Satellite Loss on 72

[johnathancline]

Greetings all,

I'm a new Dish subscriber (made the switch from DirecTV on New Year's Day & am loving it!). We are in the middle of a huge snowstorm (in Bowling Green, KY), and I've lost satellite signal on 72. 61.5 is coming in. I have no HD channels (at least that I've found) except locals.

My questions:
On average, how long should I wait for 72 to return? It's still snowing at a good clip and is expected to snow for another few hours.

Will I need to reset the receiver to get 72 back, or will it re-acquire the signal automatically?

Thanks in advance. I can see this is a great forum for Dish users & I've really enjoyed reading the topics and am greatly anticipating the Hopper 3 (hope that I can get it for relatively cheap!)

 

[robstudio]

Is the dish full of snow? If so and you can reach with a broom, clear the snow off the reflector and it should come right back.

 

[johnathancline]

Is the dish full of snow? If so and you can reach with a broom, clear the snow off the reflector and it should come right back.

Not at all. There was some (very little) ice on the LNB, but I was able to knock it off. There wasn't any snow at all, surprisingly.

 

[robstudio]

72 working here.. I've not lost signal in snow.. other than the dish accumulation. Signal should return shortly..

 

[johnathancline]

72 working here.. I've not lost signal in snow.. other than the dish accumulation. Signal should return shortly..

I hope so - it's been down all day! I'm thankful that Dish at least lets me watch the SD version of the channel.

 

[robstudio]

Pull power plug.. reboot.. something doesn't right there.

 

[johnathancline]

Just tried it. No luck. The only thing I can think of is that there's still ice on the LNB that I missed?

 

[ChadT41]

Maybe ice in the plastic cap?

 

[lfp302]

Don't hit it hard enough to move something...

 

[johnathancline]

I've gone back outside as it has finally stopped snowing. (We've gotten right at a foot - a very rare occurrence here!) What I couldn't tell during the day was that there's a pretty good layer of ice on the dish itself. I didn't have any way to get rid of it tonight, but I bet that's the reason why. I'm going to wait until tomorrow when I can hopefully get up there and get rid of the ice on the dish and will report back.

lfp302: Thanks for the advice. The direction the LNB is pointing, I barely had to touch it earlier to get the ice off, so I don't think that I moved anything.

Thanks to everyone for their help. I appreciate it very much!

 

[johnathancline]

Update: It must have been the ice on the dish. Once I got up this morning, the HD signals are back and the satellite has returned.

 

[robstudio]

Ice and sticky wet snow are the worst... Glad you're back in business!

 

[Cold Irons]

Thanks to "Pam" cooking spray (a tip learned here at Satelliteguys) my dish is still clear after a foot of snow followed by some ice. Went on roof & sprayed yesterday afternoon, still clear (for now)...

 

[Titanium]

RainX and RainShield are great solutions to shed water and wet snow from the LNBF cap and reflector surface. Cooking spray (Pam) will turn rancid in the summer heat and become tacky. Dirt / dust magnet and bugs are attracted to the smell, get stuck on the "fly paper" and die.

I have had the task of cleaning off rancid cooking spray before servicing customer dishes. Not a pleasant job. Friends don't let friends spray vegetable oil on their dishes...

 

[Troch77]

Cooking spray is the worst thing you can use.
It's butter in a can, why would you spray that on anything you aren't using for cooking.

Rain x is good, You want something that doesn't leave a film.