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TV losing signal at the same time every day is a bit disconcerting. It puts you in the mind of electromagnetic causes or some other strange event out of your control. After all, losing signal is a fairly common thing for a variety of reasons.
But, at the same time? Every day? That’s a bit different. Randomly losing signal is easily explainable, especially if you have a lot of devices running throughout the house at any given time.
Losing signal at the same time every day narrows things down a bit. Some of the answers below make perfect sense and some are completely out of your control, at least to a degree. Here are some of the reasons you are losing your TV signal at the same time every day and what you can do to fix it.
Table of Contents
6 Reasons & Fixes To TV Loses Signal At the Same Time Every Day
1. Interference from Other Devices
Those of us who run a fairly elaborate smart home run into this issue more commonly than others. If you think about it, smart homes often have IFTTTs set up (If This Then That), which is nothing more than an automated process that happens at a given time every day.
With that being said, we can put two and two together here and find out if one is affecting the other. Perhaps you have Alexa set up to activate your smart camera system at a certain time every night.
Maybe it’s cool outside during the day and cold at night, so your thermostat stays off all day and turns on after the sun goes down.
Regardless of the automation, it could be what’s interfering with your TV, especially if you’re using a smart TV connected to the internet via WiFi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or any kind of wireless communication protocol.
If you’re losing signal at 6 p.m. each night, do you have an automated smart device that kicks on around that time frame? If you put two and two together, four might just be your problem.
2. Temporary Weather Patterns
This “potential” problem is more likely to affect those with DirectTV, Starlink, or some other type of satellite service.
Satellite television has been around long enough that we all know how easily wind and rain can affect it. Starlink is newer and far less susceptible to weather than a DirecTV dish but that doesn’t mean it’s invulnerable.
This is one of those things where there isn’t much you can do about it. Also, when it comes to weather patterns, you’d be surprised to find consistent patterns in a seemingly random and natural occurrence. It could simply be humidity.
In cooler weather, day and night create more drastic changes in humidity than what you get in the summer months.
If customer service and yourself exhaust all of the potential issues and none of them solves the problem, temporary weather patterns may just be the culprit.
3. Antenna or Dish Alignment
Again, mostly DirecTV and satellite users will be affected by this. It’s actually a combination of things. The alignment of your antenna or your dish works great all day long.
However, that slight misalignment may be susceptible at specific times throughout the day.
Unless you have the equipment and tools to align the dish or antenna yourself, you’ll have to call someone to come out and check your alignment, fixing it or making subtle adjustments where it’s necessary.
Speaking of calling out technicians and contacting customer service, that leads us to our next potential issue.
4. Scheduled Maintenance or Updates
This is something that can affect you whether you are using satellite services or cable, even if you’re using Starlink, depending on what they have going on at any given time.
In a nutshell, you’re losing signal each day when your provider is conducting maintenance or releasing updates to the system.
They usually do this at similar times but they don’t do this every day unless something is going on and they’re trying to fix it. Usually, updates are released at seldom intervals and late at night so there is little to no interference that customers have to deal with.
As we said, it could be that there are problems on your provider’s end, however, and that might mean they are spending several days, potentially weeks working on it. If that’s the case, you may experience signal loss or buffering at specific times each day.
5. Network Congestion
If you’re having problems every day at about 6 or 7 in the evening, there’s a strong possibility that you’re dealing with congestion.
Everybody is home from work, dinner is made, and they’re all jumping online or getting on their smart TVs and streaming throughout this timeframe.
It’s a good idea to check with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and see if you either have a data cap or if your Internet service is being throttled during times of high congestion.
If there’s one thing you can depend on ISPs to do, it’s not to tell you all the fine print when you purchase a plan and equipment.
It wouldn’t be surprising at all to discover your internet is being throttled during periods of high network traffic. In fact, it’s a fairly common occurrence. Your best bet is to contact customer service and clarify your plan with them.
Sometimes, you can jump online, access your online account with your ISP, and find out the little details of your plan.
However, that’s no guarantee and your ISP may throttle your internet each day, at around the same time, without you having a clue that you signed up for a garbage plan.
This used to be a huge problem with cell phone carriers (and still is in some ways) but it’s still a known problem with ISPs and worth checking into. This is especially true if it’s happening every day at roughly the same time.
6. Other Interference Issues
If you don’t live alone and have either family members with you or roommates, there’s always the possibility that they are using devices around the house around the same time each day.
Microwaves, a large variety of electronic devices, and other equipment in the home can potentially interfere with your signal.
It’s important to keep an eye on what devices are on and when each day. If everyone starts cooking and watching TV in other rooms around the same time each day, you may have just discovered the problem.
If everyone’s schedule is a little different on the weekends, you’ll notice the change there as well.
There’s also the possibility that the rising or setting sun is interfering as well. This is especially true with satellites and antennae. The angle of the sun at sunset is more than capable of being disruptive to satellite and antenna signals.
After all, it’s the most powerful object in our solar system and consistently messes with the earth. It’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
Final Thoughts
If we could put on some eye gear to show us all of the signal waves passing through our house and even our bodies each day, we’d probably have nightmares for the rest of our lives. It’s amazing we don’t constantly deal with interference.
However, timely interference helps to narrow things down a bit. It generally means there is something going on that has a schedule, like the passage of the sun through the sky, humidity changes, and people’s lives in general. Just follow the pattern and usually, you’ll discover the problem.