Snowy picture on 2nd TV

[cmcleish]

For the past 6 months or so I've been putting up with a snowy picture on my 2nd TV (no receiver of its own, connected via coax to the main receiver in the living room). Today at my parents house, they now have the exact same problem with the same setup. Both were installed by DISH installer with DISH-supplied coax cable. Mine has been at least a tiny bit snowy since day 1 but has gotten worse over time. Parents was good until about a week ago and then it started with a fair amount of static/snow.

I tried disconnecting and reconnecting all the coax cables tightly. Any other ideas/suggestions?

 

[osu1991]

go into the settings on the dual tuner (menu>6>1>5 modulator setup) and change the modulator channel to a different channel. I had to try 3 or 4 different channels before I got one without some interference. I use channels 40 and 50 for tuner 1 and tuner 2.

edit: I've had no problems for several years now on the modulated channels for tuner 1 and tuner 2. Nice clear picture.

 

[britorto]

Try antenna channel 22. Seems to have the best picture due to lowest frequency.

 

[osu1991]

Try antenna channel 22. Seems to have the best picture due to lowest frequency.

Try to stay away from channels that you have a local broadcasting on. I can't use 22 because our Fox affiliate broadcasts on channel 22 and I get interference.

 

[3HaloODST]

The NTSC picture on TV2 is never going to be completely free of "snow." It's the nature of the beast. RF is simply the worst possible picture out of all the options (in order of clarity: RF/Composite/S-Video/Component/HDMI.)

That being said, RF can look very decent for SD, as long as you make sure the coax is in decent shape (preferably RG6 which is what Dish uses) and connector quality matters a lot. Length matters to an extent but for most houses it's a non-issue. As has been previously stated, the lower the channel the better the quality (usually.) Air 22 and Cable 73 are good choices. If they don't look good, go up 1 channel at a time until you are satisfied. If you can't get a picture free of ghosting and snow, then there is a cabling issue. Just keep in mind that you'll never see a picture 100% free of snow and ghosting. There will be a little bit, but for the most part it is not visible from normal viewing distances. Have you seen basic cable? It's about the best quality you can expect out of an NTSC connection. While it pales in comparison to HD, it can still be pretty decent, for what it is. Just keep in mind that (color) NTSC is a standard that originated in the early 1950s.

 

[Scherrman]

I have found that if you have antenna combined with TV2 of the receiver you can get more interference on certain channels. We would always set up TV2 on channel 60 but in the last two years it started to get very snowy. I changed the modulated channel to 50 and it cleared right up. I've seen it happen to almost every one of our customers with antenna and TV2 combined.

 

[truckracer]

RF modulated tv should be free of snow. You get the best picture if you run a coax RG-6 straight from the TV2 output of the receiver straight to the tv. No combiners or diplexers.

If your splitting the signal to multiple "tv2" tv's, you may need an amplifier.

 

[pamajestic]

I think these recent issues with the modulated channels above 51 are related to the spectrum sale. I used channel 62 for years for my TV2, then a few months ago I got major distortion and static. I moved the modulated signal down to channel 54 and got a good picture back. I didn’t really think to much more about it until a week later on the radio I hear an ad that “LTE-4G” is now available in my area. I hooked up my meter to my antenna and can see a very active and strong signal on both former TV channels 60 and 61.