Can cold weather effect signals?

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:01 am

Since 11 PM last night been down, it seem to come up now but very slow

spoke to roadrunner they see a problem with my signal level and said more then likely it becuase it has been so cold the coaxial has contracted and exposed an opening or something like that

they are coming out on monday am of course i have to work.

does this make any sense?

Keep in mind i have been having great connections now for 6 months since my last major problem.

Onyl thing that has changed is it got really cold this week, but we have ahd bad winters before and never ran into this.

No idea if i will be able to check this message late..lol

mccoffee · Post by **mccoffee** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:19 pm

Bad wether does affect singal i don't the whole ins and out why i'll try to dig up a post on it.

mccoffee · Post by **mccoffee** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:21 pm

sorry to doulbe but here. https://www.speedguide.net/forums/ ... ht=weather

rpeAMP · Post by **rpeAMP** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:46 pm

What model modem do you have? With certain models you can check the signal statistics.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:53 pm

i have sb5100

8 hours and still going good, just hope it keeps that way into the wee hours of night when it gets really cold

rpeAMP · Post by **rpeAMP** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 1:09 am

Go to http://192.168.100.1 now and some how capture/write down/print the signal levels etc. and then when the conditions get bad or your connection acts up, see what changes there are and post them here.

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 9:37 am

Colder the weather, lesser the resistance on the coax, causing higher signal levels, so the most cold is going to do, unless there is a break in the cable and theres ice (obviously that will be a bad thing) cold is a good thing for cable, and youll notice your levels if you check your modem status page, will be slightly higher on colder days. Sometimes the amplifiers on the mainline have AGC's (automatic gain control) and they try to compensate for the cold ='ing higher levels and they lower them slightly, etc etc, anyway you should notice a slight increase in signal strength the colder the temps get, if you notice PROBLEMS when it gets cold, thats usually a sign of water in the cable somewhere, and its freezing up.

qball15j · Post by **qball15j** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 11:36 am

Originally posted by wee96
if you notice PROBLEMS when it gets cold, thats usually a sign of water in the cable somewhere, and its freezing up.

If that's the case RR can't do anything about it. Your local cable provider (which uses RR) will have to take care of the bad line.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 12:41 pm

Thanks when I gt home tonight I will post those signals

supose to get really cold this thursday down to -6, colder then even friday so will be a test to see if that really caused my issue.

The whole thing was odd, I just wish support kept better in communication , you talk to 3 different people and they all tell you something different, so you have no idea what really happened and if it was really fixed.

To sum up the people on the phone say they have no clue what fields tech do and they might have fixed something somewhere that helped me but they have no idea..I love that asnwer..LOL

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:58 am

Bah it is happening again!!!!!!!!!

It must be the cold...cuase it really cold again.

Called this morning and they sending out a technician

They did say my upstraeam SNR was a bit low, so that must be it.

I am seriously thinking of trying out verizon dsl, but I dont know i just always seem to have problems they get it fixed and it good for a few months and same thing again

mccoffee · Post by **mccoffee** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:02 am

I remember your older post ghost maybe you should lucky for me i have a decent cable provider.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:29 am

I just wish I knew if it was the cable from my modem to the splitter outside or the splitter to the pole

If it the cable I can probably just replace it on my own.

problem is when they usually come my luck the problem is fixed and they dont know what caused it.

I wish i had one of those cable testers..lol

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 12:16 pm

It's possible you could be looking at a suckout, if it's not freezing water like wee said. The cold weather will cause cable to contract, and sometimes the connectors outside can 'suckout' of their housing. A quick way to check this is to look at the picture quality of your cable on the low end of the spectrum (channels 2-8) and see if you're getting any snow or interference there...

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 12:16 pm

It sounds like its a problem with your drop most likely, squirrel chew up at the pole maybe? How long has that line been there, do you know? Is it underground? Underground drops can have nicks in them from when they buried it that go undetected for years, then suddenly destroy the drop.

Originally posted by Ghosthunter
I just wish I knew if it was the cable from my modem to the splitter outside or the splitter to the pole

If it the cable I can probably just replace it on my own.

problem is when they usually come my luck the problem is fixed and they dont know what caused it.

I wish i had one of those cable testers..lol

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 12:19 pm

Originally posted by Indy
It's possible you could be looking at a suckout, if it's not freezing water like wee said. The cold weather will cause cable to contract, and sometimes the connectors outside can 'suckout' of their housing. A quick way to check this is to look at the picture quality of your cable on the low end of the spectrum (channels 2-8) and see if you're getting any snow or interference there...

Thanks for the reply, i will check channels when i get home tonight. But i am on digital cable, dont know if that makes a difference for the test.

Is there anyway i can check the connectors physcially myself?

I can just unscrew it from the splitter outside my house right?

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 12:22 pm

Originally posted by wee96
It sounds like its a problem with your drop most likely, squirrel chew up at the pole maybe? How long has that line been there, do you know? Is it underground? Underground drops can have nicks in them from when they buried it that go undetected for years, then suddenly destroy the drop.

It is above ground, i really dont know how long the actual drop from the pole to my house is, since it was there before i moved and the house was built in 1955

Funny thing is june of last year i had similar issues exept was not as bad as this back then i was jsut getting bad packet loss, and web surfing was slow, but they could not see anything from the office and took thme 2 weeks, finanly a techinica said he changed the splitter and all the connections and been fine ever since.

This time it a lot worst, where my online light wont sync up,

i am just hoping when the technicain does get here the problem still happening so he can fix it, that is the most frustrating part, i dont mind there being a problem as long as it can be fixed.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 5:49 pm

btw road runner never came today but they did call and say they are having an area problem and it was fixed and wanted to see if i am ok now

just got home everything looks good here are my signals now:

Frequency 573000000 Hz Locked
Signal to Noise Ratio 35 dB
Power Level 8 dB The Downstream Power Level

Upstream Value
Channel ID 6
Frequency 31984000 Hz Ranged

Power Level 39 dBmV

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:46 pm

Well, if your signal stays like that, your pretty much set. Both are well within spec, and are actually quite hot (high).

Originally posted by Ghosthunter
btw road runner never came today but they did call and say they are having an area problem and it was fixed and wanted to see if i am ok now

just got home everything looks good here are my signals now:

Frequency 573000000 Hz Locked
Signal to Noise Ratio 35 dB
Power Level 8 dB The Downstream Power Level

Upstream Value
Channel ID 6
Frequency 31984000 Hz Ranged

Power Level 39 dBmV

P4ulo · Post by **P4ulo** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 3:09 pm

In here, cable modems sync between 35 db and 58 db upstream signal.
Any value below or above this results in temporary sync or no sync at all.
58 db means LOW signal which can be solved by "fixing" amplifiers signal. (Isp techs can and must solve this)
35 db means HIGH signal which can be easly solved by using atenuators which will "steal" some signal to optimize it.
(dunno if values are the same worldwide)

Something like this:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... safe%3Doff
which can be connected in the cable connector before connecting it to the modem. This one i searched in google says 16dB, meaning it will steal 16db. Optimal values should be around 45 db - 50 db.

Downstream btw its the TV signal wich can have negative values, it wont affect image quality.

Your signal seems to be good, athough there are other things that can influence modem syncing, such as if the cables are travelling along with electric cables creating magnetic fields or modem being near telephone chargers (those for wireless phones). Even unshielded speakers can influence modem sync.
Or the modem itself may have a problem, i ve seent it happen b4. And yes weather can affect too but only if you have signal near low or high values i suppose.

Cheers
P4ulo