is 30 feet off the ground and I'm not going up there!

LNB. Good thought. If you've had some nearby lightning strikes, that can either fry or degrade the LNB. I once has a 50' close strike that took out my LNB and receiver. Another time just the LNB.

I once lost only odd or even numbered transducers. Can't remeber which. In my case it was a reciever problem. I'm on the same Dual LNB that I got back when two reciever system of DSS cost me over $1200 bucks!!!

Last reciever I bought was like $65. What a difference some years make!

I lose signal in strong rain only. We had some bad wind last week and no problem.

To end this saga..Dish came out and replaced the switch (?) and my signal strength is up to 112! I don't know how someone who installed their own Dish could even detect the problem without paying for a service call and parts.

I'm glad that I leased this equipment instead of purchasing.

Marty

I'm glad to hear that you got good service and can now get a clear pic. I can't think of any switch that would cause the problem you had but what the hay, it's fixed.