Attn. Directv Subscribers

Has anyone else been having troubling receiving particular channels? For me, they have included CNN, ESPN, and my local channels. At the bottom of the screen, it says "searching for satellite signal." I'm wondering if something's wrong with my receiver, or maybe it has something to do with the solar flare activity that's been going on lately. Thanks.

You might also check to see if DirecTV has changed satellites on the channels you're looking for.

n/t

might have blown your dish off the mark - you might need to reset it.

I get that occasionally if it's overcast south of us. Sometimes the clouds block the satellite signal.

Also check the dish if you can, to see if it's loose. Pueblo West (where I live) is very windy, and the dish came loose after a few months. I wound up using metal plates on both sides of the mounting bracket to spread the stress across a wider area, which solved the problem.

You may also have to realign the dish. The manual that came with your converter tells you how. I discovered about a year after we had ours installed that the tech had misaligned our dish - it was supposed to be set to 46 degrees for my ZIP Code, but is was only set to 41. After I realigned it, the signal strengths increased from the 50s to somewhere in the 80s. It's been working fine ever since.

Except during snowstorms. when the dish fills with snow. Forunately I can reach the dish with a push broom from my front porch and clear the snow out of the dish.

We did have some high winds a few days ago that may have knocked it out of whack. I'll look into that. Thanks.

You want a signal strength of 80 or higher I believe.

There's a menu that has a signal meter on it. You should aim for at least 80% strength on it. Also changing the transponders sometimes helps. At this time of year cloud cover can dim the signal too. If you can't do this yourself, you may have to get a technician in to help you.

They are computers, sometimes their brains get scrambled. Just unplug it for 1 minute and plug it back in. That might fix the problem.

Sometimes it'll work for a few minutes and then it loses the signal again. Hmmm.

it just might be a problem with your receiver. Do you have a second receiver in another room you could try?

If not, call customer service, and see what they suggest. I've had pretty good luck with getting to the bottom of rare problems.

If it works sometimes, it couldn't be your dish, unless it is very loose and flapping in the wind.

Sometimes rain or heavy cloud cover will interfere with our signal. Sometimes we lose just some of our channels. Maybe some channels are on different satellites? Once we lost some channels when leaves blew into the dish.

Storms (not just clouds) with high tops to your south: clouds have absolutely no effect on your signal strength. However high level rain storms can because an enormous amount of moisture builds up in these clouds. Also if the clouds ceiling is high enough you may actually rain-fade from a shower miles away.

Heavy rain at your location: Self explanatory

Cable problems: If your grounding block is outside of your house check your cable ends for corrosion.

Water: many times when it rains you can have a slow degradation of your signal even though the intensity of the rain is constant. This is because as water builds up on your house it may form a drip that makes contact with your ground block.

New Obstructions: These can be hard to find or may jump right out at you. I have seen a couple of instances where a tree branch can no longer support its' own weight and will sage into the path of the satellite signal.

Dish alignment:(seems unlikely in your case) Since you have local channels, you probably have an oval dish with 2 or 3 duel LNBs. One LNB for normal programming, one for mainly locals and one for HDTV and internet. If one of your LNBs is out of alignment they all are. I have had DTV for about 7 years. I have installed all of the dishes myself and have never had one go out of alignment due to weather and it gets pretty heavy up here year-round

Faulty LNB: Hard to diagnose. You can pickup a new one to test or swap two that you already have.

I called Directv and she walked me through some steps, but we couldn't determine any problems. She said I should call back while the channels are out. I'm hoping it doesn't act up tomorrow night during the big football game!