So how are Dish users doing? TWC is having major problems with the precipitation. :)

[Joseph S]

For all the ads they run about satellites. It's pretty sad to see what's going on with CSpan2, ESPN, ESPN2, MTV, VHI and several others right now.

I thought cable didn't go out with the snow? Hmmmmm.  :p

[naimbeg]

I am not sure about right now... (6:10 pm)
Eariler I know it was out.....

The thing is, being once a long time subscriber to TWC, overall DishNetwork has been more reliable  :confused:

In the past year, I can recall dish being out twice (both for short time periods) I remember TWC being out a litttle bit more. Go figure...  :rolleyes:

[RS922]

My small dish was out this afternoon until I cleared it off.  The wet, slushy snow seems to be an equal opportunity offender for both satellite and cable.

[HDefinicktion]

I can remember those days, but I am sure mine are in the future.  I did not have any problems today while watching the race.  Either way, now that I said something about it, I am sure a foot will collect on the thing overnight...

[jkane]

It was AMAZING!  This is the FIRST time I lost my Dish Network reception from snow.     What really got me mad, was my old self installed Dish 500 was working great.  No loss at all.  The one that lost it was the newly "professional installer" installed Super Dish.  It only had about an inch of that sticky wet stuff on it and it seemed to be too much.  I sent my kid out to sweep it off.  Sudddenly it came back.  I was really surprised, and mad.

Glad to hear it was a bigger problem.  I was going to call the installer and tell him to come back out and aim it centered this time instead of "just good enough".  Then again, maybe there's a compromise on the super dish to get all 3 satellites.  That's not a good thing.   :mad:

[Stanley Kritzik]

During the heavy, slushy snow, D* went out on me.  Fortunately, my dish is within a fairly easy reach, so I went out and cleaned it off with a broom.  I had to repeat the process a few times during the day.

It's rare, but it does happen once in a while.  I wonder if one of those covers would have saved things -- anyone with experience?

SK

[hggeorge]

Heavy snow accumulation will effect all small dish systems.  Cleaning off will restore the picture for you.  I had to clean my super dish once yesterday.  It has no effect on my 10 foot c-band system other then to touch up the peaking due to snow weight.


George Menart K9GM

920 4dtv receiver, Hdd200, 10 foot dish
811 receiver, super dish

[jkane]

Not ALL small dishes!  As I said, my older model 3000 doesn't work with the new super dish, so I still have an old 500 sitting next to the super dish.  Both had the same amount of snow on them, and only the super dish lost it.  I have never cleaned the 500 dish, not even yesterday.

I have had my 500 with the LNB buried in snow and the surface of the dish half way in the snow and it was still working.  That was the about 2 feet worth that we got a few years ago.

It has to be the type of snow.  Maybe the size of the flakes is important to the frequency of the signal.   :rolleyes:

[kjnorman]

I lost DirecTV yesterday at about 7:50am and it did not come back until about 1/2 way through Desperate Housewives (when's that 8 ish?) much to my wife's discontent.  She even asked me if I could go out and clean the dish, to which my reply was, "No, it's on the roof, I can not reach it".

Its the most time our satelite has ever been down.  

As it happened we were off out last night and had a friend come round to babysit.  In order for her to watch TV, I hooked up an attenna on the living room TV, so that she could still watch live TV.  Her comment was that this was fine as she doesn't have cable or Sat herself and infact she just uses a paperclip stuck in the antenna in port on her TV to receive a signal!  Curiously this morning I though I would give the paperclip a try on our 13" kitchen TV which is the only TV we would ever watch live (the morning news).  Vola!  Nice strong signal - okay a little bit of ghosting but overall a better signal than the antenna I had on it before.  

Now our friend lives in Shorewood and we are in Whitefish Bay so neither of us is more than 2 miles from the local transmitters, but who would have through a paperclip would have worked so well.

Perhaps tonight I will put a paperclip in the back of our 50" set and see how well it can bring in a signal!!  

[Joseph S]

I lost DirecTV yesterday at about 7:50am and it did not come back until about 1/2 way through Desperate Housewives (when's that 8 ish?) much to my wife's discontent. She even asked me if I could go out and clean the dish, to which my reply was, "No, it's on the roof, I can not reach it".

Don't worry, tell her the blundering idiots at the Wiz didn't flip the switch until then anyways.

So several dish users suffered, yet all local TWC viewers were affected. In addition to the above listed stations, others like MSNBC, CNBC, and Discovery were off the air for a good hour. We couldn't go out and wipe the dish and we had zero control over the outages.

[borghe]

This was the first time in a long time (longer than I can remember) that I lost service for a bit of time... SD service was gone for less than half an hour.. hd service on 101 and 119 same thing... HD service on 110 was gone for a little while longer (a little over an hour).

luckily it didn't affect me and by the time Battlestsar Galactica aired on UHD I didn't have a single glitch in the recording!! drool.........

[StarvingForHDTV]

Her comment was that this was fine as she doesn't have cable or Sat herself and infact she just uses a paperclip stuck in the antenna in port on her TV to receive a signal!  Curiously this morning I though I would give the paperclip a try on our 13" kitchen TV which is the only TV we would ever watch live (the morning news).  Vola!  Nice strong signal - okay a little bit of ghosting but overall a better signal than the antenna I had on it before.  

Now our friend lives in Shorewood and we are in Whitefish Bay so neither of us is more than 2 miles from the local transmitters, but who would have through a paperclip would have worked so well.

Perhaps tonight I will put a paperclip in the back of our 50" set and see how well it can bring in a signal!!  

 :rofl:   Thank you for sharing this.  Absolutely hilarious!

[dj1111]

Someone asked about dish covers?  I installed D* about 8 years ago and at about 3 years into it, added one of those covers.  Has it helped?  I sometimes wonder.  But considering lost signals are so rare, maybe it has.  Snow can still accumulate on it (the cover) and cause fade.  But it doesn't seem to affect signal strength as much or as quickly.  And the snow has to be wet and sticky.  Only once Sunday evening around 8pm did it start to pixelate, slightly.  My dish is within brooms reach so a quick smack to the cover made all the snow fall off and we were back in business.  The only thing it seems to help with is snow accumulating on the dish surface.  Rain fade can happen anywhere between you and the satellite and doesn't seem to be a problem at the dish itself.  So don't expect it to help in heavy rain.  But it will probably add years to the life of the dish and LNB keeping it out of direct sun light and all the rain and snow, freezing, etc. :p

[borghe]

my dish is 2.5 stories up Luckily in the three years I have lived here it has never had accumulation.