Do dish antennas or splitters ever go bad? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

My buddy is having trouble with his Direct TV system dropping out and "pixelating" like crazy. Recently he put in a service call and the guy told him his antenna was probably bad. Is this possible?

He has a dual LNB anntenna with the two wires going onto the attic to a two in-four out splitter, feeding two dual-tuner TIVOs, one in the main system and one in the bedroom. Any chance the splitter could be causing the problem? Can’t say I’ve ever seen a splitter go bad...

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Robert_J]

It's called a "multi-switch", not a splitter. They very seldom go bad. More than likely it's a corroded F-connector or the LNB is going out. If it's only happening on one receiver, then it's not the LNB. Since they are DVR's, it could also be a hard drive failing.

-Robert

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the reply Robert.

Well, my buddy finally got a good tech out, and he tested the LNB and said it was good. Turned out to be the multiswitch, it was 3 years old (it's in the attic). After changing it out his signal strength jumped to 98.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Grant B]

Wayne
FYI since you tend to troubleshoot like me.
If 1 LNB went out you'd still have half the channels, that's a fairly unusual problem. 99% of the time it's a connector problem.
You can tell old multiswitches since they might have the DC input which now comes from the reciever via the coax
Grant