Strange OTA problem in cold weather

[lostcause]

I'm in Miami and for some reason my reception for channel 4 gets much worse when the weather gets cold (considering I'm in Miami, I'm talking about when it drops into the 60's or low 70's). The warmer it is, the more consistent, the colder, the less consistent.

What happens is I'll be watching it with a signal strength of say 95 or so, then suddenly it drops to the 40s, I get the "no signal" message, then it jumps back up. It's tolerable in warm weather since it doesn't happen often, but as it gets colder, it pretty much happens constantly. Last night for example I got no signal about 95% of the time, and every once in a while it would come in.

Other than calling voom and having them remount my antenna a bit higher, does anyone have any ideas??

 

[Couch Patato]

I had that problen too. Kind of. I lost OTA when it was wet/snow up on the roof & then as the outside air temp got down to freezing. Water had gotten into the splice in the cable I had made so I could raise my ant. up higher on the 10' ant. boom. When it froze, the contact was lost. I have since water proofed it. Silly me didn't use out door connectors.

In your case though I wouldn't think that 40 degrees should matter. If you can. At least unscrew & then retighten all of the connectors out side from the OTA antena to the diplexor.

 

[Lobstah]

And if you unscrew 'em, hit 'em with some WD40 before you screw them back together...
It really does sound like one of your outdoor connections.

Lob

 

[Ilya]

My OTA reception is weather-dependent too, though in my case, it's the other way around: on rainy days I sometimes get stations that are unreachable most of the time. Go figure!

 

[Lobstah]

Ilya,
Actually, that's pretty common, especially in areas with lots of trees and lots of miles between you and the towers. WET leaves tend to help the UHF signal via reflection...

Really. LOL

Lob

 

[cr0mag]

And if you unscrew 'em, hit 'em with some WD40 before you screw them back together...
It really does sound like one of your outdoor connections.

Lob

Just curious, I live very close to the antennas and I get random dropouts too. Could it be a bad crimp at the antenna? Usually I have no problems, but out of the blue one of the channels will go out and come back on later.
Thanks in advance!