New to Dish and have lost signal twice in the first two weeks

strickland604

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Original poster
Aug 30, 2017
11
1
Daphne Al.
I was with Directv for 8 years so I know during heavy rain you can lose signal but in the last two weeks I have lost signal twice which kind of scares me since I did not lose signal that frequent with Direct. I live in Daphne Al. which is close to Mobile Al. I am on the eastern Arc. My signal for 61.5 is around 54 to 58 with spotbeam 18 being 54 on 72 my signal is around 60 to 64 if this helps. My question is should I be losing signal this frequent? When I lose signal its from clouds not rain. Is there anything I can do or is this normal with Dish?
 
I was with Directv for 8 years so I know during heavy rain you can lose signal but in the last two weeks I have lost signal twice which kind of scares me since I did not lose signal that frequent with Direct. I live in Daphne Al. which is close to Mobile Al. I am on the eastern Arc. My signal for 61.5 is around 54 to 58 with spotbeam 18 being 54 on 72 my signal is around 60 to 64 if this helps. My question is should I be losing signal this frequent? When I lose signal its from clouds not rain. Is there anything I can do or is this normal with Dish?

This is not normal from my experience on the EA. Clouds that do not produce rain do not typically cause signal loss.
 
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I was with Directv for 8 years so I know during heavy rain you can lose signal but in the last two weeks I have lost signal twice which kind of scares me since I did not lose signal that frequent with Direct. I live in Daphne Al. which is close to Mobile Al. I am on the eastern Arc. My signal for 61.5 is around 54 to 58 with spotbeam 18 being 54 on 72 my signal is around 60 to 64 if this helps. My question is should I be losing signal this frequent? When I lose signal its from clouds not rain. Is there anything I can do or is this normal with Dish?

I was having those problems not too long ago. I would have it re peaked. When the tech came to re peak my dish he said it wasn’t far enough off to have a problem but I haven’t had problems since then. He did check cable connections on the lnb as well so maybe it was just a lose cable.
 
How often do you experience signal loss do to rain or rain clouds?

When I had issues it would be in and out if it was even remotely cloudy out. I’m in Wisconsin which might be a little more touchy with how the dish is aimed. Usually it shouldn’t be an issue. And like I said it could possibly be a lose connection. The tech never said what it actually was.
 
Thanks for the help guys. How does my signal look to you guys? I was told those numbers were great.

Your signal numbers that you quoted sound good. Sometimes if there are thunder storm clouds between your dish and the satellite it will affect your signal. It doesn't necessarily have to be raining at your location. I've seen signal go out with no rain for a couple of minutes and then come back and then it starts raining like crazy and the signal is fine while it's raining. It all depends on where the high top thunder clouds are in relation to your dish and the satellite in space.
 
Could he be getting hit with Sun outages already? They should be happening around now.

It's possible and without looking at it, i'd be more inclined to think that could be a bad LNBF. I'd be curious to know what each transponder is reading and what the DBM's are behind the receiver. Also if during the installation connections weren't tightened, he could be experiencing signal loss from ingress and egress. Possibly bad cabling. Maybe they didn't run 3GHZ cable to the hopper. There are a lot of things that can cause intermittent signal loss. He said he used to have DirecTV and if the dish installer used the perfect vision cable, I know just says that it fails up to 3000 MHz so that could be another cars
 
It's possible and without looking at it, i'd be more inclined to think that could be a bad LNBF. I'd be curious to know what each transponder is reading and what the DBM's are behind the receiver. Also if during the installation connections weren't tightened, he could be experiencing signal loss from ingress and egress. Possibly bad cabling. Maybe they didn't run 3GHZ cable to the hopper. There are a lot of things that can cause intermittent signal loss. He said he used to have DirecTV and if the dish installer used the perfect vision cable, I know just says that it fails up to 3000 MHz so that could be another cars
When the installer installed the dish he replaced the ground block and install a new cable line from the dish to the ground block. Other than that he used the existing cables just changed out the connectors. Both times I lost signal it has been between 6 and 7 in the afternoon.
 
When I loose picture I get a dialog box to check for obstructions, or check cables or for rain. I do know when this happens I cannot change the channel or anything until the picture comes back.
 
Not normal to lose it that often. Are the LNB's new? Based on what you posted I actually would look at a bad LNB or connection first.
Though the Eastern Arc is more likely to get some rain fade than the Western Arc it still is rare. I have the Eastern Arc in Ct and Western Arc in Florida. Even in Florida with extreme heavy afternoon downpours do I lose the signal all the time, and rarely if ever with regular rain in either location. An exception can be the head of a very heavy storm cloud. In that case I may lose the signal for a short time as it passes between my DISH and the satellite before it even rains and maybe there never is rain. But your signal levels you posted are good.
 
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When I loose picture I get a dialog box to check for obstructions, or check cables or for rain. I do know when this happens I cannot change the channel or anything until the picture comes back.

Just press the Guide, Menu or DVR button and you should be able to try other channels or watch recordings. And there's nothing wrong with modern Perfect Vision cable that's rated to 3Ghz. In fact it's got a solid copper center conductor while most Dish approved wire only has copper clad steel. Obviously the solid copper is better. :)
 
My install was 3 weeks ago and I'm seeing similar signal numbers. We've had some rain come through, but nothing heavy. I haven't had an outage so far. My installer did reuse my Directv cables coming into the house. He ran new cable from the dish to the "splitter" or node (been a while since I've had dish so I can't remember the equipment names) that runs to my hopper 3 and my joey 2. All cables from that node onward are my old Directv cables. I did double check all connections after he left to make sure they were snug. His install was disappointing to be honest. Everything works OK, but I'd never do such a sloppy job with the dish mounting and cable runs. This is why I decided to check the connections later in the evening after he left. Hopefully your problems will be a simple loose connection.
 
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I was with Directv for 8 years so I know during heavy rain you can lose signal but in the last two weeks I have lost signal twice which kind of scares me since I did not lose signal that frequent with Direct. I live in Daphne Al. which is close to Mobile Al. I am on the eastern Arc. My signal for 61.5 is around 54 to 58 with spotbeam 18 being 54 on 72 my signal is around 60 to 64 if this helps. My question is should I be losing signal this frequent? When I lose signal its from clouds not rain. Is there anything I can do or is this normal with Dish?
Just an observation, but you have stronger signal on the satellite that has fewer channels. A lot of HD channels have moved from 72 to 61.5 recently. So, perhaps your dish could be re-peaked to give you a stronger signal on 61.5, and that might help fix the problem.

Could he be getting hit with Sun outages already? They should be happening around now.
When the installer installed the dish he replaced the ground block and install a new cable line from the dish to the ground block. Other than that he used the existing cables just changed out the connectors. Both times I lost signal it has been between 6 and 7 in the afternoon.
The timing, considering that the OP is on Eastern Arc, would seem to rule out Sun outages.
 
The timing, considering that the OP is on Eastern Arc, would seem to rule out Sun outages.

I agree, but he didn't mention a time period before I posited possible Sun outage.

My very first Eastern arc lnb went intermittently bad inside of a few months. I sent it back and got it replaced under warranty. I own all my equipment outright. Issues started exactly as he has explained. The lnb would start drifting way off as the heat of the day went up, and I'd get signal loss. When it would be cooler, it didn't seem to cause issues.
 
I was with Directv for 8 years so I know during heavy rain you can lose signal but in the last two weeks I have lost signal twice which kind of scares me since I did not lose signal that frequent with Direct. I live in Daphne Al. which is close to Mobile Al. I am on the eastern Arc. My signal for 61.5 is around 54 to 58 with spotbeam 18 being 54 on 72 my signal is around 60 to 64 if this helps. My question is should I be losing signal this frequent? When I lose signal its from clouds not rain. Is there anything I can do or is this normal with Dish?

I need to amend my reply a little. I didn't see in the title it was only two times you lost the signal. It may be you won't lose it for another many months I think it;s too early to tell if there is a problem or not. Either way it would not be normal to lose the signal often but two weeks is too short to see if further action is needed.
 
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