Does the Weather Affect my Digital Television Reception? – 2024 Guide

Bad weather influence digital terrestrial television more than you think. Many people not see any channel when there is rain and wind. These two factors influence and even more if you reside in an area surrounded by abundant vegetation since there is a loss of signal due to absorption.

The problems are not limited to free channels like Freeview and Freesat. It can happen with paid TV as well. Experts at AerialForce advise that your Sky TV not working properly could very well be a sign of poor system setup. The solution is generally, where possible, to place the antenna at a higher altitude, overcoming these natural pitfalls. These failures are generally also associated with signal quality. The better it is, the fewer problems there will be. Fog also influences in some cases, when it is located at a height lower than that of the emitting centers and above houses and houses that depend on them to receive television.

In this case, there is a reflection of the signal into the atmosphere. Also with storms and hail, something similar occurs, but the duration of these disturbances is shorter and signal failures also. In general terms, it can be said that atmospheric phenomena affect wave spread conditions.

The heat affects DTTV signal

A problem that the technicians often have blamed on the wave of heat during summer. What kinds of problems is heat causing? Cuts, pixelations, image and sound interruptions that range from a few seconds to hours and that are making it difficult to watch DTTV.

The heat and very high temperatures affect the reception of the signal, especially in certain areas. Consumer service has detected a significant rise in complaints and incidents related to DTT coverage and signal during summer months.

Three elements are key to a phenomenon known as fading: sea, heat and humidity. If these three elements come together, the DTT signal can suffer. The coastal areas are those that suffer this type of interference and problems with the signal. According to tv-aerials-uk.co.uk, companies carried out a series of actions to alleviate the situation and it seems that these measures could also have benefited from a reduction in DTT problems associated with heat and humidity.

Fading and Rain

Meteorological circumstances can improve or impair the reception of the DTT signal. There are two factors that affect signal reception and many users suffer. They are “Fading” or rain.

Fading is a decrease or loss of the DTT signal that occurs during the summer in coastal areas. It occurs in situations of extreme heat and high humidity because the steam that is generated forms an atmospheric screen that bounces the television signal. In this type of situation, it is usual for the repeaters to be reoriented so that they are facing away from the sea. Once redirected, users will need to retune the channels.

However, rain, which in other cases disrupts reception, increases the quality of the signal compared to when it does not rain. This phenomenon is due to the spheroidal shape of the droplets, which acts as a signal amplifier. On the contrary, heavy rains can create problems in reception due to electrical fluctuations that would affect the operation of the devices. If you don’t want to guess, you can always call professionals who will find out what the problem is. View more here what all the problems they can solve for you.

Storms

The TV signal is going underground into the cable network. Nevertheless, cable television can fail due to a storm. The reason for this is above the earth.

In bad weather, it can happen that the reception of satellite and antenna television is disturbed. However, cable users may also see black in a violent thunderstorm. Cable is not always 100 percent cable. In the meantime, the TV signal often reaches the cable network completely underground via fiber optics and so-called entry points. Such solutions are usually protected against interference. Smaller cable providers in particular also have so-called head stations instead.

Stations are sensitive to the weather. These are large satellite receivers that supply several thousand households alone. Bad weather means less to them than to outdoor antennas, but they are not completely insensitive. There are also small satellite systems for several receivers in apartment buildings, hotels, or residential complexes for the elderly. For users, these often look like cable TV, but in reality, it is satellite TV.

The cause of the weather disturbances can be, for example, heavy rain and flying leaves, in the case of strong wind also swaying trees. In winter, ice and snow are added as possible disruptive factors. Affected users can usually only wait until the storm has passed. However, some cable providers get their signals from different sources, so not all programs may be disturbed at the same time.

Snow

As you can imagine, cable or internet television should be exempt from these problems since transmission is not carried out by air, but travels by underground cables, which makes it very difficult for snow disturbances to affect it. But the problem may be different in nature. In the event that a snowstorm hits the infrastructure, it can then affect your digital television. Also, the providers themselves may have problems receiving the signal, there can be damage to the towers and many other causes, although you are certainly much safer than with other types.

Other causes that can affect the signal, and you might think it has to do with the weather

Electric fences are one of the potential causes of the problem. They can be adversely affected by electromagnetic radiation. So you should carefully choose where they will be installed so that they do not interfere with telephony lines, DTTs, and everything else.

Lighting can also cause problems. If the city lighting cables are too close to the DTT cables, then this may cause significant image interference.

The 4G and 5G networks need to be filtered properly so as not to cause problems. It’s up to the company to install filtres and other equipment in a timely manner.

Conclusion:

These are weather conditions that can have a negative impact, and if you see that the situation is not improving even though the weather has improved, call the company and report the failure.