Satellite dishes and heavy snow falls

I'm guessing that there is a techie out there who can explain this.

Last night I lost ALL BBC and ITV related channels from my Sky TV satellite system. The little blue header comes up, shows the right programme etc, but I get that blue screen of death with 'no signal being received'. Funny thing is that every other channel seems to be OK.

This morning, we lost all channels, but a quick look at the satellite dish showed tons of white stuff all over it so that was a no brainer.

Now the snow has sort of slumped off the dish, all channels are back EXCEPT BBC and ITV. Are these channels weaker than the rest? I know Sky launched a new satellite a few years ago, so are the missing channels transmitted from another source?

BBC and ITV will return once the skies clear. It's not uncommon for this to happen when the visibility gets poor. No panic. You'll always have the Hallmark Channel and Fox News, ha ha ha...

Its probably snow that has built up on the feed support arm, infront of the LNB. This just attenuates the signal sufficiently to stop the weaker BBC/ITV channels.

I have actually had someone call and ask me what are the risks involved with gently brushing the snow off their dish. the answer was... probable death to them... their dish is on the roof on the 5th floor!

The BBC and ITV signals were "concentrated" last year, effectively reducing the range outside GB and Ireland in which you can pick up the signal. I upgraded to a larger dish to capture the signal, but when it snows those channels are not viewable, because they are weaker.

Just gotta be patient. I am lucky that I can open our window in the roof and throw snowballs at the dish to knock the snow off

Thanks for the info. Sounds as if the BBC signal is as weak as most of the shows! I had a heavily pixelated picture by 4pm and it is now fully back. I wonder when somebody will invent electric heating for sat dishes, much safer than trying to get near to it in this weather.

Like this?

Satellite dish covers

I successfully cleared ours yesterday, but then our roof is as flat as Joanna Lumley's chest so there was no danger of death, just wet trouser legs. I'd missed The Goodies by the time I'd thought to clear it, though

20 years too late. Scandanvians have been using heated dishes for years, and they even exist in USA (here)

Anyone else lost the Beeb and ITV channels? They started to break up yesterday evening and there's only BBC2 this morning. It's a bit weird, we've survived heavy snow and storms over the last few weeks without any problems and now we get a few wet flakes and it all goes!

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no problems to report on my set-up this morning.

Yesterday evening my box kept turning itself on and off for a couple of hours but other than that, no problems.

Ours too. Was shitting it that we were going to lose sky sports, etc, that we have for some reason been receiving for free since last week but they're still there.