Antenna Too Far Away

[RT-Cat]

A question was answered a time ago that Dish gets local stations from a fiber optic connection or from an antenna. OK. Well, when one of my paid for OTA station has far too often break ups, Dish must be using an antenna for that channel. Question now would it do any good to complain to Dish about their antenna being too far away from the transmitter or is it a case that they don't give a rat's butt about the problem?

 

[pattykay]

A question was answered a time ago that Dish gets local stations from a fiber optic connection or from an antenna. OK. Well, when one of my paid for OTA station has far too often break ups, Dish must be using an antenna for that channel. Question now would it do any good to complain to Dish about their antenna being too far away from the transmitter or is it a case that they don't give a rat's butt about the problem?

It depends on the station. If the station elected must-carry, then it is the station's responsibility to deliver a good quality signal to Dish's local reception facility. So, if there is an issue with the way the station is actually broadcasting, then it is up to the station's engineers to fix the problem, or to work with Dish to resolve the issue. Otherwise, the station risks no longer being carried at all, due to not delivering a reliable signal.

If the station requires retransmission consent, then the station owner can negotiate with Dish over who pays the cost for providing a reliable signal, what method is used to deliver the signal, and whose responsibility it is to maintain the quality of the signal being delivered. Either way, contact your local station that is having the issue, to let them know that you are unhappy with their reception from your Dish service.

 

[RT-Cat]

WOW! That is a lot of information on how local channels get to Dish. Much more of an involved situation than what one would think. I will give it an attempt to contact the local station and see what happens. I have a bad feeling that it is going to end up being a typical "pass the buck" situation. We will see......
Thanks for all the great info.

 

[tanman]

@ RT-Cat-Do people close to the transmitter also have pixelation issues?Perhaps check out AVS forum and the topic Local HDTV info and Reception.

 

[RT-Cat]

@ RT-Cat-Do people close to the transmitter also have pixelation issues?Perhaps check out AVS forum and the topic Local HDTV info and Reception.

I will look into that.

 

[sam_gordon]

Have you contacted Dish? They're you're provider, they should be the first call. Pixelization can happen with any kind of digital transmission, whether RF (OTA) or fiber. Even if it's RF, it's not necessarily an antenna problem. That's the most likely, but not a guarantee. There could be a problem with the receiver, the mux (they take all the local channels and put them together into one feed, then send that to Denver), the demuxer, whatever processor they using, etc. Heck, it could even be a problem with your receiver.

Calling the local probably won't fix your problem, but you might find out others are having the same issue.

 

[RT-Cat]

sam_gordon,
Been too busy to do much on this. I will ask Dish about it when time allows. Reason for thinking it was an antenna problem was it looked just the same as it did when I was on OTA only. Just got Dish again early last month. I can say at least with Dish(Hopper3)it can tolerate the loss of signal and continue to record. My OTA setup most of the time would end up with a messed up recording or the recording would just stop. So Dish is a better setup.
With what you describe as to how this operates, it is almost a miracle that is works at all. When you think that my Mother did her school work with a kerosene lamp on the farm and what I can do with today's electronics in only 80 years or so is amazing!

 

[rjruby]

These are two email addresses I used many years ago to report pixelation problems with my locals to Dish:

dishquality@echostar.com
QA.User@echostar.com

I don't know if they're still valid or not.

At that time they did acknowledge my problem and corrected it.

 

[jerryez]

I am 30 miles from the network towers and I have a 30 foot outdoor antenna, yet sometimes the pixalation is so bad that my TiVo does not get a god signal, But, I can go to PTAT and watch the same show without any pixalation problems and have done so quite frequently with CBS.

 

[sam_gordon]

I am 30 miles from the network towers and I have a 30 foot outdoor antenna, yet sometimes the pixalation is so bad that my TiVo does not get a god signal, But, I can go to PTAT and watch the same show without any pixalation problems and have done so quite frequently with CBS.

Dish's pickup point is probably much closer than 30 miles from the transmitter.

 

[jerryez]

I am close to the tower, CBS claims that they broadcast clear to Ft Walton, FL , which is another 30 miles, buit I do not thik so, unless they are counting on the rebroadcast of the FT Walton cable company.

 

[sam_gordon]

I am close to the tower, CBS claims that they broadcast clear to Ft Walton, FL , which is another 30 miles, buit I do not thik so, unless they are counting on the rebroadcast of the FT Walton cable company.

They might if the receive antenna is directional, at a relatively high elevation, and has enough gain. According to Rabbit Ears, they (assuming you're referring to WKRG, that's the closest CBS I can find) have a 73 mile contour, and Eglin AFB is at about 78 miles.

 

[Michael McCrady]

First things first. Are you getting the locals through the satellite? Or off air antenna? Off air nobody guarantees quality of service for that. Dish or anybody else’s view is buy a bigger antenna. If it’s going through the satellite as in more than 1, they are pointed into space and 1 might be out of alignment. Either way depends how you get your channels.

 

[sam_gordon]

First things first. Are you getting the locals through the satellite? Or off air antenna? Off air nobody guarantees quality of service for that. Dish or anybody else’s view is buy a bigger antenna. If it’s going through the satellite as in more than 1, they are pointed into space and 1 might be out of alignment. Either way depends how you get your channels.

In the OP, it references "paid for local channels". With that, it's a pretty safe assumption he's getting his locals from Dish. So with that assumption, since it's only one channel with a problem, it's probably not a misaligned dish (if it was misaligned, other channels would be experiencing the problem).