Question about poor reception on only 1 channel

[OtmShank]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I did not know where else to go with it. About a week ago I noticed that my local Fox channel (Fox 61 out of Hartford) has been intermittently coming in very poorly on my DirecTV service. I have a dual LNB dish and two receivers, and when it is coming in poorly it does so on both receivers (on seperate TV's in seperate rooms). When I say it is coming in poorly, it has a fuzzy image with like triples of everything on the screen, kind of reminds me of the reception that you would get with an antenna back in the good ol' days. It might last like this for a couple of hours, then it just instantly will be normal. I would say over the last week it has been like this about 50% of the time. This is the only channel that is like this.

Any ideas? Should I just call DirecTV and see what they have to say?

 

[The Stone Man]

If that's the only channel where that happens then it is related to your local Fox station and not D*. The locals fiddle around with broadcast power and other engineering aspects quite a bit. Here in Denver, the local WB channel is like that. Sometimes there is no reception at all, and most of the time it is clear. It doesn't sound like you have a problem with D*, just sounds like the local station is 'tweaking' from time to time. Maybe a call to the local station would be in order when it happens again, and see what they have to say.

 

[gopherscot]

Fox

I had the same problem on my directTV system. It would be bad for a day then good for a day etc. What I got was double images and almost unwatchable. I called D* and finally it seems to be gone. I have local basic cable as well but the problem only appeared on the two Direct receivers. My advice is keep calling!

 

[sateck01]

local channels uplink problem

 

[charper1]

I had the same problem on my directTV system. It would be bad for a day then good for a day etc. What I got was double images and almost unwatchable. I called D* and finally it seems to be gone. I have local basic cable as well but the problem only appeared on the two Direct receivers. My advice is keep calling!

Most local affiliates are in bed with the cable industry 100% and would really prefer we didn't have access to locals or network programming via DBS. They consistently provide inferior local signals to DBS as compared to what the cable company can receive. Although I would also call my DBS company, I would send more complaints to the affiliate and the FCC regarding that affiliate and the NAB.

 

[silversurfer]

You might also try contacting the station engineer. My father-in-law is a station engineer and is very meticulous about ensuring the quality of what is broadcast. Most station engineers will be listed in the contact section of a stations website.

 

[ShadowEKU]

Here where i live we have been having the same sort of problem... I contacted the local station and they actually calle dme and explained what was going on. Unfortunately it is on D*s end and they have a tentative date scheduled to do a "Tower Climb" on D*'s reception topwer... if i remember its next month.

 

[Ely]

Same happens here in Miami with our local Univision station, most of the time the reception is pretty good but never like the rest of the channels though.