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Question by U O: Can shortwave radio (HAM) affect my satellite tv service?
Satellite TV has been dropping 3 or 4 channels on and off for about a year. In the last week it cuts off entirely for hours (up to 12) at a time. I notice a new strange antennae (about 7 feet tall) next door. Could this be affecting my signal? I asked my neighbor but he says he only listens and it should not affect my dish. Is this true?
Best answer:
Answer by percival.sweetwater
True enough. I’ll let a ham operator give more info, but essentially there is shortwave radio frequencies all around. An antenna for listening only picks up the existing waves and directs them to a receiver in his home. If those waves were to affect your tv service, it would do so, whether or not anyone had a receiving antenna.
Now, if he’s nearby and using enough power, when he transmits, it’s possible (but not likely) that he could disturb your reception. But it would be across your entire channel line-up, not just 3 or 4. And they would not surreptitiously drop out, but rather they’d distort, splatter, and go crazy with lots of buzz, static, distortion, and probably even some ham conversation.
So I seriously doubt it’s your neighbor’s ham setup. More likely your dish needs to be repositioned or something may be obstructing your LNB. Your best bet is to contact your provider about it.
Add your own answer in the comments!
No there is no correlation between the strange receiving antenna and losing channels. I am a HAM radio operator and transmit as well as receive. I have satellite internet as well as satellite TV and I cause no problems at all. If it did affect your satellite receiver it would take out all the channels and you would notice something funny on you TV, ie lines if they were TXing you may hear their voice coming through.
The H.F. frequencies that HAMs tx on will in no way cause you to drop channels. It would cause a major disruption to TV itself before it would ever cause any problems to your satellite receiver.
I run at times in excess of 1000 watts of power and have never had any problems with my TV, or computer – I use a computer when I am on the radio for logging. The only problem that I have had has been from a cheap cordless phone that I have, which you could hear my voice coming through
I have had a similar problem to yours, which it turned out to be a bad piece of coax. I would loose a couple channels now and again, and it would drive me nuts! I finally test the coax and it had screwy and inconsistent readings. I took everything apart and it had a section of the shielding that was green from corrosion. I also had a problem a while back that turned out to be a bad ground — same thing, I would lose a series of channels. The frequencies that satellites use (microwave) can do some weird things.