Signal Loss 11/9

[johnsmith22]

Around 11 eastern last night was seeing aquiring satellite message going on and off on my 501 on all 119 channels. Anyone else notice this?

[mike1002]

Yes, see my post over on '301 Receiver Problems Tonight'. Only on 119. 110 is nice and solid. I called Dish and they said call the installer because the dish is out of alignment. I called the installer and he says someone will be here monday AM. I checked all transponders on the Setup and 119 seems to be quite a bit lower on all transponders but 7. I believe 7 is where all the promos for events and PPV are. They don't seem to drop out at all. The rest of 119 is in the 40-60 signal strength, when there's a signal. A lot of times it drops to zero. 110 is over 100 on all transponders except 8 which is a spotbeam and is maxed at 125. I'm wondering if the LNB for 119 is crapping out. I've only had the 508 for a little over a month and it has been fine (except for good ol Rain-Fade (tm)). We'll see what the tech says when he gets here monday AM.

Good Luck.
Mike

[TopCat99]

Did this just creep up last night? 119 has been low for me, but lower the past couple of days. I'm just too lazy to go realign the dish ;) If it's been a pattern I won't worry about it tho

[mike1002]

I started noticing it last friday. I have also noticed that programs that I have recorded since last wednesday have a crackle in the audio (Especially TNN- Could be TNN just putting out a bad signal too I suppose).I also had a couple of shows that indicated the signal had been lost for a few seconds and then recovered. I think the problem started back then. I was suspecting my LNB perhaps it is a system problem (although the Dish support person said there was no reported problem with 119).

Mike

[TopCat99]

So it may be a 119 thing after all. Now how do we convince Dish?

Oh yeah! SCOOOOOOOOOOTT!!! :D

[mike1002]

OK, the tech has come and gone. As I suspected the Dish magically realigned its self. As I stated before, friday nite was when it started and saturday was the worst of it. Then sunday the signal got a bit stronger and the acquiring sat msgs started showing less and less. This morning I got up and 119 was back to being rock-solid. The signal strengths on most transponders are in the 70-90 range. Good ol #7 is over 100. The Dish tech guy was the one that told me that my dish was out of alignment. The tech didn't have to do anything other than check the transponders and run the switch test (as I had already done). Nothing fixed it except for time. I suspect that something was going on on the uplink side. Anyway, my 508 is back to working fine. I'll be interested to see if anything is mentioned on the Tech Chat tomorrow nite. this is exactly how my cable used to work back in the early 80s. It would go out on friday and magically come back on mon. Thats why I hate cable. It is a waste. Thank goodness for my BUD. It never has an outage.

Mike

[boba]

Mike I think you should get your installer back out and check the skew on your Dish. I am located just north of Dallas and except for the spot beams everything on 119 is 110% or stronger on a PVR508.

[mike1002]

Hmm, I wonder if that is why I seem to have so much of a problem with rain-fade? My Dad has an old 3000 (?) Dish receiver that we installed a couple of years ago and we got 119 up to about 93. I assumed the lower signal reading on mine was because of the compromise of trying to read 2 satellites with one dish.
Thanks
I may just play with the skew myself. I did notice that 119 was real sensitive when the original guy set it up. 110 seemed to come in and stay in a fairly wide adjustment but 119 would disappear with just a tiny nudge of the dish.

Mike

[johnsmith22]

Before you play with anything mark your azimuth, elevation and skew settings on the dish so you can go back if you loose everything.

[Nick]

Also, check your mount and fittings to make sure they are tight. If they are loose, you can lose your signal during high winds