Local channels sporadically heavily pixelated
M
For the past week my local channels have occasionally been so
pixilated that I can't watch them. It started last week when
storms were in the area but now it seems every afternoon it
happens for a few hours and I've lost a few nights of season
finales. It doesn't happen at the same time each day nor every
day. I have a 7 year old system and I'm in the northeast. Any
ideas, things I should know before calling?
Mare
Patty Winter
In article <hte4s2$mp3$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
Are you near the edge of the spotbeam that carries your locals?
If your dish got knocked a little off-kilter by the storms, it
could now be getting a weak signal on your locals.
Also, have you verified that your nationwide channels are okay?
If not, then perhaps some water got into the cables.
Patty
Raymond Feist
wrote:
> Hi,
My first thought is the storms knocked your dish slightly off, just enough to
screw up the reception; it's critical if you're at the edge of the spot beam
which carriers your locals.
If you have time, check a source like dbstalk.com for the satellite/transponder
that carries your locals, and check signal strength. If it's strong, then it
could be a loose connection or slight damage to the LNB (but that would tend to
show up on more than just locals).
If the signal on your locals is weak, a dish adjustment should make the problem
go away.
Best, R.E.F.
--
Never attribute to malice what can
satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
M
message
news:raymond-8EE939...@news.giganews.com...
Hi,
I have checked the menu for signal strength whenever the
pixilation is occurring, it's sat 119 and transponder 29 and
the signal is weak to non-existent when it happens. I've also
done x-ponder tests and the signal comes up 0's most times
while the national sat is fine. I do get my national channels
when this happens so would a dish adjustment make the national
channels wonky? I went to dbstalk.com but I can't find how to
check the signal strength, help appreciated.
Thanks,
Mare
PS the storms from last week were noting like the storms from
a month ago when the state was basically shut down because of
flooding :)
M
news:4bfa9781$0$1674$742e...@news.sonic.net...
Hi Patty,
I don't know what a spot beam is or if I'm at the edge of it.
How would I find that out?
I am getting my national channels just fine.
Thanks,
Mare
Raymond Feist
wrote:
Well, I'd make a service call and have them come check out the dish's alignment.
National stuff has a much broader footprint (basically the entire DirecTV
market) whereas locals have a "pinhole" footprint for just your area. Why send
the locals from Chicago to Denver, for example. So if you live dead center of
the pinhole, you'd probably be fine, but if you're on the edge, it only takes a
little to screw things up.
And it really doesn't matter which storm did it; the first one may have loosened
it up, as we used to say to the last guy opening the jar after the rest of us
couldn't budge it.
Raymond Feist
wrote:
Spot beam or pinholes, means that the broadcast signal is hitting only a
relatively small area of the real estate below the satellite. Say you've got 50
markets, and each has different locals. It makes no sense to broadcast all
fifty market's locals to everyone, if only that one market can legally see the
broadcasts. So the locals here in San Diego are only broadcast to a specific
set of zip codes. There's some overlap, say in South Riverside which is part of
the L.A. market, and north San Diego, so those people live on the "edge" of the
spot beam or pinhole. Which stations they get is determined by the zip code on
the account. But for most of those markets, they only get one signal. I hope
that makes sense.
M
Thanks so much, it does all make sense to me. I'll dig into
dbstalk.com more to see where I fall in the pinhole. Do you
think the locals would be constantly pixilated if the dish is
out of alignment?
Mare
Patty Winter
In article <raymond-D2ADA1...@news.giganews.com>,
Raymond Feist <ray...@nospam.bittersea.com> wrote:
[extraneous quotage deleted]
>Spot beam or pinholes, means that the broadcast signal is hitting only a
>relatively small area of the real estate below the satellite. Say
>you've got 50
>markets, and each has different locals. It makes no sense to broadcast all
>fifty market's locals to everyone, if only that one market can legally see the
>broadcasts.
Restricting each set of locals to customers who are legally allowed
to get them is done in subscriber software. The real reason for the
spotbeams is that it allows DirecTV to put multiple TV stations on
the same transponders, thus maximizing the number of stations that a
given satellite can carry. If locals all had nationwide footprints,
DirecTV would only have enough bandwidth on the satellite to carry a
fraction of the country's locals.
Patty
Raymond Feist
wrote:
> Thanks so much, it does all make sense to me. I'll dig into
> dbstalk.com more to see where I fall in the pinhole. Do you
> think the locals would be constantly pixilated if the dish is
> out of alignment?
> Mare
Not really. Everything moves. It could be a slight change in wind direction,
the expansion/contraction of a something connected due to the day's heat/night's
cold, or any number of things. I've seen a drop in temp louse up a signal that
looks great in the hot afternoon when the tech is measuring it. That's why one
of the things a good tech does is a thorough visual check of all the
connections. Heck, one friend of mine found a fried rat that had tried to eat
all the insulation on his cable. The rodent did fine until he got past the
CAT-5 and bit into an AC line. New cable, one new power line, and a call to
pest control took care of his ills.
M
:) Thank you