VOOM in Portland, Oregon Area

[Walter L.]

A signal loss report

I lost sat signal Sunday morning around 10:00 - 11:00 AM during the rain. Anybody else?
Ironically, at the same time I was able to pick up Fox OTA (channel 12-1/12-2) which typically doesn't work for me.

 

[DarrellP]

Walter, I can't remember Sunday, I don't think I lost my signal all weekend, but the storm last night sure was a doozie. We had lightning strikes all around Woodburn and I saw lightning hit a pole while driving home down I-5 and the pole glowed bright orange for about a second, that was cool. As bad as the storm was last night, I never lost my signal and it's due to the fact that the clouds to the East were not very thick even though it was pouring buckets overhead, we even had very hard hail for about 10 minutes.

The storm is tracking backwards from the usual storm path, it's tracking from the NE, coming down toward the SW from Yakima, WA. I checked my signal and it's hanging between 70 and 88 so I am right on the verge of losing signal at 70, I got a few breakups, but no loss.

 

[Walter L.]

I lost signal (again) last night for about 1/2 hr during the storm. I think that the "magic" of my 18" dish is gone

 

[DarrellP]

Maybe you can hang in there until we get the humongo dish this Fall.

 

[Walter L.]

Maybe you can hang in there until we get the humongo dish this Fall.

That's what I'm thinking

 

[wbuffetta]

I Lost My Signal A Couple Of Times Sunday & Briefly Last Night. (Harry Potter In HD Last Night Was Perfect).
The 18" Dish Wont Work For us in OR & WA.
Once The Rains of Nov. Come We Will Be Out Of Luck.
From What I Have Been Hearing Around Here & Other Forums The New Dish Might Not Work. We Will Still Have Cloud Fade Problems But The Signal May Come Back Sooner.

 

[DarrellP]

No dish will give us fool-proof reception, the sat is just too low in the sky. I can live with an occassonial outage, no big deal. With the advent of the PVR and the repeating programs, it won't be such an issue. I've been recording a lot of stuff on my new Panny recorder since I have a hard time sitting down to watch anything in the timeslot that it is on and if I have dropouts during the recording, I'll catch it again later.

 

[Walter L.]

No dish will give us fool-proof reception, the sat is just too low in the sky. I can live with an occassonial outage, no big deal. With the advent of the PVR and the repeating programs, it won't be such an issue. I've been recording a lot of stuff on my new Panny recorder since I have a hard time sitting down to watch anything in the timeslot that it is on and if I have dropouts during the recording, I'll catch it again later.

I agree. Good news is the summer is just around the corner. November will bring rain but by then tree leaves will be gone (my signal goes through trees)

 

[cyberized]

Hi again Darrell, Walter, et al,
I'm BACK! But this time went ahead and DID it - purchased my first RP HDTV - a Toshiba 46" 46HX83 Model. I LoVE it! Cannot truly believe how great the SD signal is coming in from DISH Satellite. Was quite concerned prior to purchase of losing alot there switching from a Toshy 36" D.View - thank God, did nt appear to lose a thing in PQ - just a beautiful big 16x9 picture.
And now - I am back seriously toying with the idea of leaving DISH for VOOM - if you remember, I am one of those people who cannot afford to pay for more than one service (barely can afford the one). I have been reading daily here and AVS to keep up on everything. Some say here, may be rumors, that DirecTV will be going after the HDTV market soon. May want to wait to see IF this is true??
How is your SD PQ on VOOM ? Is it as good as DISH SD? My signal strength here in Beaverton for DISH is in the 90's'.
I was also wondering IF you can have them test your location for VOOM before you order? When do you have to make your first VOOM payment? If it worked right I might be able to TEST out the VOOM before cancelling DISH.
Darrell - I see you have had good reception oTA from indoor antenna (I guess) - what make of antenna has given you this good reception? I live in a older mobile home - notorious for poor reception from indoor antennnas.

TKS Michael

 

[DarrellP]

Congrats Micheal! I'm glad you see no degradation of PQ from Dish SD on your new HD set, I couldn't stand their PQ on my 27" analog set.

If you would like to check out Voom, you are welcome to come over to my house anytime. I can show you what all the channels look like on both my pj and 27" TV and you can compare the image of the SD channels blown up to fill my screen and in Native pass through, which puts them at about the size of a large RPTV.

I can use a loop indoor antenna and get an acceptable digital channel lock where I am, but I have to move it when I change some channels. You are more than welcome to try it and if it works for you, you can have it, I don't need it anymore.

If you use my rule of thumb, stand facing south and point your left arm to the East and put your arm at the minute hand position of a clock at :47 past the hour and elevate your arm 11 degrees and shoot a line of sight, you'll get a good idea if you have LOS or not.

Voom does not charge 2 months in advance like Dish does, I did not receive a billing until 30 days after I was installed. I have CC autopay and that's when it was billed.

PM me if you'd like to come over and I'll shoot you some directions.

 

[cyberized]

Darrell - TKS again for good help and offer of DEMO - may just take you up on it before this is over. Truthfully I'd love to stay with DISH but I'll be darned if I'll pay an extra $10 a month for 3-4 HDTV Channels. I have written Charlie E. requesting that in his next Chat he would let us know their game plan concerning future HDTV Programing etc. That should be on next Monday night - I hope he clarifies it for many of us; I tried to forewarn him that IF they don't fill us in that many will be going to DirecTV and VOOM.
It kind of sounds like, from the reading that I have done, that by the end of this Summer, roughy, we should have a better picture of the future of HDTV Programming and a guy could make a better decision by then.

But because of the terrific start up deal that VOOM is offering still it is tempting to TRY it, drop DISH, and IF I had alot of receptionn problems with VOOM - then, becme a NEW DirectV Sub. and get their deal for new HDTV subscribers at that time and then drop VOOM.
Still hard to say good bye to DISH after 7+ years.

BEST Wishes VooMERS, Michael

 

[DarrellP]

I hear you Micheal. I've been with Dish since early 97 and seen their PQ go steadily downhill to the point where I won't even watch Dish SD anymore. I think you'll be very satisfied with the SD PQ on Voom. You may have noticed a thread around here asking if the SD PQ has gone up recently. I don't know because I don't watch it except to check out the PQ occassionally, but what I do see beats Dish.

You have nothing to lose if you try it for a month and don't like it. Make sure they have the programming you want before you make the leap though. At least with Voom, they have all of their SD programs in the Basic package and with Dish, you have to add tiers to get certain programs. At $39.90 it's a bargain. Keep in mind the programming is rumored to go up to $49.90 Jan 1, so if that is too steep for your budget, along with the $9.50 rental, you may want to keep Dish.

I am off work from Friday till the 21st, so give me a PM if you wan't to come over. The earlier in the week, the better, I will be gone from Thursday next week till Sunday night. I have my daughter for a week of vacation so we will be in and out all week.

 

[Walter L.]

Hey Guys,
I just called VOOM for service to hopefully get my OTA issues resolved. As I posted before, I'm having reception problems with Fox (12-1/12-2) and WG (32-1).
It looks like today is my lucky day. I only waited on the phone for 2.5 miniutes, my service got scheduled for next Saturday and it's not Adams but Direct Broadcast Sat.
Darrel or Vince: if I remember correctly DBS did (or fixed) one of your installations with very good results, right?

 

[DarrellP]

Walter, I had Cascade Satellite do my install.

 

[Walter L.]

Walter, I had Cascade Satellite do my install.

No problem. It was vince the one that used DBS (see post #3 of this thread).

 

[Walter L.]

Wrong orientation?

The DBS installer came home today. He said that my reception problem was because my ChannelMaster Stealth antenna was 180 deg off, so he "fixed" it by rotating the antenna 180 deg which seems to has solved the problem since I'm picking up 12-1 & 32-1. But I'm confused. If you look at the attached antenna picture, my understanding is that the towers should be in the lower-left. That was the way that my antenna was originally installed. But with the change done today, relatively speaking, now the towers are in the upper-left. What is the right way? Darrel, I believe that you also have this antenna, how is yours installed?

 

[DarrellP]

Walter, sorry for the late reply, I've been out of town for 4 days. The antenna should welcome the towers with open arms. So if I understand correctly, it is now mounted backward, but that may not be a bad thing. Since you are close to the towers, you are probably susceptible to multipath and turning them around can actually catch the reflections and work better in some cases. Whatever works, go with it.

 

[Walter L.]

Walter, sorry for the late reply, I've been out of town for 4 days. The antenna should welcome the towers with open arms. So if I understand correctly, it is now mounted backward, but that may not be a bad thing. Since you are close to the towers, you are probably susceptible to multipath and turning them around can actually catch the reflections and work better in some cases. Whatever works, go with it.

Thanks for your reply. After doing more testing during the weekend, I found out that I'm still getting breakups on FOX. I think I'm gonna have to go for larger antenna. I'm calling VOOM again today.

 

[Walter L.]

Hey Guys,
I got a new antenna today and it looks like it fixed my OTA issues but look at this thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=21047

 

[Walter L.]

Hi Guys,
I just came back from my Alaska vacation and I'm confused as hell with the NBC olympic coverage story. My channels 321, 593 & 594 simply say "call VOOM to order.." Can somebody summarize what's the bottom line for our area?