Sacramento HD Locals Losing Signal

[rrdupre]

Last night my wife and I were watching ABC primetime on the new HD Local sat station via our 622. We had so much pixilization, signal loss, and stuttering that the television program was unwatchable via the Sat signal and whole portions of the program were lost. The HD OTA reception was better, but still had an occasional drop-out. I have noticed this problem on all stations which Dish switched from SD to HD locals. (four stations in Sacramento). We have not had a problem prior and I have been using my 622/Dish 1000 since late February.

Eventually we gave up and switched to our 510 and watched in SD with no problems whatsoever.

I can't tell if the problem is a weak sat signal on the new HD stations, the 622 software, or the an improper signal from the local ABC HD signal provider. Any ideas how to trace this?????

 

[Jeff_R]

It's possible that due to our weather yesterday, Dish had some reception problems with the local OTA's. OTA digital stations are a bit more tricky to get tuned in, as E* is receiving them via OTA antenna.

I watched several shows via OTA last night, with no issues, so it shouldn't have been from the stations directly.

 

[teachsac]

I didn't watch ABC last night. But, I have noticed that ABC has been having technical issues with some shows lately. For example, about the first third of B.L.'s season finale was 4:3 on Tuesday and this was OTA. I notice that CBS seems to have a little stuttering/flow issue. Probably with the MPEG4 encoding.

 

[gbjbany]

BTW you can watch the SD channels on the 622 also, you just need to tune to the 863n 864n etc instead.
I have noticed a lot more issues with the hd channels agreed. Im also not sure what it is, i do get a weak signal message for one tuner on the details behind the system info screen. but it's rare,

 

[rrdupre]

Thank you all....this has not happened since. But, if it does, I will check the 86xx stations (sd local) on the 622 to see if I can trace this down to the 622 or the signal.

 

[chrisjs]

I am also having these issues on the new HD local feeds here in Portland, OR through dish. Fox got to the point last night that my wife was getting nervous watching AI. I switched to the SD channel and all was fine. Makes me wonder why I have a 70 inch screen when I have to watch SD. Comcast is looking better all the time...... I wonder if it is possible to break my 18 month commitment when the system fails daily???

 

[thechad708]

I live in Salt Lake City, I just got a DishNetwork 211 HD receiver and a Dish1000. I have noticed tons of pixelation,breakups and total losses of picture and sound on the SLC locals, Dish blames the Dish 1000 and says I need 2 dishes but if thats the case why am I not having problems with the VOOM stations? I am regetting leaving comcast if this quality continues.

 

[dougmcbride]

I usually watch locals OTA using Dish as a backup. Yesterday for grins, I thought I'd go check out the Dish version and see how they were looking. One station (KOVR - which is notorious in the Sacto area for being flaky) was crap - lots of pixelization, green screen on half the picture, etc.. I looked at the OTA version and it was pixelating all over the place although with 95 signal strength (KOVR's reputation is still intact ). So what I surmised I was seeing on the Dish channel was the result of their picking up the station OTA and what the result was after going through the MPEG encoding/decoding.

If you see the Dish HD local looking like garbage and have OTA capability, do a check and see what the station looks like OTA and see if there is any correlation. Would be interesting to see the results from around the country.

Doug

 

[techdood]

This time of the year is were I lose the cable company and focus exclusively to dish. I was about to take advantage of the HD locals on Dish Net, but I already receive them OTA. The only time where I'd consider them on DN is when there is a conflict of primetime programming. Having more OTA tuners would solve it, but having to use a satellite tuner will be second best. KOVR repeatedly has troubles and I've grown used to it now. Possibly moving my billing adress to the Bay Area will open up KPIX-5 so I wouldn't have a problem anymore.

 

[ArTT Vandelay]

I've noticed similar crapola

I'm in Sac as well, and get pixelation, etc. The other thing i notice is that when i'm watching an HD show and it's time for commercial, a lot of times the lead in or trailing few seconds of sound are lost as teh signal switches. kindof a pain. it hasn't been an issue beyond losing a couple seconds of a show yet, but i hope they work on getting it all straight.

 

[rrdupre]

Sat 110

I discovered that the locals are coming off of satellite 110 for which I only have a 68-71% signal strength. Seems that the Dish 1000 may not be angled correctly. I remember the installer having problems. He tuned 129, which seems to have had a negative impact on tuning 110. I am opening a service call.

 

[wtb955]

I strongly suspect these problems are "Receiver-Based" as I too am experiencing problems with the SF channels. Moreover, I've read in these threads of people in other areas experiencing the same problems. We can only hope Dish will get off of their Duff and fix the problems!

 

[rrdupre]

I have a technician coming to the house on Friday to investigate. With tech support help, we determined that 110 transponder 3 was not receiving a signal at all.

 

[sno543]

I am having issues too...

Even tonight. No clouds, no nothing. I DVR'd something on CBS HD and it is cutting in & out, lots of pixeling.

Question. I have a dish 1000. When going under "Point Dish", where it says what type of dish you have, does it matter what that says, whether it says 500 or super? Thanks.

 

[dougmcbride]

Question. I have a dish 1000. When going under "Point Dish", where it says what type of dish you have, does it matter what that says, whether it says 500 or super? Thanks.

I'd set it to a D500 for a D1000.

Doug

 

[sno543]

Thanks...

Thank you.

 

[rrdupre]

Installer came and discovered a bolt broke on the arm that holds the dish in place and that the on the LNB, the wrong bolts were used. So, he replaced all the parts and refocused the dish. I have no more signal issues on 110 and 119 and get a signal strength around 85-89%. But, he could not get a signal back on 129 which has the VOOM channels and one of my locals. It was a lowly 50% (minimum signal strength) before he showed up and now zero signal. After four hours of dinking around with the dish and then falling off my roof, the assesment was that my LNB which points to 129 is defective. Personally, I think the dish or the LNB arm is wacked (out of alignment) as the initial installer had a lot of problems tuning in 129. So, they are coming back this Saturday with a new LNB although I asked them to just put up a second dish and be done with it. This time I am insisting on them not climbing on the roof - my heart stopped when he hit the ground - luckly from a low point on the roof line.

Oh....also - Sac CBS is a bit of a mess....it's their Sac signal, not the satellite. I get the same pixellation and signal drops whether watching the OTA signal or the sat signal.

 

[rrdupre]

This will be my last post on the topic, but I thought some of you might want to know the final resolution. An experienced tech finally came to the house and replaced all my LNB's and repointed my dish 1000 in 30 minutes. I now get about a 65% signal on 129 which is much better than before and I can now say with confidence that any other signal problems are not related to the equipment at my house. Having said that, it seems that the local broadcasters are indeed having occasional problems with their signals. Drop outs/pixels, etc. are present on both the OTA HD and sat Local channels at the same time. However, the SD signal rarely has problems. My personal observation is that CBS 13 seems to have the most problems and FOX 40 (OTA only) seems to be the most reliable at this time. Thanks for all the ideas and feedback.