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Weather, studio, or a reboot needed?
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Posted January 19, 2013 at 11:41AM
Television in two separate room, with original analogue aerial available in both. One has Freeview, the other Freesat. The terrestrial aerial has co-ax to both rooms.
Last night after the (12cm)snow stopped and the temperature hovered round zero, I found that my Freesat would not display a proper picture or offerred a "No signal" excuse ................. and then cleared to work normally about 2200
The old Freeview setup with a terrestrial aerial was working normally as did the younger digital TV equipment when switched to the terrestrial aerial.
Meanwhile I had looked at the Freesat aerial which was well coated with snow, and felt I was going to have to shift the snow from the satellite aerial in daylight. After the satellite signal returned I looked again and could not see any less snow.
This morning the sat. antenna still has a fair load of snow but is working fine!
What was wrong to cause loss of reception from at least 1800 to 2200?
The snow is thickest over the receptor, only covering the lower half of the dish. A load of snow on a sat aerial cannot improve performance, but I haven't heard of this as a common fault?
I think it might have been better to have unplugged the receiver/recorder stuff and rebooted. Treated it just like a PC and made a restart from cold!
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Posted January 19, 2013 at 5:53PM
Sounds like you had a build up of snow either on the face of the LNB or directly in front of the LNB thus effectively blocking the satellite signal from reaching your decoder.
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Posted January 19, 2013 at 6:00PM
BTW if you have to remove snow from the dish it is best to use regular car deicer if you can reach the dish.
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Posted January 19, 2013 at 6:32PM
Thanks SillBill
This is its third winter and the first time such a "failure" has happened. I take your point about using a windscreen cleaner - an alcohol based squirt, and NOT the glycol inhibitor mixture which goes into the engine cooling.
Even so, about half of the original dose of snow has gone and since the system is working normally I won't *fix it !*
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Posted January 19, 2013 at 6:36PM
Very sensible, when it aint broke DON'T "fix it"!!
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Posted January 21, 2013 at 10:49AM
Satellite TV signals are affected by adverse weather - particularly by heavy rain and snow. Accumulated snow on the dish and LNB will lead to a 'no signal' message. The cure is to gently brush the snow off - if you can reach the dish with a broom.
Heavy snow or falling rain can also lead to signal degradation.
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Posted January 21, 2013 at 5:57PM
FE.
Weather causing loss of signal happened far too often using my terrestrial aerial, and the 4hr loss was the first I'd had with the freesat setup.
Blindingly obvious really, just surprised that TV worked at all with the snow left after the signal returned.
Yes I know I said I wouldn't fiddle with it ... but I did manage to hang out of a bedroom window to push off the lump that remained. It was a mite awkward and fraught because the window is low and opens to cover that side. The other half suggested her cobweb brush which is long and light so I was able to do a daring hangout one-handed and just push the snow off before the overnight frost secured the lump and could have given a solid foundation for the next fall.
To reach it with a spray can would have meant a ladder, and I hate any height when the ladder becomes wobbly.
The solar panels shut down in the snow and didn't even bother to come alive until the snow fell off about half of them today, and were still inactive with heavy cloud cover.
