Locals cutting out...

[Ponduke]

Hello, I have the Dish vip622 with a radio shack Antennacraft® HDX1000 Amplified HDTV Antenna for my locals. My locals are Evansville IN.

For months I have had to deal with my local channels cutting out. When I record something I constantly get the message "part of your program has been lost due to signal interuption." I don't know what's going on here because my antenna gets a good strong signal.

I was watching Idol finale last night for example and the recording cut off the last 35 minutes as a lost signal! yet my strength meter for the local Fox channel is typically the upper eighties to ninety. So if the signal is strong why is this constantly happening? There are no swinging tree limbs directly in front of the antenna or anything like that. I have even moved to a new house and the problem followed me to the new location.

I even had a new reciver sent to me for an unrelated issue and that did not fix the issue. I'm getting extremely frustrated, enough to consider switching providers. I would consider a new antenna, but as I said, according to the reciver's signal strength meter, I'm getting a signal as high as 88 to 90, yet it cuts out for 2 seconds, 5 seconds, or much longer. Any ideas?

[Kent Taylor]

Get another antenna.

BTW, :welcome_s

[Ponduke]

Thanks for the advise, but being the curious type, why do you think the antenna I'm using is causing the problem? Many people use this antenna without issue and it wasn't real cheap. Do you think its faulty or just a poor design? Why you think it can go from strong signal to none like that?

Oh, and thanks for the welcome!

[Kent Taylor]

Because the antenna is the consistent component with each of your receivers. It could be a multi-path issue as well. Have you tried to change the alignment of the antenna? You don't need that much signal strength. A signal strength greater than 60 will suffice, but 70 or better would be good. Try reorienting just a bit and see if the problem goes away.

[Stewart Vernon]

Yeah, I have had channels lock solid at 65, and others need 90+ to be similarly locked solid.

IF you have multipath interference, then a stronger signal likely means more multipath too... so you might see frequent drops intermittently.

That said... it could be you just need to tweak your existing antenna a bit... or maybe re-scan the OTA channels.

[Ponduke]

If I choose to go with a different antanna does anyone have any recommendations? Im within 20 miles of all stations and they are all in the same general direction of my house(Within 20 degrees os so). Thanks.

[bnborg]

I am pulling in stations from 50 to 60 miles away with an unamplified, homemade 4 bay bowtie. See: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=168543.

Before that, I tried a Terk set-top UHF antenna. I could sometimes get stations to lock at a signal level of 15. Of course they cut out often.

Now I seldom get cutouts. But I still can't get both of the VHF stations. What I can't figure out is why I get the one I do get.

[Kent Taylor]

If I choose to go with a different antanna does anyone have any recommendations? Im within 20 miles of all stations and they are all in the same general direction of my house(Within 20 degrees os so). Thanks.

I'm using a CM-3010 in my attic. Actually, I have two. One is amplified and goes to my 722, the other one is diplexed on the satellite cable to a 612 and is not amplified. I'm ~19 miles from the transmitters. The reason for the amplifier is I split the signal between the 722 and the Sony TV.

[FarmerBob]

If I choose to go with a different antanna does anyone have any recommendations? Im within 20 miles of all stations and they are all in the same general direction of my house(Within 20 degrees os so). Thanks.
I love my Clearstream 4 and I am 15 miles out and have two groves of trees to shoot through. It will cover up to 75 miles. The CS2 50 miles and there is a CS1 also.

Also the other night I lost all my locals via OTA, but they were there via DISH and showed 70%-100% signal strength in the Locals Setup (Menu 6-9). I went back to the tuner and still the 739 (I think) error. I did a Power Cycle and all was fine. I have also been having drop outs during programming a lot lately that is not happening on TV's connected directly to the same antenna. And most all of this has been since the L627 update.

CS4 is far left in the photo. Shot is post forced 1000.2 install. Hope to revert back to two dish set up soon.