DirecTV, this snowball's for you

Among the many annual rites of winter—hot chocolate on a cold day, shoveling snow from the driveway—my family has added another quaint tradition: throwing snowballs at our DirecTV's satellite dish.

Well, watching me throw snowballs at the dish, really.

That's because at least once or twice every winter, we get a wet enough snow that it sticks to our dish, apparently covering enough of its face that it knocks out reception from one of the HD satellites. So instead of getting "American Idol," one of my 5-year-old son Tyler's favorite shows, we get a blank screen and a message that the receiver is searching for satellite 771. Occasionally we can get the non-HD versions of the channels we normally watch if they're being beamed from a different satellite, but not always.

Unfortunately, the dish is on the highest point of our house, a good 30 feet from the ground. That's far enough away that I don't want to risk climbing out on a snow-covered roof, and too far to reach with the longest pole we own. The best solution I've been able to come up with is snowballs.

That means our neighbors now have the added winter bonus of watching me stand in our driveway, tossing snowball after snowball at the dish, hoping to dislodge the snow that's collected on its surface--or at least enough so that satellite 771 can get through. Occasionally, though, one of the snowballs will actually stick to the dish, potentially knocking out one of the few channels we are able to receive. I can say that this is met with a good amount of displeasure from my wife and son. But when I do manage to free enough snow with a—can I say, DirecT hit—I'm a momentary hero in the house, and my wife's threat to switch at least one of our TVs to a cable provider is held at bay, at least until the next snowfall.

Are there other DirecTV users out there with similar stories? We'd like to hear them, so take a few moments to share your experiences in our comments section at the bottom of this blog. It's likely they're amusing, and at the very least I won't feel like I'm going at this alone—a small but comforting consolation the next time I'm armed and dangerous in my driveway, aiming at a small parabolic target 30 feet away on my roof.

—James K. Willcox