Help: Sudden Loss of Signal

[SonOfSpaz]

[Problem Solved] Help: Sudden Loss of Signal

I've had DirecTV since January of 2004. The picture has been splendid except during unusally bad storms. I reside in an apartment in the Cleveland, Ohio (44121) area. The dish is secured to the top of the building. I use a dual-tuner Philips DSR-704.

Late yesterday afternoon, around 4 P.M., the screen went black and I received a message that said something along the lines of "Searching for a signal on Sat. 1 and Sat 2". This message persisted throughout the night. The next morning, I flipped on the TV and saw a message saying something along the lines of "recorder trying to download signal from satellite". For some reason, the dish was not able to connect to the satellite.

I tried all of the trouble-shooting suggestions. I made sure everything was correctly plugged in. I unplugged the unit for five minutes and then plugged it back in. Still, the dish could not pick up a signal. I climbed the ladder to the top of the roof and examined the dish. It appeared to be securely in place. There was absolutely no play on the dish whatsoever. It seemed to be in the precise location as when it was installed by the professional installers.

I examined the azimuth, elevation, and tilt configurations on the dish and they seemed very close (practically exact) to the recommended configurations. I am able to still watch shows recorded on the DVR, but nothing else.

As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing (dish, connections, etc.) has changed.

I called DirecTV and they said it would cost $70 for a service call. In my opinion, that's pretty outrageous. I pay $50 a month for programming and I never had to pay for a service call when I had cable.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be preventing the dish from picking up a signal? I've tried all the troubleshooting suggestions (including pulling the card out and then putting it back in).

This whole experience is really turning me off to DirecTV.

Below is a thumbnail of my dish on the rooftop:

 

[Rancid1]

Is that the only reciever that you have? If you have another try connecting it to test if your reciever died, Or try connecting your (bad) reciever to a confirmed working line ( even at a neighbor's house if need be ). The problem may lie in the reciever and not your cabling. Which would be cheaper to replace than paying for a service call.
Also your signal strength is showing 0 on all transponders on all 3 satalites, correct?
(i'd hope the csr already went over those two questions with you)

The $70 is charged since DTV is contracting a company to come out and service your equipment where as your cable company was coming out to service their own equipment (or even contracting someone else to service their own equipment). The price is so high as it is a general fee to cover most every possible situation unless you request custom work be done by the technician.

 

[peano]

Sounds like a bad tuner in the receiver or bad LNB.

 

[SonOfSpaz]

In response to Rancid1's questions, yes, it is the only receiver I have. I am not able to try my receiver at a neighbor's house. Yes, the signal is 0 on all three transponders on all three satellites.

I checked the warrenty on my DVR/DirecTV receiver and it says I've got one year. So, I'm still within in that timeframe. I reviewed the contract I signed with the original installer contracted by DirecTV (Bluegrass Satellite) and it says that I need to call them if I have a problem. Either way, this is costing me a lot of loot. This should be reliable equipment and a reliable service. And it is certainly not that.

If anyone else has any ideas, I'd be interesting in hearing them. Thank you for responding and I'll be sure to post updates as developments unfold.

 

[wobbie]

May be a dumb question, but did you check the cable lines from the dish to the reciever? I've seen other installers go to apartments and figure that the existing dish was'nt being used and just ran cables from the ground block to the the new location instead of installing a new dish. Dumb, but true.

 

[SonOfSpaz]

Okay, my signal has returned.

In a last ditch effort, I climbed to the roof to triple-check the alignment of the satellite dish. As I mentioned earlier, the dish was still securely in position with absoultey no play. It had been professionally installed. I visually checked the elevation and tilt settings and they were very close to the required configurations.

The tilt was dead on at 62 degrees. I didn't touch that. The elevation was a bit trickier. The gauge on one side of the LNB Arm/Antenna Back Assembly had a different measurement than the gauge on the other side. Both measurements were about 2 to 4 degrees off of recommended elevation. I loosened the bolts and moved the gauge measurement to the recommended 34 degrees. So, it registered correct on one side of the back assembly, but was a little off on the other side.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought a compass that had azimuth indicator. It was a bit difficult to figure out the exact azimuth of the dish. My best guess was that the dish was off maybe 15 degrees or so. I had a friend stand on the roof with a cell phone to adjust the azimuth. I called him and reported back the level of signal strength that I was seeing on the televison.

He moved the azimuth and a satellite signal was detected. The signal varied and wasn't detected on Sat B (119) trans. 23-31. He was getting really cold on the roof, so I figured we should switch postions and would try my hand with the azimuth. He came inside and I went to the roof. It took about 10 minutes to switch positions. By the time I made it to the roof, he indicated to me via cell phone that the signal was now coming in loud and clear. I waited for the entire system to get synced up (which it did successfully) and came back inside. Everything appeared normal.

So, my signal has returned. I needed to adjust the dish. I'm very confident that the dish wasn't disturbed by anything because it was very securely in place on the roof. I'm guessing that maybe the original installation was incorrectly done and the dish was set at the wrong coordinates. Perhaps the satellites position in space changed very slightly and didn't affect those dishes that were aligned correctly, but only affected those dishes that were "barely" configured correctly. I don't know for sure. That's my best guess. I just can't belive that anything (man, animal, wind) knocked my dish out of whack because roof access is very tough to get. The dish also has a very clear unobstructed view of the Southern sky. So nothing grew or was built to obstruct the signal.

I saved myself a $70 service call and the certain aggravation of dealing with the predictably unreliable satellite installer. I also learned that Satellite technology is more fragile than I figured. I'm a bit concerned about the dish now. I'm really hoping that it stays in alignment.

This story ended well for me, but I'm sure it would have ended differently for someone older, like a senior citizen (who could not get easy access to the dish) or for a technophobe who wouldn't be able to understand and printout the installation instructions.

Thanks everybody for your input. I appreciated it.