4dtv picture loss

[dunnsept]

Wife just emailed me that we have no picture on the dish. says "noggin" on-screen but no picture.. no sound either.. just static.
tested multiple channels.. nothing..


wonder if it's "snow fade"... ;-)





(that's a 9' dish BTW)

 

[sergei]

Time for you to get the old broom out and remove the snow, the snow is probability making the dish drop down due to the extra weight and you've lose the signals.

 

[linuxman]

That's a lot of snow.

Sergei is probably correct. The weight is pulling it off the arc enough to lose signal.

Have your wife take the broom out and brush some of it off.

 

[dunnsept]

I know.. I posted that more for fun than anything.. for a 9' dish, yes that's a lot of snow! ..snow fade ;-)

I wrote her "get the broom, go brush off the dish".. that's not what she wanted to hear.. good thing I didn't include "and while you're at it, fire up the tractor and plow the driveway" (we got about 15 inches of snow in the past 2 days)



edit:
think I'll turn it into my avatar ;-)

 

[truckracer]

I have thought about using pipe heating cable strapped tithe back of the mesh with a thermostat to turn it on during freezing weather. That would eliminate the snow problem

 

[tvropro]

For the most part I don't have problems on C band even with heavy wet snow loading. My quality may go down but it never hurts it to the point it goes out. That's one of the perks of having a lot of overkill with a 12 foot dish. I do however brush my dish out and try to keep it low in the arc during the storm if I'm not watching it. Now my small ku dishes can get kocked out by the snow if wet and heavy enough. I think I need a 12 foot solid dedicated Ku dish

 

[dunnsept]

when I got home I cleaned the dish off.. few inches of snow on top of ice.. so that was a lot of weight on the dish.. and I think I need to tighten the mount or something.. there's a lot of wiggle in that dish.. or maybe it's normal.. dont know
how much wiggle should there be. the feedhorn was easily moving a couple inches

 

[linuxman]

when I got home I cleaned the dish off.. few inches of snow on top of ice.. so that was a lot of weight on the dish.. and I think I need to tighten the mount or something.. there's a lot of wiggle in that dish.. or maybe it's normal.. dont know
how much wiggle should there be. the feedhorn was easily moving a couple inches

That is the problem in re-furbishing old dishes.

Ideally there should be no movement of the feed-horn which means wherever there is slop in the mount, actuator, feed-horn supports, or ring assembly, it needs to be taken care of.

I had the same problem with my first dish. I started with a 10 foot Winegard Quadstar. The support arms had been out in the elements for so long, it had developed a lot of slop. I ended up giving that dish away and from then on I was very selective as to the dishes I retrieved. I would move them while still on the owners mast and see if there was much movement. If there was a lot, I passed on the dish.

That's part of the reason I like the Birdviews so much. No movement at all, and they will hold 2 feet of snow without sagging.

 

[Lak7]

Some use a few Guy Wires with the Button Hook feed arm.

 

[dunnsept]

oops.. sorry, I phrased that incorrectly. The entire dish was moving such that the feedhorn's movement translated to a couple inch arc.
the feed arm itself is solidly attached to the dish.. It was the entire dish that was wiggling around as I cleaned the snow off

 

[linuxman]

oops.. sorry, I phrased that incorrectly. The entire dish was moving such that the feedhorn's movement translated to a couple inch arc.
the feed arm itself is solidly attached to the dish.. It was the entire dish that was wiggling around as I cleaned the snow off

Then the slop is more likely in your actuator or mount, or both.

The ACME nut can get worn in the actuator as several threads here have shown. The mount itself might need the main bolts replaced to make it more solid.

 

[soundman33]

I had the same problem with my 7.5 foot dish this morning.

And I live futher South than Stogie and Tron, about 30 miles southwest of New Orleans.

 

[dunnsept]

I had the same problem with my 7.5 foot dish this morning.

And I live futher South than Stogie and Tron, about 30 miles southwest of New Orleans.

what? I don't see anything.......
OH.. OHHH.. oh.. there it is! now I see it..


I imagine that things come to a standstill in that area with a dusting. The 15 inches total here closed down public schools for 2 days.. mainly because the road commission doesn't have the budget for diesel for the plows to get the roads cleared or the overtime for the drivers