BTV 2011 Outages Thread - Please read post 1.

[jfplay]

Tonight my Bell tv crapped out completely....most unfortunate since I had a friend over and had shelled out 65 bucks for Wrestlemania.

After an hour and a half (two calls, first one dropped) they told me it was a province wide atmospheric issue, yet I've seen no other complaints on here so my bs-meter is chirping.

Anyone else with issues tonight?


Edit by 57 - here's the thread from 2010 for previous information:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=126345

Weather outages can be caused by poor weather over your area, or poor weather over the BTV Uplink facility, located in Toronto. This thread is to track outages that affect the entire country due to weather or other problems at the uplink.

Please see and use the links below for Toronto radar if you have an outage. Please also report the amount of time that your location was "down".

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/radar..._e.html?id=WKR

http://www.intellicast.com/National/...e&animate=true


Uplink Outage Dates & Times:

2011.06.08 - Thunderstorm in Toronto after 7PM EDT.

2011.06.24 - Heavy Rain in Toronto after 12PM EDT.

2011.08.07 - Heavy Rain in Toronto around 8PM EDT.

2011.08.09 - Heavy Rain in Toronto around 11AM EDT.

2011.08.21 - Thunderstorm in Toronto around 2:40PM EDT.


If you wish to find other previous similar threads, do a search for "rain snow fade". If your location was down for significantly longer than other people indicate in this thread, then you should consider re-aiming your dish and/or getting a larger dish.

[TorontoHD]

Working good here, we did get some snow/rain tonight so that may have had an effect on your LNB or Switch, i would start there. On your remote Press "Menu", than 6-1-1, are you getting a signal?

[DrSat]

We had some sticky wet snow this evening so your pizza dish is probably covered with it which is killing your signal. To fix this, take a broom and go outside to remove the snow off the pan.

DrSat

[LG Guy 26]

My dish has been out for 4 hours. Been on hold for quite a while with BellTV.

[jfplay]

I'm in a condo, went into the diagnostics screen and was getting the red x's of doom.

[Krizen]

My service is down as well; I live in the Greenwood/Danforth area of Toronto. All of a sudden, around 9:02 PM (approx.) the 'Please standby for the satellite signal' screen popped up, and multiple times over five minutes, it reached '3 out of 5' on the Progress category before retreating to zero. After those five minutes, it remained at zero, and it STILL hasn't changed even once, three and a half hours later now.

I called Bell support a little while ago and heard the 'we are receiving a higher volume of calls' message, so I assumed it was either the snow, or a problem on their end, and hung up. Obviously from reading the TC's message, it is indeed the snow, but our dish is on TOP of the house, not hanging on the side like most of the other houses on our street, and we don't have a ladder that reaches, so we can't try clearing the snow off. I guess we'll have to wait until the weather changes. Thank GOD I didn't watch all of the recorded programs on my PVR, or I'd be screwed in terms of watching TV. I don't care if it's the weather, Bell had better reimburse me for the time I've spent without service.

This hasn't ever happened to us before, but it just reaffirms our plans to switch to the new Fibe TV, considering there's already a Fibre Optic line set up (for the Fibe internet we have).

EDIT: Well what do you know; the MINUTE I posted this message, my service returned. I'm only getting a few channels at the moment, but hey, it's better than nothing! I'm sure everything will be back to normal fairly soon.

[SMCKINNON24]

Yes. It is effecting south western Ontario some storm is coming ! and was on hold for a long while!

[LG Guy 26]

Just spoke with a tech support, the rep said there was "a big cloud" over the satellite that caused the outage. Couldn't believe my ears on that one.

[DrSat]

For those of you who can't reach your dish with a broom, another method to clean the snow off of it is to use your garden hose to spray water on the pan.

[DrSat]

Originally Posted by LG Guy 26

Just spoke with a tech support, the rep said there was "a big cloud" over the satellite that caused the outage. Couldn't believe my ears on that one.

That's perfectly normal on Ku-band which both Bell TV and Shaw Direct uses to transmit their signal. It's called rain fade where the satellite signal will get degraded when it rains a lot or there's a big rain cloud in the path of the satellite signal, especially with the very small 18 to 20 inch satellite dish that Bell provides to its customers. Upgrading to a larger satellite dish would make it a lot harder to lose service during these conditions.

[Jase88]

My dish went down as well. Went outside, gave it the "broom treatment" and done--working great again.

Wet sticky snow is the problem.

[jdevlin]

It was snowing wet sticky snow last night. I had to go out twice and sweep the dish.

[smootherator]

had the same issue...would certainly suck if I had paid for a PPV like some folks did.

Luckily my dish is close enough to get a broom to it.

[Pinza]

I have a Dish Heater on my 75cm aimed Bell Dish, turned it on as soon as I saw Snow sticking, no issues after that.

[Pinza]

Major storm rolling over Toronto, signal up and down like crazy. Give it 10 minutes, it should be gone.