Some More Dish/Snow/Wind/Signal Questions

[sgupta]

I apologize if some of this is a rehash of the questions I have in the DirecTV HDTV part of this forum, but I thought I might get a broader audience and a few more answers in this more general section.

After a recent snowstorm (not during), I had issues. The dish iced up and I lost signal. Now it's on my roof, and I can't quite reach it, so I used a shovel (for the reach) to get the snow and some of the ice off of it, which seemed to work (and I was careful not to hit it too hard or anything, but I did tap it a bit).

Things were fine for a day or two and seemed back to normal when it warmed up the other day. I may try a spray-on solution and if that doesn't work the trashbag idea (and if that doesn't work, maybe consider a heated dish).

However a few nights later, it was quite warm with little precipitation (some light rain) but quite high wind gusts (35 mph+), and I had issues again. HD came in perfect, but SD had 1 or 2 second dropouts quite frequently. Sometimes it was just pixellation or sound distortion. Other times it displayed the Looking For Satellites 1 & 2 message, but only for an instant, then things were back. Just long enough to miss dialogue, etc. The funny part is the next day, the winds were gone but it was raining heavily, and things were fine and have been fine since. So I'm thinking the winds were the culprit even though I've never heard of that with dishes - is that possible?

I checked satellite signal and it seems okay. I get early 90's on both satellite A and B but only mid-80's on C; I also wanted to know if that was normal. Should I get higher on satellite C, or is one being a little less normal?

Thanks all!

 

[gibbsjf53]

It sounds like your dish may be loose in one of it's axis. When you get a chance climb up and give it a wiggle test to see if you have any slop.

 

[sgupta]

Thanks for the tip. I'm not much of a climber. =oP Maybe I'll have DirecTV take a look at it since I have their equipment plan.

Any feedback on those signal strengths and whether they sound in line, especially C?

And of course any other feedback both welcome and appreciated.

 

[gibbsjf53]

I would with the plan. I had my HD installed about 2 months ago and first mist we had I lost almost everything. My signal strength with no clouds was in the 50s and 60s. I called DTV and had them realign the dish. My signals are now in the 80s and 90s` with no rain fade. Living in the great northwet, is I don't have tv when it rains there is no tv at all.

You loosing signal with a wind sounds like a loose dish.

 

[sgupta]

Well, bad news and good news. I could have SWORN I signed up with the equipment protection plan, but it wasn't on my account. (It's actually good I caught this because had a receiver blown, etc., I would have been in trouble). I'm signed up now but it won't kick in for a month (and I don't want to pay the $70 for a service call before then). As of right now, it seems okay, and that was a REALLY windy day, so here's hoping the next month isn't too problematic.

Rain fade in the past hasn't been too bad. The snow was a problem til I cleaned off the dish (and investigating other methods of doing that), but that was after a pretty decent storm. And the winds were pretty severe that day, so overall, I don't think this is something that's going to have an everyday affect. I guess I'll be waiting and have 'em look at the dish when my plan kicks in. lol.