Hi. I live near Chicago and we get Chicago locals on our DirecTivo. Recently, maybe over the past four weeks or so, we occasionally don't have any reception on the local channels.
The first time it happened I thought it was some weather related problem. Then the next time it happened, I noticed that we lost the locals, but not other channels. That seemed weird.
Later I remembered about the ability to check the signal strength. So I went to that screen and wrote down the signal strength for every transponder. Many of them were in the 90s with a couple in the 80s and then a few lower. The ones below 80 were:
transponder: tuner1/tuner2
2: 58/57
4: 0/0
8: 75/74
10: 67/66
12: 0/0
20: 0/0
22: 78/79
24: 76/75
28: 68/68
I believe some of those (especially 4, 12, and 20) are probably spot beams that aren't sent to my area. These readings were taken when all channels seemed to be working fine. I should also state that transponder 18 was 95/95.
From the research I did here and other places on the web, I don't think transponders 2 and 10 are spot beams (I think 28 is). Since I had such low numbers on those two transponders, I thought maybe my dish needs to be better aimed. I haven't done anything about that yet.
Then last night (Wednesday, 28-March), we lost locals again, and only locals. I checked the transponders and they were basically the same as the list I recorded several days ago EXCEPT FOR TRANSPONDER 18, which was 0/0 last night. More research on the web suggests that the Chicago locals are infact on transponder 18. (I'm not 100% sure - it's hard to find reliable
recent data.)
So, I expected to come here and find a bunch of people complaining about losing their Chicago locals last night. But nothing - no complaints. I must be the only one.
So, my question is this: What would possibly cause me to loose just one transponder, while I still get readings in the mid-90s on several others (and mid-80s on most of the rest). Could this be weather related? (seems unlikely to me). What would hit (kill) just a narrow range of frequencies so effectively without hurting any of the others? I don't think it could be a DC-voltage issue on my cables (both tuners were affected and all of the other transponders -- both even and odd -- worked fine). Maybe a bad transponder?
I'm at a loss. Your suggestions would be appreciated.
Additional info: Single round dish with only one dual-LNB. The dish is pointed at the 101 sat. No multi-switches, splitters, or stackers. Just a direct connection with twin-coax between the dish and a single DirecTiVO receiver with two tuners. About as simple as it gets.
