# Major Dish Outage



## cpdretired (Aug 25, 2003)

Satelite Guys are reporting a nation wide Dish outage. Lost 110,119 & 129 in the Chicago area.


----------



## DJ Lon (Nov 3, 2005)

Same here at about 5:50 my time. Only thing I get are locals off the spotbeam on 110.


----------



## Lincoln6Echo (Jul 11, 2007)

If anybody is losing their signal for no apparent local storm activity, it's because a major storm cell just erupted over Cheyenne, WY tonight about 6:45 MDT. Cheyenne is the E* uplink center.


----------



## brant (Jul 6, 2008)

mine went out a few minutes ago. i called 800-333-dish and got a busy signal. i figured that was a bad sign.


----------



## thrillerbee (Aug 13, 2007)

cpdretired said:


> Satelite Guys are reporting a nation wide Dish outage. Lost 110,119 & 129 in the Chicago area.


I've lost everything (110, 119, 129) here - N. Alabama


----------



## swallman (Nov 18, 2004)

Glad to know we're not the only ones. Here in Western Wisconsin and the signal has been in and out for the past 15 minutes or so...


----------



## techieguy23 (Oct 17, 2007)

Severe Thunderstorm at the uplink center in WY.

http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=cys&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no


----------



## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

Lost everything here in San Francisco area too.
Back now but going in and out.


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

thrillerbee said:


> I've lost everything (110, 119, 129) here - N. Alabama


Yeah out here in Iowa too....whats the story?? 803pm CST.


----------



## brant (Jul 6, 2008)

well, it just came back on. 




and its going out again.


----------



## Deke Rivers (Jan 8, 2007)

thats good to know..i figured something was going on when i got a busy signal when i went to call Dish..in the meantime its dl'ing a new program guide of all things


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

I was afraid the big storms we had last night knocked my dish off line or something...!


----------



## Deke Rivers (Jan 8, 2007)

TE_DSMIA said:


> I was afraid the big storms we had last night knocked my dish off line or something...!


same here but it was ll working ok until about 20 min ago for me..


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

Any word as to what is happening? Did the Direct TV guys attack the Dish Sats? =))


----------



## jdeitchler (Oct 10, 2005)

No signal in Littleton, CO at 7:07 MDT on all 3 satellites.


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

Grandude said:


> Lost everything here in San Francisco area too.
> Back now but going in and out.


Damn Storms they are everywhere!!


----------



## GreggP (Jan 9, 2007)

I grabbed my bow saw in case I had to trim some trees or branches along the lake that are near the dishes.


----------



## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

Can't get through to that other DBS Forum now either.


----------



## swallman (Nov 18, 2004)

Doesn't dish have backup facilities in the case of severe storms ? I googled for some info and found information on a site in Gilbert, AZ that would be a backup ??

Seems to me they should...


----------



## Debby (Feb 1, 2007)

110, 119 and 61.5 going off and on here also in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area.

Good to know its not my dish, and saved me a call.


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

GreggP said:


> I grabbed my bow saw in case I had to trim some trees or branches along the lake that are near the dishes.


Heh I was out eying my trees too!


----------



## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

One of them.

The other one I know of is just south of Chicago.


----------



## jpos832 (Aug 13, 2007)

yup.. we're gettin a fricken monsoon in cheyenne right now.. damn weather


----------



## JimK (Dec 13, 2006)

Seems ok now. It just d/l guide info.


----------



## DJ Lon (Nov 3, 2005)

swallman said:


> Doesn't dish have backup facilities in the case of severe storms ? I googled for some info and found information on a site in Gilbert, AZ that would be a backup ??
> 
> Seems to me they should...


Gilbert is where my locals are uplinked from which is why I still received them during the outage. I dunno about national feed backup capabilities.


----------



## Deke Rivers (Jan 8, 2007)

back on in Chi-Town


----------



## Charles Oliva (Apr 22, 2002)

kstuart said:


> Can't get through to that other DBS Forum now either.


Scott needs to tell his ISP that when 2500 people visit his site all at one time it's not a DDOS attack.


----------



## jpos832 (Aug 13, 2007)

swallman said:


> Doesn't dish have backup facilities in the case of severe storms ? I googled for some info and found information on a site in Gilbert, AZ that would be a backup ??
> 
> Seems to me they should...


DISH has a backup system in place.. its in the event of a catastrophic failure (ie.. cheyenne is blown away with a tornado) switching uplinks between cheyenne and gilbert isnt like flippen a switch. it would take quite a bit of effort and a good amount of time. They arent gonna reroute ALL of the conus signals just because they've got a little bit of rain fade at an uplink center.. sit back and chill.. watch your dvr events..


----------



## BillJ (May 5, 2005)

Same here. Last night we had lots of outages as the storms rolled through here. Nothing anywhere near here tonight. Finally occurred to me to check the Colorado weather. Sure enough, a big red blob over the uplink center.


----------



## TE_DSMIA (Mar 13, 2008)

Deke Rivers said:


> back on in Chi-Town


Ditto in Des Moines Iowa


----------



## John W (Dec 20, 2005)

jpos832 said:


> DISH has a backup system in place.. its in the event of a catastrophic failure (ie.. cheyenne is blown away with a tornado) switching uplinks between cheyenne and gilbert isnt like flippen a switch. it would take quite a bit of effort and a good amount of time. They arent gonna reroute ALL of the conus signals just because they've got a little bit of rain fade at an uplink center.. sit back and chill.. watch your dvr events..


"...a little bit of rain fade at an uplink center...". Charlie?


----------



## tedb3rd (Feb 2, 2006)

I can understand why a severe storm could "cut" the signal at any point in uplink/downlink. But why would a storm at the uplink center affect the signal strength on the downstream (from sat to consumer/dish)? I would think that the image quality would be choppy, but you would still have good signal strength from the transponders between satellite and consumer (assuming you aren't in the storm too). Any techies out there explain this?

Oh yeah, experienced the same thing here in GA.


----------



## satexplorer (Feb 6, 2007)

A blob of orange, red and green indicating a storm. Now past the uplink center and satellites in Wyoming. In 2007, the same thing happen during the second week of August. Forecast: Thunderstorms in the area!


----------



## jpos832 (Aug 13, 2007)

John W said:


> "...a little bit of rain fade at an uplink center...". Charlie?


lol.. thats what it is.. im willing to bet the ESO dept. bumped up the power on the 'bird baths' to try and burn through the clouds but that doesnt always work.. pagers are going off and managers are scrambling.. its a blast to be working in an uplink center during a system wide outage. 14 million+ subscribers without tv is a fricken mess.. how many people called during this? i'm sure the call centers were lit up like a christmas tree..


----------



## tedb3rd (Feb 2, 2006)

Gah. Do we have to think of everything?! Go to Staples, buy an "Easy" button. Put it in the uplink center. When the weather is threatening to kill your million dollar dishes but you've got some million dollar dishes somewhere else, you just hit the easy button. Hitting a button is easier than flipping a switch.


----------



## Charles Oliva (Apr 22, 2002)

tedb3rd said:


> I can understand why a severe storm could "cut" the signal at any point in uplink/downlink. But why would a storm at the uplink center affect the signal strength on the downstream (from sat to consumer/dish)? I would think that the image quality would be choppy, but you would still have good signal strength from the transponders between satellite and consumer (assuming you aren't in the storm too). Any techies out there explain this?
> 
> Oh yeah, experienced the same thing here in GA.


Sats are basically stupid, it's the uplinks that control it's operation. Lose the uplink, and the sats don't know how to function.


----------



## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

I thought it was me. Looked very bad, I tried check switches which went weird 1 of 4 on tuner 1 and 1 of 7 on tuner 2. Looks ok now.


----------



## satexplorer (Feb 6, 2007)

Check out the radars at weather website! :nono2:


----------



## Spoonser (Feb 16, 2008)

tedb3rd said:


> I can understand why a severe storm could "cut" the signal at any point in uplink/downlink. But why would a storm at the uplink center affect the signal strength on the downstream (from sat to consumer/dish)? I would think that the image quality would be choppy, but you would still have good signal strength from the transponders between satellite and consumer (assuming you aren't in the storm too). Any techies out there explain this?
> 
> Oh yeah, experienced the same thing here in GA.


I was thinking exactly the same thing- Perhaps an analogy would be you're on a cell phone talking to someone else on a cell phone. You have 5 signal bars but they're at zero bars, and they're so they're fading in and out, but of course not due to your connection. But I suppose there's something I don't know/understand.

For what it's worth, in Charlotte, NC I was watching a channel on 129 and started to see pixelation like we get when a really big storm is just about to block the signal entirely. I checked signal strength for 129 and it was awful, and then it went to zero. I didn't realize the others were even out- I just turned it off- but I thought 129 might've just given up the ghost since the weather and cloud cover here are fine.

FYI, I'm back up and running like everyone else now.


----------



## Slamminc11 (Jan 28, 2005)

This is making me laugh. So things were down for 10 minutes. Guess what guys, the world didn't end


----------



## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

thrillerbee said:


> I've lost everything (110, 119, 129) here - N. Alabama





Grandude said:


> Lost everything here in San Francisco area too.
> Back now but going in and out.





brant said:


> well, it just came back on.
> 
> and its going out again.





jdeitchler said:


> No signal in Littleton, CO at 7:07 MDT on all 3 satellites.










*My evil plan is working!*


----------



## swallman (Nov 18, 2004)

Slamminc11 said:


> This is making me laugh. So things were down for 10 minutes. Guess what guys, the world didn't end


However, it's a damn big inconvenience if you were in the middle of an important show or something (not that we were, but just saying)...


----------



## Slamminc11 (Jan 28, 2005)

swallman said:


> However, it's a damn big inconvenience if you were in the middle of an important show or something (not that we were, but just saying)...


important show? Unless it was a news break-in about something going on in your neighborhood, then it's just entertainment isn't it?


----------



## Charles Oliva (Apr 22, 2002)

Could be worse, tonights Dodgers/Cards game had one rain delay, came back for all of 6 minutes of play and are back in rain delay again.


----------



## MikeW (May 16, 2002)

kstuart said:


> Can't get through to that other DBS Forum now either.


:lol: :hurah: :uglyhammer:

That was great!


----------



## bigshew (Feb 26, 2007)

When the uplink is under water the sats should send some default announcement like "Dishnetwork is experiencing technical problems. This is temporary and should be resolved in a few minutes. Please standby..."


----------



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

bigshew said:


> When the uplink is under water the sats should send some default announcement like "Dishnetwork is experiencing technical problems. This is temporary and should be resolved in a few minutes. Please standby..."


I've seen a receiver generated screen on local channels when a spotbeam has been blocked by weather.

The satellites are stupid ... all they can do is receive a signal and retransmit it. There is limited switching involved on the most current satellites. Nothing down to the "per channel" level that would allow a satellite to generate a channel for your receiver.

I didn't notice any problems on my system tonight ... perhaps the channel I was watching was coming from Gilbert.

BTW: Dish has two major uplink centers, Cheyenne WY and Gilbert AZ, that are the biggest and most important, then there are regional centers in Spokane WA, Monee IL, New Braunfels TX and Mount Jackson VA delivering locals via E10 at 110°. Monee IL, New Braunfels TX and Mount Jackson VA along with centers in Orange NJ, Atlanta GA, Jackson MS, St Louis MO and Baker MT deliver locals via E12 at 61.5°. The centers are separated in order to feed different spotbeams on the same uplink transponders. Unfortunately DISH can't simply uplink from a different center when an uplink is "weathered out".

BTW2: Links to aerial photos of the uplink centers are on my 61.5° webpage.
http://jameslong.name/e615.html


----------



## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

Some fun with Google Maps:

DISH Uplink - Cheyenne, WY

So anytime you see a severe storm in the Cheyenne, WY area (especially the SE side of Cheyenne), watch out. 

For people who are fans of such things:

DirecTV Uplink - Castle Rock, CO

So D* folks have to watch out for severe weather to the SSE of Castle Rock.


----------



## Deke Rivers (Jan 8, 2007)

Slamminc11 said:


> This is making me laugh. So things were down for 10 minutes. Guess what guys, the world didn't end


no but its nice to be able to go somewhere to see if its just your signal or if others are experiencing it..
apparently it was important enough for you to check as well otherwisee you woudlnt be posting the thread


----------



## RWallmow (Oct 3, 2007)

Anyone know if Dish is giving any kind of service credit for the downtime? Every little bit off the huge dish bill helps


----------



## Sat Monkey (May 25, 2008)

Wow.

That was crazy, I didnt even think of rain fade at the uplink.

Now it makes sense, If the up link loses signal, its lights out for EVERYONE.

After I checked in here and found out what caused it, I laughed for an hour.

Wowzers.

Monkey


----------



## jpos832 (Aug 13, 2007)

here's a video from the local news in cheyenne, WY.. this weather was crazy..

http://www.kgwn.tv/story.aspx?ID=252&Cat=2


----------



## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

RWallmow said:


> Anyone know if Dish is giving any kind of service credit for the downtime? Every little bit off the huge dish bill helps


You're kidding, right ?


----------



## Todd H (Aug 18, 2006)

Happened to me as well here in Georgia. Good thing I didn't climb on the roof to try and figure out what was going on.


----------



## cg7879 (Feb 26, 2008)

Bah. Outages at uplink centers. As if my job wasn't hard enough. I feel sorry for the general tech call centers though. They got it worse than we did b/c we do mostly activations and calls from bundled customers.


----------



## RWallmow (Oct 3, 2007)

scooper said:


> You're kidding, right ?


Yes, and no. Dish screwed me on an unrelated issue, I want to hit them any way I can, lol

Plus I know when I had comcast and they went out (happened a lot) they would always offer a service credit if you asked.


----------



## cg7879 (Feb 26, 2008)

RWallmow said:


> Yes, and no. Dish screwed me on an unrelated issue, I want to hit them any way I can, lol
> 
> Plus I know when I had comcast and they went out (happened a lot) they would always offer a service credit if you asked.


Dish will offer TWOS in most cases if you ask also. Personally, I sometimes offer even if the customer doesn't ask. However, we do not generally offer TWOS for less than a day. 1 day is the minimum. If a dollar or two off your bill is that important to you, go right ahead and ask.


----------



## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

RWallmow said:


> Anyone know if Dish is giving any kind of service credit for the downtime? Every little bit off the huge dish bill helps


I wonder if Comcast would do the same?


----------



## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

Jason Nipp said:


> I wonder if Comcast would do the same?


IIRC it had to be an outage over a certain amount of time. Like an hour or more. When I had Comcast they would often have network issues that would disable the DVR function of the Moto box (how or why I don't know). I had to call a lot to explain I want credits for a service that wasn't being delivered...


----------



## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Redlinetire said:


> IIRC it had to be an outage over a certain amount of time. Like an hour or more. When I had Comcast they would often have network issues that would disable the DVR function of the Moto box (how or why I don't know). I had to call a lot to explain I want credits for a service that wasn't being delivered...


Did they provide credits?


----------



## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Service credit for 10 mins? I doubt it, still better than a cable outage.


----------



## Slamminc11 (Jan 28, 2005)

Deke Rivers said:


> no but its nice to be able to go somewhere to see if its just your signal or if others are experiencing it..
> apparently it was important enough for you to check as well otherwisee you woudlnt be posting the thread


It was out for 10 minutes, and I stopped by here long after things came back on. I looked at the tread because there were two pages of "my signal is out"... a lot of those after the signal came back on.


----------



## ebaltz (Nov 23, 2004)

the outages cost me three recordings.


----------



## RWallmow (Oct 3, 2007)

jclewter79 said:


> Service credit for 10 mins? I doubt it, still better than a cable outage.


Better than comcast outages I will totally agree, but it was longer than 10min. It was completely dark (no signal) for 10min, but unwatchable (blocky and choppy) for about 15min before and after the 10 min FULL outage. Granted it wasnt out for an hour, but it was long enough to miss an hour of TV and DVR recording events.

And my comments a refund were more on principle than the money, though my dish bill may be huge (~$140), its still much less than comcast was gouging me on.


----------



## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Heck man, call them and ask tell us what they say but, I doubt it.


----------



## reddice (Feb 18, 2003)

I had the outage too. Noticed that it was only drizzling outside and could not understand why all satellites went out. It came back on a couple of minutes before 9 PM so I did not miss Eureka.


----------



## jpos832 (Aug 13, 2007)

RWallmow said:


> Anyone know if Dish is giving any kind of service credit for the downtime? Every little bit off the huge dish bill helps


i called yesterday and asked if they were giving any credits for the previous day's outage. The operator played dumb and asked what channels i lost.. i explained it was an uplink outage, so every channel was out.. he went ahead and gave me a $5 good faith credit for the inconvenience.. its not much, but five bucks is five bucks.. :hurah:


----------



## neilo (Aug 7, 2006)

reddice said:


> I had the outage too. Noticed that it was only drizzling outside and could not understand why all satellites went out. It came back on a couple of minutes before 9 PM so I did not miss Eureka.


Well, I started watching Eureka about 15 minutes after it started and was wondering why there were gaps going on while the weather was okay here. Luckily, the gaps didn't seem all that bad. I'm going to re-record/watch the episode next Tuesday (as it is supposed to be repeated before the new episode) and see what I missed. Meanwhile, I was also recording Not Going Out and lost a 10-minute chunk there. Luckily that was rebroadcast later that evening so I believe I got that. [I could have also got Eureka later in the evening, but I had some other recording conflicts ...]

Anyway, I'm glad to see that the problem wasn't just me.

Neil


----------



## bigshew (Feb 26, 2007)

neilo said:


> Well, I started watching Eureka about 15 minutes after it started and was wondering why there were gaps going on while the weather was okay here. Luckily, the gaps didn't seem all that bad. I'm going to re-record/watch the episode next Tuesday (as it is supposed to be repeated before the new episode) and see what I missed. Meanwhile, I was also recording Not Going Out and lost a 10-minute chunk there. Luckily that was rebroadcast later that evening so I believe I got that. [I could have also got Eureka later in the evening, but I had some other recording conflicts ...]
> 
> Anyway, I'm glad to see that the problem wasn't just me.
> 
> Neil


 I'd like my DVR to be smart enough to re-record an event if there was signal loss during the first recording.


----------



## Steve H (May 15, 2006)

We lost everything here but I thought it was the thunder boomers moving thru here at the time.


----------



## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

cpdretired said:


> Satelite Guys are reporting a nation wide Dish outage. Lost 110,119 & 129 in the Chicago area.


Samething here too!


----------



## reddice (Feb 18, 2003)

I was getting those gaps during Eureka too and I though it was my 612. It was still watchable.


----------



## ShapeShifter (Apr 21, 2008)

Steve H said:


> We lost everything here but I thought it was the thunder boomers moving thru here at the time.


LOL! Same thing here. Around here, the thunder started, the rains started coming down hard, and then the picture went out. I just figured it was the local rain. I went to the point dish screen, thinking I would see low signal levels, but I was surprised to see that there was no signal on any receiver using any transponder on any satellite. I thought it was really strange, especially since it didn't clear up as the rains eased up. But a few minutes later it was back, so I didn't think anything of it.

Now I know the rest of the story...


----------

