Thread: Loss of signal in the evening??

Guys, I have a strange occurence going on and I wanted to see if anyone here has some thoughts on this subject. I have a weekend place about 20 miles north of Blythe, Ca. on the Colorado River. I have been experiencing signal loss in the evening on our local channels which is anything from 2-13 which is on Sat 119, Beam 03. It starts about 5pm and the signal starts to become digitized and then finally it loses signal. Next morning, things are working again. SAT 110 works fine for channels 100 and up! I have called Dish and explained the situation and they are dumb-founded. There is nothing impeding the dish, I even put an amplifier on it to see if that woudl help to no avail. I will say the best signal I can get is about 60 but it just doesn't explain why I lose the signal through the night!! Any help would be appreciated. Just to be clear on the equipment, it is the DishPro 500 using a 508 and 301 receiver. No HD...

Could be temperature related. As it gets colder, the center conductor of the coax shrinks, reducing its signal carrying ability. Should usually affect national programming too, unless your local signal is much lower. Check your local spotbeam signals on a clear day and compare them to national transponders such as 119t11 or 19 and 110t21. If its much lower to begin with, then the lowest signals might be dropping while enough signal for the higher signal transponders are still coming through.

Wehn you say 119, Beam 3. Which beam are you talking about, Spot or transponder? I can't find anything on either that even closely relates to Southern California. Give us an example of a channel you're looking for. For instance 2, what is the call sign of that channel?

Agee with the cable & tempurature advise given above.

Check all connectors to make sure that the copper "stinger" is long enough. Also, wherever the coax takes a bend, wiggle those spots around a bit and see if you have a microfracture in the coax. A small fracture will make contact in the heat - then partially shrink away as it cools.

I've seen both of those issues cause an identical problem in the past.

You could also have an LNB starting to crap out on you too.

Since you are losing just the local channels, I'm betting your weekend place is not in the designated area for those locals. So you are on the fringe of the spotbeam or simply outside. The satellites do move around a bit, shifting the spotbeams a little bit. And if you were in the beam before then it shifts making you out of the beam, but it never shifts enough to knock out any of the customers that are supposed to be receiving signals from that beam.

What locals and what zip code is the weekend place in?

I am betting you are talking about this beam.

SatelliteGuys.US - Subscription 119°W

The box on the left says Sat 119 and the Spot Beam says 3. As for temp theories, I doubt it as it is the middle of the desert. Summer is over 110 degrees and night time temps are in the 90's. It has cooled now down to the 80's. They did move the local channels from another spot beam, I can't recall but SB3 is weak! I'm thinking the LNB is going out as it has been baking in the sun for 10 years. I checked all the wiring, tried adjusting the dish at night to no avail. Only programs on Sat 110 can be viewed at night, channel 100 and up. Blythe zip is 92225.

119, spotbeam 3 is all Oregon and Washington. You must be talking about Los Angeles which is on transponder 3 and on spotbeam 5. If that is correct, digiblur is right about the edge of the beam. Blythe is sitting right on the very far fringe of that beam and it wobbles.

I just checked again, siiting in OC, zip 92688, LA locals 2,4,7,9,11 and 13 are all on SAT 119 , Transponder 3. What's interesting is channel 5 is Sat 119, transponder 20. Anyway, I will try a new LNB as I never had this problem before until last year. I did dabble with different transponder numbers while there and I could get the signal to over 100 on some. Hopefully I can get this resolved so we can watch things after 6pm on the local channels.

119 Transponder 3 is a SPOTBEAM, you are just on the edge of it's limit. Check menu 6-1-1 and your signal strength should drop off as the evening progresses. Get a 24" to 30" dish to increase signal capture.