Help! Satellite TV in NH....SNOW? (Keene, Laconia: transplants, live in, move)

[lukedaddy]

Hey all,

Well we think we have probably found a place near Keene in Troy, NH. Nothing official yet, but it's looking that way. Anyways, we definitely need high speed internet, and also HDTV (Can't WAIT for football season!) I was looking at cable providers for Troy and all I found was something called Pine Tree Cable! I was like what the heck is "Pine Tree Cable"?!
Their site looked horrible and it did not show any HD channels available
So, I thought well, I guess I will have to go with satellite tv, either Dish or Direct.....but then I got to thinking about people around here (Georgia) that have sat tv and how they complain it goes out when it rains. So then to my horror I began thinking of what snow may do to a signal?!
Has anyone here ever had Pine Tree Cable? Can anyone tell me if snow is a factor with sat tv? Does it go out? How often? As a southerner I really could not see myself climbing on a snowy roof every time it snowed to clear the dish off. Somehow that seems like certain death.
I know this may sound trivial, but it's not (for me anyways) so any advice would be soooo greatly appreciated!

[DareToDream]

Originally Posted by lukedaddy

Hey all,

Well we think we have probably found a place near Keene in Troy, NH. Nothing official yet, but it's looking that way. Anyways, we definitely need high speed internet, and also HDTV (Can't WAIT for football season!) I was looking at cable providers for Troy and all I found was something called Pine Tree Cable! I was like what the heck is "Pine Tree Cable"?!
Their site looked horrible and it did not show any HD channels available
So, I thought well, I guess I will have to go with satellite tv, either Dish or Direct.....but then I got to thinking about people around here (Georgia) that have sat tv and how they complain it goes out when it rains. So then to my horror I began thinking of what snow may do to a signal?!
Has anyone here ever had Pine Tree Cable? Can anyone tell me if snow is a factor with sat tv? Does it go out? How often? As a southerner I really could not see myself climbing on a snowy roof every time it snowed to clear the dish off. Somehow that seems like certain death.
I know this may sound trivial, but it's not (for me anyways) so any advice would be soooo greatly appreciated!

Hi Lukedaddy - Sounds like things are progressing nicely for you! I can't answer for NH snows/weather, but we had Direct TV in NY and had some hefty snows and major rain events while there - we never lost our reception and never had to clear the dish off. We were in an area where the best reception was with the dish mounted on a pole in the ground, so even if we had needed to clear it, it wouldn't have been a problem, though. I see a lot of satellite dishes up here on various buildings, so I would guess the weather is not a major problem, but I don't know for sure.

Have you checked the Time-Warner or ComCast sites to see if they have service in the area you're looking?

[nicolem]

We have Direct TV. The only times we have lost reception is during a torrential down pour of thunderstorms in the summer-however that lasts a few minutes and the rain has to be REALLY hard.

As far as the winter, even with this last winter where my city-Laconia had it's snowiest winter on record-we did not have any problems. However-our dish is not on our roof-it is on our balcony so it was easy to brush off if it really accumulated snow.

No-it does not sound trivial-we need our Direct TV-as transplants we order the football, hockey and baseball packages so I understand.. We were concerned about dish reception too. However I imagine a lot of people in your area probably have a dish if the cable is that bad.

Just to note-that it is very very important to have the right equipment to install the HD dish and it is not cheap-the HD dish is heavier and needs more stability than the regular dish. Having the right equipment ensures that everything will work properly. Don't get suckered into "free installation" by either dish company. They do not bring a stand, enough cable(or the right cable to get the clearest picture, etc). I know this because we went through this many years ago and since then my husband has learned everything and even installed dishes for a few friends. More than likely the person installing your dish will get it up and running but you may need to tweak it to get better reception. These installers get a signal and go. Visit the Direct tv forums and read the boards to get more information. That is where my husband gets a lot of his info.

Good Luck,

Nicolem

[buck naked]

a lot of that area does not have any cable. Comcast does not service Troy.

I had the same problem in Hillsboro - no cable service.

[PupStylist]

I'm in the Southern NH area and we have DirecTv and the signal has gone out in severe storms (for a short period) and definitely when the snow is heavy but that's easily fixed by wiping the snow off the dish. See if they will install the dish in your backyard, that's what we did so it's an easy fix.

[JFRRACING]

hi, i have direct tv and wouldn,t trade it for cable that's for sure. i live in upstate ny and we get alot of snow. i had about 8 inches of snow on my dish and it was fine, no problems at all. the only time we have had a problem is when we get exstremely heavy down pours we lose are signal for a few minutes or so. last winter we had a snow and ice event that took down wires every where. but there was no problem for us, we still had tv to watch unlike cable watchers that went two or more days without anything. direct tv also has a great internet. we have had our direct tv about 5 or 6 years now. if you have any questions about it feel free to ask.

[skinut74]

hi, i have dish tv. i first tried to get direct tv but they could not get a signal on their dish.(too many trees) dish tv needed me to remove two trees to get their signal. but they were willing to advise me as to what needed to be done to get the signal. no problems with reception this winter. and we had a lot of snow here in dunbarton. as far as installation and set up, it really depends on the installer that you get. (one dish installer claimed his ladder was not long enough for him to real the best spot for the dish and returned the job. the next tech who came out had no problems and did a great job) so make sure you have a good line of sight for your dish.hope this helps

[DCguy03]

My parents have a satellite dish in Massachusetts, so snow had always been a problem for us. One solution (as mentioned above) is to mount it near the ground so that you can wipe snow off, but this can be a pain and it looks a little unsightly.

The best solution: pick up some specially made heating element pads that just stick right onto your dish. This has worked for us, and it sure beats hourly runs outside during a heavy snowstorm to wipe off the dish!

Here are a few products to check out. Hope this helps!

Ice Zapper Dish Heater

Perfect Vision Hotshot Satellite Antenna Heating Element - 38 Inch Dish (HS38NGRFKIT) | HS38NGRFKIT [Perfect Vision] | dish warmer heated dish melt snow on your dish

[lukedaddy]

Wow.....this is a lot of great info! Thanks so much guys.

[rmcewan]

I've only lost DirectTV during the heaviest snow storms. Snow does not settle for more and a couple of hours after a storm on my dish mounted to the side of the garage, but it's the storm itself that is blocking the signal.

My dish did shift in some high winds recently - but I'm an old hand with DirectTV and was able to realign it with better signal strength than the original installer managed.

I've heard a lacquer (or was it silicon) spray will remove friction from the dish and help snow slide off without affecting signal. Not tried it myself.