Can you help diagnose my reception problem?

[Maniacal1]

Over the weekend, I was intermittently losing a large number of channels on both of my DirecTiVos. The channel loss was occasionally on both inputs of both receivers.

I share the antenna with my landlord. He's on the first floor and I'm on the second. The 2x8 multiswitch is in the basement. He's using two feeds to two receivers. I'm, of course, using four for the DirecTiVos.

Now here's the unusual part: He's experiencing no loss of channels at all. In fact, if I ask him to tune into one of the channels that I'm missing, then I can receive them. If he's surfing, I get the "searching for signal on input [1 or 2]" intermittently.

Among the lost channels: all HBO's and Cinemaxes, HGTV, Discovery Kids, PBS Kids.

My guess is that it's most likely a problem with the multiswitch. I'm suspecting that he may not be affected because his cable runs are shorter.

Does that make sense? What are the other possibilities? Wiring? LNB?

[cnsf]

What kind of cable wire are you using? Ensure it's RG-6 or you may just have fried RG-59.

Also, try resetting your DirecTivos. If it's only a select number of channels, you may not be regonizing a satellite.

You may also want to check the dish and make sure none of the connections are damaged (weathering, etc.). He may not get the same packages as you, hence, him not having probs.

[Maniacal1]

I wouldn't know RG-6 from RG-59--it was a professional installation done about 6 years ago.

Some of the channels that go out on my receivers are channels they receive. Last night, I asked them to switch to one of the channels I knew was out for me, and they received it. And once they switched to that channel, all the channels that were temporarily missing for me came back.

I've spoken to my dealer, and he's coming out this evening. He suspects a problem with the switching mechanism, but I thought I'd tap into the knowledge here for any ideas.

I'll try a reset on the DirecTiVos as soon as I get home this evening.

[Scott Greczkowski]

I would bet that moisture has gotten into one of your connections causing your problems, with all the rain we have been having (will it ever stop?!) I would check for a connection where water could have snuck in. :)

[Maniacal1]

Thanks for the thought, Scott. I'll look for possible water intrusion, too.

[american_2000]

I would suspect the lnb. It may be going bad and only has power for a certain number of receivers. I have run into this problem as well. I would think the multiswitch should be fine.

[beegfoot]

I would suspect voltage loss. You might check the power supply to the multiswitch. Low voltage would make some TV's lose signal while others work ok.

[Maniacal1]

My dealer didn't make it over last night, but I didn't have a problem with reception either. It also wasn't raining, which it was the last time I experienced the selective outage. (Scott, that may be a sign that you nailed it.)

There's no problem at the moment either. For now, we'll wait until tomorrow, since it's supposed to rain some. If there's another outage then, we'll have a better idea.

Thanks, guys, for all your help.

[Maniacal1]

It looks like the problem was in the multiswitch or its power supply. An exchange of the switch stopped the problem.

After the switch exchange, he looked at the signal strengths and saw that they were lower than they used to be. The reason, he showed me, was a tree across the street. So while he was here, he relocated the antenna, and signal strengths were mostly back into the 90's.