Ice and Snow Damage

[watcher]

Hello out there....

I need a little advice.

We here in the mid-atlantic just got slammed with a pretty
good snowstorm (no laughing from the snow belt please). Anyway my dish (mounted to my rather steep roof) is now
completely and totally buried in the snow drift.

I have 2 questions.


1 What are the chances that the dish will
survive undamaged from both the weight of the snow and the
exposure to all the water of the snow melting.

2 Is there any kind of dish heater that is available on the market to handle these kind of situations?

Thanks.

-J

[Bill R]

J.,

As long as the dish was not bent it most likely will be O.K. If you or your installer used weathertight connectors (and/or weather proofed them) exposure to the melting snow shouldn't be a problem either.

There are dishes that have built-in heaters and there are some add-ons that can be applied to the back of the dish. I really don't know how effective they are in very heavy snows but they do a good job on lighter snowfalls. Here is a place that sell the Perfect 10 Hot Shot Dish (http://www.123av2.com/DetailPage.asp?ProductID=PERHS18) . I have never done business with this vendor. The link is just to show you what you may be looking for.

[JayeDVXIII]

ROFL!!!! A dish HEATER?!?!?? HAHAH

anyone seen the new stupid comcast commercials where the old fogeys are outside trying to figure out how to clean their dish and they end up knocking if off the wall of their house with a broom?

all i kept thinking was .."if they're that damn stupid ..they don't need a dish"

[JayeDVXIII]

btw..why am i seeing comcast commercials on dish? and why do I also keep seeing DirecTV commercials on DISH?

[Tomsoundman]

On a semi related story, local Fox affiliate's broadcast tower fell from ice buildup. it is WVAH in Huntington/Charleston WV. Still no info. on their website. Wonder how long that will be down....

[Neil Derryberry]

They actually do make a dish heater.... don't recall where I saw it.

You could use that electrified pipe wrap for water pipes... you would find that at home depot.

[JayeDVXIII]

hey Neal...

what is your Avatar?

[papillo-j]

As of this morning, the dish was still compeltely buried. At least now I can see a deformation in the surface of the snow where I think that the Dish is.

I will let you know if it survived as soon as it thaws out. We had warm weather yesterday and today so hopefully it will not take too much longer to thaw out.

I thought of the pipe warming tape but I didn't know if that stuff was good for enviornmental exposure. My understanding is that it was really meant for pipes inside of exterior walls that freeze and not for pipes that are actually outside. I looked a little at the dish warmers, they are about 100 bucks.

Later,

-J

[KenIdaho]

I tried using heat tape on my dish a year or two ago and it did not work. The tape did not stay on very well and the dish had snow build up. I got a sick on heater from e-bay for $20. I have not had any troubles since then as long as I remembered to turn it on.

[STXJim]

:eek:

[papillo-j]

I got a message back from the Dish support staff and they tell me that the LNB unit is actually a sealed unit so I should not have trouble with the melting of snow that completely surrounds the dish. Is the dish damaged from the weight of the snow? Don't now yet. As of this morning, I was able to see about 1 sq inch of the arm through the snow. Better than it was but still not good enough to get a signal.

some of you might be wondering why I am obsessed with this so much. 2 reasons - 1, I am more addicited to TV than I was willing to admit and 2, I just bought a 508 and am anxious to get it up and running.

-J

[JStanton]

The longer it's "underwater", I imagine the more likely it is to be damaged. If you're so addicted, why haven't you gotten up there and shoveled it off?

- Jim

[papillo-j]

It is an 8/12 roof so it is pretty steep and covered with snow and ice. I am pretty addicted
but the probability of death is just a little too high. In short - my wife will not let me.

-J

[John Corn]

I don't blame ya J, I wouldn't get on the roof, especially a steep one thats snow covered. As I get older I'm not near as comfortable with heights as I used to be.

[Cyclone]

But if you fall, you'll land in all of that white fluffy goodness.

[papillo-j]

One side is the driveway, the other is the deck. Over the edge I land in snow but you are from around here, you know how god awful packed it is right now, it would be like landing on the driveway.

By the way Cyclone, congrads on your 100th posting.

[Jacob S]

WVAH-11 in WV is still out but some cable companies have the station up now.

No power or phone for 5 days, no water at times and now contaminated. Electric went out AGAIN for 4 hours last night after it was restored for almost a day. Trees down everywhere, including a couple dozen pine trees that will probably have to be cut down bc they are snapped in half, completely down, or bent over very badly due to ice. Everyone in the county had no power for 2 days. Some people close to here still have no power. Seen a power pole snapped in half on the hill behind me before they got it fixed. Could not get food or gas because of now electric for days. Was not allowed to drive on the road for a while or you get a ticket even though it was clear. State of emergency was called. Bad flooding south of me.

This is why I could not get on these forums for about a week.

[Cheyenne]

Papillo-j, Your dish setup should survive just fine as long as it was mounted firmly in place.

Keep warm.....

[papillo-j]

Wow Jacob....

After that one I guess I should stop wining that my satellite is out! I hope that they get your basics back up and running (power, water, etc) quickly.

My dish is almost completely thawed out. I am able to see one satellite (110). When I go into the "Dish 500" section, it shows the one satellite as locked and with a pretty good percentage (not as good as it used to be but increasing) but it can't lock onto the second satellite at all. The bar stays red and it giving a reading but it says "wrong sat Echostar 110" which is also the name is says for the sat that it can lock onto. Perhaps I really did mess up my alignment? Or could it be that even though the dish is thawed out there still might be some snow in its path and I really can't see the second bird?

More thawing today, I am still hoping......

-J

[Cheyenne]

Papillo-J, You may have to perform a "check switch" function.
This will simply run through a couple acquisition routines, allowing IRD to lock onto the appropriate spacecrafts as defined in soft code. Keep us informed...

[papillo-j]

Well, here is how we stand.

The dish looks pretty much thawed out. There is still some snow up there and it does not LOOK like it is blocking the dish but that might be an illusion.

When I do a check switch, it finds Sat 110 both even and odd under channel 1. Under channel 2 I get X's across the board.

The roof is still FAR too dangerious to try to get up on. The melting snow has frozen solid making sheets of ice that I would need to transverse to get to the dish. I have tried throwing water and icemelt up there but both just rolled off the icepack.

When I go into the "Dish 500" section under the installation menus, it tells me that it is locked on sat 110 with a power level of roughly 80%. The other bar also says roughly 80% but is red and reads "Wrong Sat - Echostar 110 West".

I got a feeling that both birds are still up there and working so the problem must be on my end. I just don't know enough about this technology to determine from the evidence at hand (or even if one CAN determine from the evidence at hand) if I have a damaged receiver or if this is just still a blockage issue, or an alignment issue.

I would prefer not to have to put a whole heap of money into repairs.

We are expecting temps in the 40s today, so that should help a little but we have rain and snow in the forcast for the near future so that will probably slow things down.

will keep ya informed.

-J

[Jacob S]

We have our utilities back for three days now but some are still without power in some places. We had severe thunderstorms, some minor flooding, and some places even some tornado's but thank goodness some of the rain went to my south.

The dish could have had so much snow on it that it could have changed the position of it slightly, wind could have blown it hard, or the snow could have melted water into some connectors or into the lnbf since it was all covered in snow although it probably did not do that.

Seeing that you are getting a signal from a satellite it does sound like a check switch is needed.

[boba]

In all the posts I don't see any mention of what you have for equipment. What model receiver(s) do you have is it a dual LNBF with SW-21 switch or a Twin with internal switches? Signal strength on 110 sounds low for most receiver models so the dish may have moved, but if you have a SW-21 exposed to the weather water ingress could account for loss of 119.

[Jacob S]

I would have to agree, I was just thinking about that if it were to have a sw-21 switch that would probably cause it to go bad because they do not do good out in the rain. I have had several go bad until they started making them waterproof like they should have in the first place.

[papillo-j]

Let me see if I can at least somewhat ansewer your questions.

I have a dish 500. If I look at the dish, I see 2 seperate round LNBs and not one big oval one. Does that tell you anything? I am afriad that until a few days ago, I didn't know that all DISH500s were not the same.

The "check switch" function is coming back saying it detected a SW-21 switch. To ansewr Jacob's question I have run the check switch. It says that channel 1 even and odd are both ok and seeing Sat 110. It just has Xs for channel 2. It also put up an error message saying that only one satellite is connected.

I have just tried to plug my 3900 into the port in the basement. When in the basement, when I do a check switch I see even and odd for 110 ok but this time it is on channel 2 and channel 1 is just X's.

Since I am seeing the same thing in both the family room and the basement, that implies to me that the SW21's are fine. Assuming that I understand this right and there are 2 SW21's on the roof, one feeding each room.

I have a 3900 receiver hooked up at the moment. I have a 508 as well but it is still sitting in the box waiting for me to clear this up.

Thanks,

-J