[Arctic Fox]

I have just returned to The Villages after five months away and only one in three of our channels are working - one third are pixellating heavily, and one third totally blank

I called DirecTV and they said that the dish must have moved and we need a $49 service call to realign the dish. Have we had strong winds here in the past five months that might have moved my dish? There is nothing nearby that can have fallen on it (unless my neighbor fell asleep while mowing his lawn).

Do you know anyone in TV with a signal strength meter who could adjust it for us for cash, rather than getting DirecTV out?

Thank you

[gomoho]

We have had some strong winds, BUT I have direct TV and my dish didn't budge. I think they are handing you a crock. If you have someone that could get on the cell phone with you, one of you go outside and move the dish till this clears up and see how that works. Had to do this in our motorhome.

[CFrance]

In the last five months, we've indeed had some high winds, but our dish didn't budge--and it's on the roof, much less proteced. I agree with gomoho.

[GatorFan]

Same here. Dish has not moved.

[buzzy]

could have been bumped by lawn maintenance crew

[John_W]

Have you rebooted your HD box? The red button behind the little black door on the lower right of the face of the box. Otherwise we've had no outages to speak of other than the usual short cloud burst, that was maybe once or twice in the last six months. Do you pay the $5.99 maintenance upcharge on your monthly bill?, if so then you should be covered.

[Arctic Fox]

Thank you everyone

we have rebooted - red button and power down - with no effect

we have found a facility within DirecTV that checks dish alignment, and what we have does not agree to what it says we should have at this zip code so, once it warms up out there, I shall try moving the dish and see what happens

[n8xwb]

Have you looked along the line of sight your dish is pointing. Could be a tree has grown enough to cut down your signal. How did you fetermine that it isnt aimed iaw the direction for your zipcode?

[renrod]

We have DirecTV here and up north. Our house up north had the same issue you are discussing, I called and they said the same (we would have to pay a service fee). I told them I would not pay it and would cancel service at the first opportunity. They finally said they would correct the problem with no expense to me. Point being, you need to stand up for yourself, be polite because the person answering the phone is only doing what they are instructed to do. Ask to speak to a supervisor and keep moving up the chain till you get what you want. It will work.

[n8xwb]

Have you looked out in the direction the dish is pointing? Perhaps a nearby tree has grown enough to block your signal. I had that issue. It will affect HD channels first. Also, how did someone determine the actual compass direction your dish is pointing? I don't think that can be done except by someone actually, physically checking the dish. I have a motor home and use direct TV and have to manually aim my antenna ...it is not hard to do.

[kittygilchrist]

Call again, ask for a supervisor. Don't take responsibility. echo and ditto to renrod. you got a rookie on the phone. If it's not working, how can they say you have to pay for it to be fixed?
DTV has been flawless for me since I moved here in April.

[Arctic Fox]

Originally Posted by n8xwb

Have you looked out in the direction the dish is pointing? Perhaps a nearby tree has grown enough to block your signal. I had that issue. It will affect HD channels first. Also, how did someone determine the actual compass direction your dish is pointing? I don't think that can be done except by someone actually, physically checking the dish. I have a motor home and use direct TV and have to manually aim my antenna ...it is not hard to do.

Clear line of sight (DirecTV won't even let us have HD as we're not American!)

There is a facility in the Menu - satellite signal strength, from memory - that checks what you have and, maybe using triangulation from several satellites, tells you the elevation angle and azimuth of the dish. On their website you enter your zip code and it tells you what elevation and azimuth should be.

Trial and error adjusting manually should do the trick.

[CFrance]

DirecTV won't let you have HD because you're not American? I don't get that. What's their reasoning? Where is home, and what do you have there? I would drop DirecTV. What about Comcast? Will they let you have HD?

[designerko]

I would advise you not try to move the dish yourself. I was losing channels with rain and fog and after a couple of calls/complaints, a service man came out and told me my dish was warped, which probably was done on the truck that delivered it. He tested the signal inside on the tv and I was getting less than 50% signal, but when move a tiny fraction, the signal rose to 94+%. The service man who came out told me the call center people work from their homes, so the responses can differ quite a bit from call to call. Keep calling and once it is fixed, as you know, the picture will be worth it.

[Arctic Fox]

Originally Posted by CFrance

DirecTV won't let you have HD because you're not American? I don't get that. What's their reasoning?

Since we don't have a social security number we can't get anything other than SD, even though they have our credit card details. Nor can we get a phone, but MagicJack works fine for us. We can't even get a WalMart credit card :-)


Anyway, good news re DirectTV. I called them again and, when the agent said the site visit would cost $49.95, I told them I'd buy out the rest of my contract. I was put through to a Customer Care Agent who must have been related to Santa Claus. She arranged a free site visit - 8 am the next day, gave me $25 credit for loss of three days viewing, $10 credit for each of the next three months and free movies and sports package for three months.

The technician took one look at our dish and installed a new one on the edge of the roof. Perfect signal now.

Now, if only we could get CenturyLink to be more responsive regarding their appalling internet connection - very slow and keeps dropping out...