Vip 622 - Bad weather and recording question

I have the ViP 622 HD/DVR and today we had some pretty nasty weather. I have some ice on my dish and currently have no way of cleaning it off and will have to wait until it gets above freezing and melts sometime tomorrow around lunch.

A couple of weird things are happening though. The only channels I can receive are my HD channels - local, voom, everything HD! No problem for tonight since all I plan on watching is NBC. But, I have a couple of recording timers set on other SD channels that I receive errors for but recording them still works! Scrubs came on 107 at 6:00pm and even though I couldn't watch it by turning to that channel I could watch it through my DVR! What the heck is going on? And how come it's only HD channels I can receive during this time?

I haven't called Dish tech support because frankly I think you guys are smarter than some of them. Can anyone help me with what's going on or have any input about what I could do diagnostically to tune into the channels? I just got Dish after I moved to the house and neglected to by a ladder and extension cord so melting the ice away is not an option at this time, I don't mind waiting until it warms up though. I'd just like to know how the DVR can still work properly.

I live in Keller so I'm not too far from you. Yeah, the weather is doing some funky things to my reception too....hard to describe though it looks almost as if there are frames missing from all the SD broadcasts. Must be the ice. I'm assuming things will get back to normal tomorrow when the temps get into the 50s.

In fact I was in Keller on Tuesday this week.

Everything is back to normal as of this morning. All in all it's not as bad as i anticipated - I just need to be better prepared next time. Still curious about recording a program that I can't watch live but next time I anticipate bad weather I'll certainly fire up the DVR to record any shows I may be interested in during that time.

I have the ViP 622 HD/DVR and today we had some pretty nasty weather. I have some ice on my dish and currently have no way of cleaning it off and will have to wait until it gets above freezing and melts sometime tomorrow around lunch.

A couple of weird things are happening though. The only channels I can receive are my HD channels - local, voom, everything HD! No problem for tonight since all I plan on watching is NBC. But, I have a couple of recording timers set on other SD channels that I receive errors for but recording them still works! Scrubs came on 107 at 6:00pm and even though I couldn't watch it by turning to that channel I could watch it through my DVR! What the heck is going on? And how come it's only HD channels I can receive during this time?

I haven't called Dish tech support because frankly I think you guys are smarter than some of them. Can anyone help me with what's going on or have any input about what I could do diagnostically to tune into the channels? I just got Dish after I moved to the house and neglected to by a ladder and extension cord so melting the ice away is not an option at this time, I don't mind waiting until it warms up though. I'd just like to know how the DVR can still work properly.

You might want to consider this::cool:

http://www.skyvision.com/store/mi1500101.html

I'm up here in Northern Vermont so I feel your pain. I looked into all the options, Pam spray, covers, the dish heater as BMWCYCLE pointed out and decided for the first year I would try Rain X. My dish is high enough up 30' so dust sticking to it will not be an issue.

I thought about a heater but they just come on and stay on at any temperature under freezing, since that's December to Martch I didn't want to waist the electricity. I did think about wiring up a timmer so when I lost reception I could turn it on but between that and installing the wiring needed for the heater (I ran the cable behind the siding so it's not visible) I went the easy route for this year.


I would like to hear about anyone who has installed the heating pad.

I've looked at all of those different types of devices as well. Fortunately I live in an area where this doesn't happen very often so I think a good ladder, extension cord, and hair dryer will probably do the trick for my occasional problems. But isn't odd that my DVR still recorded channels that I otherwise couldn't receive?

Thanks for all your suggestions, hopefully I won't have to worry about it again for awhile!

Its possible that the encoder could handle the record, but not pass along to the decoder to pass it through the rest of the box to the display. Of course, this is only a guess. But usually the way a DVR works is that the signal comes into the box, is encoded via the MPEG encoder to the hard drive. The signal is then passed through a decoder and out to the display.

Another possibility is a dual tuner where one encoder can handle the signal and the other (going to the display live) can't. In that case, it would sound like something was a bit flaky there. But then, all of these boxes have their quirks!

I think a good ladder, extension cord, and hair dryer will probably do the trick

Yep, that sure sounds like a perfect recipe for electrocution.:eek: