Service Restored to 129 Satellite!

[charlesrshell]

This is a good example for everyone with out OTA to think about setting it up. You would be surprised what a nice reception you might get with just rabbit ears connected. I installed a small OTA antenna in my attic and pull in 100% signal for local channels over 20 miles away. The HD quality is better than the local channels going through the satellite. It is nice to have a backup during fade out or satellite situations like we all just went through. Plus, it sure is nice to be able to record four channels at the same time. Has kept my a-- from hot water with the wife many times.

 

[EricfromTx]

HD Locals are back on in Deep South Texas via 129.

 

[bchandler02]

OKC Locals confirmed back online, all timers (OTA) restored themselves no problem.

 

[charlesrshell]

And frees up the satellite tuners when use OTA. I never record my hd locals over satellite.

For two of my 722ks I have the timers set the same. One of them I have the local timers thru OTA and the other 722k I have the local timers thru the satellite. I always try thinking of having backups to problems that might develop.

 

[dfergie]

I did a power button reboot to refresh my guide info (HD Locals was only showing 2 hour windo of info)...

 

[KazooGuy]

So now that everything seems back to normal, are we going to hear some kind of statement from Dish or SES explaining what the hell happened and/or what Dish is going to do to make it up?

Why do you feel they need to have something made up? You were minimally inconvenienced at most. I have an OTA antenna and never missed any of my locals and easily received every channel I was suppose to, in SD, but I missed NOTHING!

 

[Mr Tony]

I did a power button reboot to refresh my guide info (HD Locals was only showing 2 hour windo of info)...

mine did too but now it shows out a week....and no reboot needed

 

[jerryez]

They are not raising our rates until Jan 2013, but in 2013 will raise rate 10% to make up for lost revenue.

 

[ekilgus]

Why do you feel they need to have something made up? You were minimally inconvenienced at most. I have an OTA antenna and never missed any of my locals and easily received every channel I was suppose to, in SD, but I missed NOTHING!

Agreed. The fact that the channels are back is enough for me. Any inconvenience to me was very minimal.

 

[DustoMan]

So is this website a place we should be looking to get the official word from DISH about outages and resolutions? I mean, besides here of course.
DISH Network - DISH Signal

 

[Colorado_Al]

it will probably be fixed today still. Scott mentions they need to verify the spotbeams are covering what they're suppose to before re-uplinking HD locals

So the problem was an alignment issue?

 

[harshness]

So the problem was an alignment issue?

I prefer to use the term "orientation" with respect to satellites. Alignment sounds like something that needs to happen with your dish.

 

[Mr Tony]

So the problem was an alignment issue?

not necessarily. But when there is an issue at the satellite Dish wanted to make sure that the spotbeams were in the correct spot. Scott mentioned it earlier today
But all the HD locals on 129 are back so its a moot point now

 

[bhelms]

It just so happened today around noon pacific time I went out to cut a couple of limbs that might have caused me some problems in the future on my 129 dish. I came back in and turned on the tv and had a screen that said I had a signal loss. After about 4 hours of rebooting, resetting, changing out LNB's and climbing up and down ladders about twenty times I call the repairman and am told 129 is down for the count. How about that for sh!tty luck.

I share (somewhat) your pain! I have a marginal LOS issue w/ 129 and have done a bunch of cutting in the past, even with the help of a "surgeon". I have been on my roof many times with a cheap signal meter trying to peak that dish. Last week I lost most of 129 for almost the whole week due to heavy clouds/rain fade resulting from TS Lee, but that was restored over the weekend. During that week I was getting tired of seeing the "Complete Signal Loss" screen, but the channels were all still in my PG. Last evening at about 10 PM was the first I noticed I had more HD problems. (Prior to that I had been watching a program I recorded in SD hence my delay.) I was looking for another favorite program but couldn't find the HD channel, only the SD version. Took me a while to realize almost ALL HD channels were gone from the PG! (D'uuhhh!) I figured it had to be something different than the usual LOS problems which heretofore never affected my PG, so I went through some basic "Installation" steps including Check Switch. When it reported "fewer channels than before", I canceled-out. Eventually I took a flashlight outside and took a peek at my 129 dish to make sure the squirrels hadn't made a nest in it or something. I pushed-back a potentially offending small tree that is very close to the dish and propped it back with a post, getting exactly what I expected - no change. I was actually contemplating another journey to the roof to check connections (last week I was thinking that moisture from all the rain we got was causing issues and had already contemplated that eventuality) but I was too tired and it was already ~11PM so I decided against it figuring I'd just take an aspirin and call Dish in the AM. I headed back inside to bed, falling asleep to another SD program. Voila!, the channels were back when I arose.

Sometimes no action achieves the best results for those who are patient...or in my case too tired to do otherwise...!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Bhelms,

Lesson learned... always check SatelliteGuys FIRST.

 

[whitewolf8214]

I always check satellite guys first after the trouble started i checked here before trying to call dish ty scott and the dirt team members that kept us up to date yesterday last night and today

 

[SmokeJumper]

Everything should be fixed now, if you are still missing channels, please let me know


Thank you all for your patience

Are ALL the HBO, STARZ etc etc back? We see only ONE of each -- East Coast feeds or so it appears. Had a handful of both HBO & STARZ before the "oops" took place.... again, the old battle-ax says we only have ONE of each now at 10:32 a.m. MDT.

THANK YOU KINDLY ............ she's driving me nutso!

 

[SmokeJumper]

I prefer to use the term "orientation" with respect to satellites. Alignment sounds like something that needs to happen with your dish.

Or the front end on the old truck!

 

[cosmo_kramer]

No details here:

Dish Network experiences major outage - CNN.com

 

[eacalhoun]

Bhelms,

Lesson learned... always check SatelliteGuys FIRST.

I agree with all that's been said throughout this thread about "check here first". However, I've had 3 incidents - each requiring a tech site visit - so far this calendar year after getting a new 722k and upgrading to HD in January. I never had any issues during the preceding 4 years as a standard-def-only DISH customer. This 129 satellite issue showed symptoms eerily similar to those 3 incidents. So, I'm a little gun-shy, and I quickly got into a "cancel DISH" rant as I went into troubleshooting mode which I'm all too familiar with - unfortunately. I have a couple of email preferences I have selected on my DISH account - why would email not have been a simple method for DISH to notify its customers of this outage and minimized some of their phone calls and customer grief?