"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...
Hey guys!
We live in an area with little television reception. I've avoided paying
for a dish, as I don't watch all that much TV. We get a PBS station,
along with one of the Fox network stations. Good enough for us, as we get
news and some interesting scientific shows.

Ok, now my question. I have a splitter in a room that is not heated.
As weather turned colder, I started getting a lot of blue screen on the
TV. The colder it got, the worse the reception, until it got to the point
where the TV was off more than it was on. About a week ago, I lit the
boiler in the room where the splitter resides. Suddenly, great reception.
When the room cooled off, after turning off the boiler, it was back to
blue screen once again. Heated the splitter and got service back. When
it cooled down, it was, once again, lost. Replaced the old splitter
with a new one, which improved reception, but did not eliminate the
problem. Finally hung a small light bulb near the splitter, which I
figured would keep it warm. Sure enough, we now have great (albeit
limited) reception once again.

Anyone care to offer a reason for poor performance when a splitter cools
off too much? I would suggest that it was in the 40 degree range, not
freezing. Why would it cooling off make a difference? I fully
expected that it wouldn't be temperature sensitive.

Harold

Finger tight with cheap connectors? Possibly a little short on your center
conductor? I am betting that you get a poor connection when the metal
shrinks. Go with a quality all weather connector with an o-ring inside,
enough stick-out on the center conductor, and put a wrench on it lightly and
I bet its better. I don't do much anymore, but back in the mid 1990s I
installed hundred and hundreds of Primestar dishes which often included
splitters (upto four way) outdoors with weatherboots. Proper installation
and they worked all year around just fine.