Slippery Business

[billroper]

Last night, the dish antenna gave up the ghost. This usually means that we're either having a thunderstorm or that a bunch of frozen crud has built up on the dish and is blocking the signal. In this case, it was the latter.

I had hoped some of it might melt away today, but it didn't. So after I blew the fresh snow off the driveway this morning, I took a look at the *tiny* amount of stuff on the dish and shrugged. Then I grabbed my lashed-up combo of an extension pole and a car wash brush head and used it to scrub the dish a bit. After a few strokes, I was informed that reception had gone back to normal.

This is good, because it improves the chances of peace around the house...

Comments

[rinioth]

The problem with ice build-up on microwave dishes is not so much the depth of solid ice acting to attenuate the signal but individual small ice crystals which act as individual reflecting surfaces mostly *not* pointing at the LNB receive head.

If it happens very often then you might want to consider fixing some of that heating tape (used to prevent plumbing freezing) to the back of the dish.