Direct TV Technical Issue(Signal Gone)

[Blitzman]

I came home today and all DTV signals are at zero.  I called DTV and they said my dish became out of alignment and I need a $60 service call.  My question is can you just lose your signal and your dish become out of whack for no reason at all.  My OTA channels are fine through receiver and antenna.  Can anyone of you experts help??

[mcq]

Call your box manufacturer. I had this happen to me when I originally got DirectTV. The box was "locked up" and it had to be reset. AND the reset code was not in the manual.

Good Luck

[Mike Sheahan]

I had this happen to me a couple weeks ago as well.  I think I just unpluged the reciever, for a minute or two, and then it came back.

All the transponders were showing 0's, and then they were back.  I wish I remembered better exactly what I did, but I know one thing for sure is I didn't have to get up on the roof, and I didn't pay anyone $60 to do it either.

By the way, welcome to the site.

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Mits 65819
Hughes E86
My HT Page

[Tom Snyder]

I lost my signal one day last Winter. The cold and a strong wind teamed up to knock it out of alignment.

Fortunately I was able to realign it pretty easily using the signal strength meter on my STB.

[Blitzman]

This turned out to be a bad coax cable going to the STB.  Thanks for you quick replies.  The problem is now fixed.  Thanks

[P a u l]

I have seen several posts where some people are getting our signal at 100 and the guy 2 blocks over has nothing. I'm basing this on my experience in the music industry, but RF energy might experience the same thing. You might be in an area known as a Node. This is where the traveling waves are reflected off an object, like your neighbors house, and the cancel out the waves near your antenna. You can hear this with music by putting in your favorite CD then turning up the stereo and walking around the room. Near the back of the room you should notice that some frequencies seem to disappear, especially the low end. That is a node. This is why recording studios try and avoid 90 degree corners and put a ton of money into sound proofing the room. Now the frequencies we use for TV are much higher than what we hear, but FM is a sine wave just like sound. One way to get rid of this might be to get a directional antenna. Or just evperiment with miving the antenna to different spots and check the signal of the stations.

Thats you're Physics Lecture for the day, Class dismissed!!!!  

[wxndave]

Interesting way to think about radio waves.  Paul what do you do at WISN?

[P a u l]

My official title is "Studio Maintenance Engineer." Basically I help keep the signal coming to you. I'm new here and still learning lots of new things everyday.