Searching for signal 771 on both standard boxes, channels missing on HD box

[donna_behm]

On Saturday morning all three of our boxes (2 standard and one HD) worked fine. Mid-morning, both standard boxes said searching for signal and certain channels stopped working on the HD box. One of them is 608, which is an outdoor channel. I don't have a complete list at the moment. I called to schedule a service call and jumped through hoops trying to reset the boxes with no success, but the boxes worked on their own again in the evening, so I canceled it. The weather was sunny the whole day, with very mild wind speed. It was funny, because we got an automated phone call asking if we wanted to cancel the appt. since the "inclement weather" they had detected in our area had passed. Huh?

The problem is that this has happened every day since I canceled the appt. Same exact scenario, during the same hours. What would cause that? I find it annoying when I call and they want to know if a tree grew to cover the satellite in the last couple hours. (The lady I talked to on Sat. assured me that this DOES happen. LOL) The dish is on the roof of a two story house. There are no trees near it at all, let alone tall ones. And how would that explain why most of the channels on the HD box still work, and how the other two boxes recover themselves with no action on my part?

I would really like to get to the bottom of this, but I do have other things to do than spend a lot of time on the phone being asked to do things that do not help, and wait for a technician for 4 hours when the day of the appt. finally arrives. I'm sure I will have to do those things anyway, but I can't believe how odd this situation is and thought someone might have some idea what is causing it and how to remedy it. We've had the service for 18 mos. and the problems in the past have been due to snow (usually it doesn't go out until the blizzard ends and the snow on the dish turns to ice.)

Thank you for any help you can offer.

 

[scoop8]

^^

It sound like your describing a bad LNB scenario. When an LNB becomes margionally operational, intermittent, or is about to go fail completely, they will react to the sun's focal heat from the dish's reflective surface.

I'm not the expert that most guys are here on the forum but that's my guess as to your problem. You sould see a couple of posts here from the vets on this Bd soon .

BTW, to the forum

 

[donna_behm]

Thanks, Scoop8. So that tells me I had better make sure that the repair guy can come when it's sunny out and during the times when the boxes aren't working so he can see what's going on. The boxes seem to go out at 10:30am and stay out until around 7:30pm, so an afternoon appt. should work.

 

[Davedirectv]

does the LNB have a white face on it?

If you dont know what an lnb is, up on the dish arm, its the device on the end with the horns.

white faced 5 lnbs are troublesome at times.

 

[donna_behm]

Hi Dave, thanks for your reply. I just went out and looked and the arm that you referred to has 3 round items on it and all of them have what look like semi-opaque white faces. The reception went out around 11am this morning and I'm sure it will be back by 8pm tonight. Unfortunately, I tried resetting the HD box when I realized how many channels it was really missing and now it has zero reception. Directv set up an appt. for late aft. next Wed. Very tedious. I sure wish I had realized this would recur when I canceled that first appt.

 

[donna_behm]

Update with a question:

Well wouldn't you know that when the tech got here, the sky was dark with clouds, so all 3 boxes were working? (We had one other day when the sky was overcast and the reception came and went, so it was definitely tied to the sun and /or temperature.) Fortunately, he was able to change the LNB before it really started to pour and even lightning. After that, he couldn't tell if that fixed the problem or not, since it was working when he got there and stopped working because of the hard rain. So he took off an amplifier in the basement and also removed a combiner and splitter for one room to receive OTA over the same line. Those had both been there since we got satellite installed in Oct. 2008 with no problems, so I wondered if that was necessary. I have no problem with the amplifier being removed, because I actually had been surprised no other techs had removed it before now just in case it could cause distortion.

The splitter/combiner seems questionable because the only time we use the antenna is when the satellite goes out. I'm wondering if/how having that installed in just one room would be able to cause the reception to go out in all three rooms. We're not able to run another line to that room like we did to the other two because it's upstairs and on the opposite side of the house from where the outside line comes in. If it really is a problem, we can live without OTA in that room, but we wouldn't need it in the first place if the satellite always worked.

 

[Davedirectv]

What are your signal level's at?

Menu>Setup>System Setup>Satellite>View Signal Strength

Post what you have on 99(c), 101, 103 (ca), 110, 119.

 

[donna_behm]

Hi Dave, do you mean on the box in the room that previously shared the line with the OTA and no longer does? Since the LNB was replaced and it's all working now, my remaining question is whether I have to leave the OTA disconnected in that one room or whether it's okay to combine in the basement and split upstairs. Thanks!

 

[Davedirectv]

Hi Dave, do you mean on the box in the room that previously shared the line with the OTA and no longer does? Since the LNB was replaced and it's all working now, my remaining question is whether I have to leave the OTA disconnected in that one room or whether it's okay to combine in the basement and split upstairs. Thanks!

if this is a swm install, you would have problems, there are special swm diplexers that you can buy.

if it's just a kaku, you would still have problems, unless you put the diplexer after the bbc.

 

[donna_behm]

Thanks, Dave. No, it's not a SWM--just read about that kind of setup this morning. I googled kaku just now and it said it refers to 5 LNB. That reminds me--one person who responded said there is sometimes a problem with white-faced 5 LNBs and the sun, and that is apparently what we had even though I thought we had the 3LNB (because that's what the setup said). Anyway, the tech said he changed it to 3 LNB last night.

If I were to put back on the combiner and splitter, it wouldn't damage anything, right? If it caused interference then I could just take it off again. The combiner was attached in the basement after the signal was split to go to only that room. So I just want to make sure there is no way having a splitter/combiner would damage anything? The tech said something about feedback, but I think he was talking about the amplifier that he took off, and I think he meant signal interference, not actually causing damage to anything. Am I understanding that right?