PacMan2006

The funny thing is, last night I was getting my local channels on direcTV just fine. I wanted to watch Sunday Night Football, and the only other channel (besides locals)--ironically--that was coming in at all was ESPN. It was jumpy and pixellated, so I decided to pull the plug on my "DirecTivo", wait 15 seconds, and plug it in in hopes ESPN would come in better.

Now I have NO reception. No locals or DTV channels. In fact, the receiver won't even acquire the information. It gets stuck at 26% and craps out. This sucks.

Any others not having reception. I'm sure there's a ton out there. The thing is, I don't know if it's the storm, or the fact that snow is on the satellite. It's monday morning and a clear day, so I'm thinking it can't be blamed on the overcast sky anymore. And I can't reach my satellite since it's on the edge of my roof.

das Monkey

That would be teh suck ... but, I seriously doubt there's snow on the satellite . Have you had really bad winds or something that could have rotated the dish a bit? Do you have another receiver to test that it is in fact the dish and not the receiver itself?

das

Rypro 525

this is why you need cable.

nazz

If you can look up at the dish and you see that it is heavily covered in snow that could easily be the problem.

That has happened to me and when I clean the snow off of the dish the signal came back immediately.

Groucho

Probably just snow on the dish. When this happens to me I put a papertowel on the end of a yardstick with a rubber band. Wipes the stuff right off, and is less awkward than a broom.

spainlinx0

I'm in NJ and my signal is fine so it might be something on your end.

PacMan2006

Well, I dusted off the DTV satellite. It was hard to reach, but I probably got about 80% of the snow off. There wasn't a lot, but some.

Still no luck, though. I checked my other DTV receivers in the house. Both of them are getting the local channels on DTV, but no other channels. And the one in my room still cannot acquire information.

When you guys dust it off, do you just dust off the actual dish and tuner(s), or do you dust snow off the base, back, and cables, too? Do you think that would matter?

Groucho

Are you getting any signal strength at all? You can check this from the "Setup Dish" menu.

das Monkey

Wait, you get the locals on some receivers, and nothing on another? That's odd.

das

Groucho

Note that local channels aren't beamed in by satellite, which is why they will work even when the other channels fail.

The fact that one receiver isn't getting anything might indicate a loose connection at the dish.

PacMan2006

Thanks guys.

Another thing to mention that I don't know if it's significant or not. On two of my receivers, I am able to see the show title and all that, just no picture. So I'll turn to, say, Nick at Nite and it'll say "The Cosby Show" but the screen just remains black.

Groucho,

The thing is, my receiver (the one that can't even acquire info) was in the same boat as my other two receivers last night. I could get titles of shows and descriptions, but no picture. I decided to pull the plug on the receiver, and plug it back in to re-start. But now, for some reason, that specific receiver cannot even acquire information to take me to Live TV--whether the live feed is coming in or not for watchability purposes, regardless.

Groucho

Okay, now I understand.

The receiver that is missing the picture needs to download the latest information, which it can't do because of the poor signal strength. I imagine the connection is fine.

DVD Josh

Thanks for giving me another reason to stay with cable.

Brett44

I've had Dish Network for 3 years and I bet the feed has been out for a total of 45 minutes during those 3 years. When I had Time Warner cable it was probably out at least 45 minutes each month. I would never go back to cable...

Brett

aktick

We've had DTV for about 9 years, and it's gone out maybe 10 times because of heavy rain (and was out about 30 seconds on average, never more than a couple minutes), and a couple times it's gone out because of heavy snow on the dish, which took about 5 seconds to go outside and brush off. When I lived in an apartment for a year, I had digital cable, and to me it wasn't half of what DTV was and is. Plus DTV (and Dish network) is much cheaper than cable, I'm pretty sure. It's all a personal preference, but I wouldn't lose DTV for anything (plus they have DirecTivo (= ).

kvrdave

NExt time you get up by the dish, spray some Pam on it. It will help slide the snow off better.

Mine was pixelated last night on one receiver (Dish Network), but the other was fine. Generally just a lose connection, and it could be tuned it to the satellite better (85 out of 125 on the reader).

Wouldn't go back to cable ever.

ChrisHicks

I had a similar problem last winter. I installed my dish on my privacy fence so I can reach it by hand. my problem was a coating of ice on the LNB. as soon as I chipped it off the problem was gone. that might be your problem.

Brian Shannon

You may have water in a connection.