Eastern arc dish performance in bad weather

[neftv]

This is my first winter experience with the Eastern Arc dish. Complete signal loss when snow/ice collect on this dish as in today's storm in Southeastern PA and snow storms of the past two weeks. Never happened with my previous setup 61.5 and 110/119 dishes. Very unfortunate. Right now it looks like it just raining however the dish is still signal-less.
I guess not much to do since Dish wants everyone on Eastern Arc.

 

[Dah-Henny]

Make sure that the .4 is at maximum peak. That said, the .4 really points high in the sky here in the east, and snow tends to slide down and collect toward the bottom. Not a problem when the snow is dry, but have issues when the temp goes above freezing. Last year, I moved my dish to a more accessible location, and is a breeze now to remove wet snow.

 

[TheKrell]

I checked SS this morning as soon as I regained power (around 8AM), and it sure looked like 72.7 and 77 were lower than normal about 20 pnts. 61.5 looked normal. We had snow last night, followed by sleet, followed by freezing rain all morning. Ice is everywhere.

 

[drdroo]

Once I re-aligned my 1000.4 with the Superbuddy it has been pretty much smooth sailing for me as well as for my brother. The only thing I learned is that it pays to make sure to peak on the peak transponders. Seems to have made all of the difference.

77 is still a no-show for me though. I get like a signal strength of 6. Supposedly that's 'normal' for this region.

 

[Tomboy257]

Are there any covers available for this type of dish to fend off ice and snow?

 

[boba]

Are there any covers available for this type of dish to fend off ice and snow?

You don't want a cover you want a heating pad to melt it off.

 

[loubon]

I've been having the same problem. Is there any way for a novice to adjust this without climbing up on the roof or using a signal meter? Thanks!

 

[Frank7004]

I'm assuming it's roof mounted? Move it to the ground. It can easily be cleared and serviced from the ground.

 

[TheKrell]

"Peaking the dish" if that's what you propose, is definitely a hands-on exercise. If your dish is on the roof, then that is where you adjust it. It helps a lot to have a meter at the dish, to get immediate feedback on what you're doing.

BTW - my EA is completely out due to the wet snow we've been having all evening.

 

[Tampa8]

The only time I have lost my channels since having the EA is during the 28" we got couple of weeks ago. Even at that, as soon as I brushed off the snow it was fine. Have never lost it during normal snow falls, normal rain, etc.... The signal strengths are lower than when I had the WA. I do know the installer used the peak transponders to peak, he really took his time too. Maybe that is the difference.

 

[ronalr]

This is my first winter experience with the Eastern Arc dish. Complete signal loss when snow/ice collect on this dish as in today's storm in Southeastern PA and snow storms of the past two weeks. Never happened with my previous setup 61.5 and 110/119 dishes. Very unfortunate. Right now it looks like it just raining however the dish is still signal-less.
I guess not much to do since Dish wants everyone on Eastern Arc.

I am in Baltimore MD and this is the first time I have ever lost my signal because of snow..(This is my 1st winter with Eastern Arc as well).......We had 3 feet last year and never lost it once...but this is a very wet snow and it is sticking to everything and it is on the highest point of my roof....oh well the DVR works great and I have a lot of movies to catch up on!!!!

 

[DIRANONI]

Eastern Arc is down, moving to DVR.........Californication here I come.

 

[jbahlman]

My box locked up while i was checking to see if any channel had signal. Now when it came back it lost the guide and i can't even go to my guide or type in the my channels on the antenna.

Does anyone have a way to get to the antenna channels when the guide is gone?

This is also my 1st year with Eastern ARC. Last year we had over 40inches of snow on the ground and my signal was still borderline ~35. It is registering nothing right now.

 

[Tony S]

I have had dish for over 12 years. Until last year I had 2 dishes, a dish 500 (110/119) and a wing dish (61.5). I very rarely lost signal and I never lost signal for more than a couple of minutes, over 12 years. This is my first year with Eastern arc, and I have had complete loss of signal twice now during heavy snow storms. The first snow storm was about 2 feet and I lost signal for about 24 hrs. The signal came back on by itself because I was not about to go up on the roof to clear off the dish. Last night we had about 14 inches of heavy snow and once again there is complete signal loss. This time the dish is completely buried by drifting snow from high winds.

As others have said, the Eastern Arc dish points higher up and snow collects a lot more compared with my 110/119/61.5 setup. However, we have had more snow this year than any other year on record.

 

[thedamaja]

My box locked up while i was checking to see if any channel had signal. Now when it came back it lost the guide and i can't even go to my guide or type in the my channels on the antenna.

Does anyone have a way to get to the antenna channels when the guide is gone?

This is also my 1st year with Eastern ARC. Last year we had over 40inches of snow on the ground and my signal was still borderline ~35. It is registering nothing right now.

Normally when you're in a lockup due to signal loss you can press Menu on the remote then select number 1 for the guide.

 

[TheKrell]

Normally when you're in a lockup due to signal loss you can press Menu on the remote then select number 1 for the guide.

I successfully did that on my 722 and early last night on my MBR 612. But a few power glitches later, selecting guide on the 612 popped up a "Data not available" message and the guide would not display. So I could not switch to OTA channels (or satellite channels), period. I could only watch recorded programs.

 

[jbahlman]

Yes that is what i was doing, until the box locked up and rebooted. When it came back, i got the data not available message.

This morning i had the 61.5 sat at ~20 signal and was able to get some channels, and by lunchtime the others came back.

Just frustrating to not be able to watch any local news when i have an antenna.
If i wasn't too lazy to crawl behind the tv and move the antenna to the tv i could still watch locals, but i shouldn't have to.

 

[wolfjc]

Here in Cincinnati I had the same problem. My dish is on EA and the front of the dish is sited such that I can't see it so I got a hose and hoocked it up to the kitchen water and used HOT watrer on back of the dish and it was fixed.

 

[dwarren2]

In another thread it was suggested to use a super soaker filled with hot water. I lost my EARC only once this winter and that was with wet snow. I would also loose signal with my old 500 set up in the same weather. I did notice that the new set up isn't as susceptible to rain fade.

 

[thomasjk]

If i wasn't too lazy to crawl behind the tv and move the antenna to the tv i could still watch locals, but i shouldn't have to.

I have a splitter installed that feeds my 622 and the TV at the same time. I just switch the inputs on the TV directly to the antenna when this occurs. We had some snow here in Charlotte a week ago and I never completely lost all the channels, only certain transponders. Last year when I had this EA dish installed i would get severe rain fade with little rain and snow completely hosed it. I called Dish and they sent out a tech who peaked the dish and tightened all the bolts that the previous installer had neglected.