It's unusual for an aerial and/or cable to fail suddenly and in a complete way that gives no signal at all unless something catastrophic has happened such as a snapped bracket or the cable becoming detached.
Sudden failures tend to be either some bit of electronics failing such as an aerial signal amplifier or powered splitter, or a cable or connector issue. On rare occasions it could be a transmitter problem, so its worth checking online as others have suggested to see if there is work being carried out.
You could also speak to your neighbours to see if they're similarly affected or it's just your property. Where they've lost their signal too then it'll be a transmitter problem.
Wind is more likely to move an aerial gradually over time than a bit of snow causing a sudden shift. Where an aerial does move off-course then you'll usually get the loss of the weaker channels first as a bit of a warning sign.
Cable failures because it has worn through are a possibility. How this manifests does depend on the cable. Good quality all-copper cable will generally survive having a hole rubbed in the sheath and then getting waterlogged. It takes a lot for water to kill a copper cable. I have been to installations where the coax cable has literally been dripping like a tap and yet still worked for at least some stations. This is why copper cable is the best long term purchase.
The situation is very different with cheaper RG6. This is the stuff referred to as CCA or CCS in the product description. 'CC' stands for copper clad. A or S refers to Aluminium or Steel.
Generic RG6 is generally a copper clad steel core and a shielding braid made from plastic foil (Mylar) and an over-braiding of aluminium wire. This stuff dies pretty quick if it gets wet.
It's generally the aluminium braid that corrodes to powder first. On rarer occasions the steel core rusts through, usually at the aerial connection point or some junction where a screw down terminal is used and it has become exposed to the elements because the cap popped off.
Once again, the process is gradual. There are warning signs such as intermittent signal loss.
Testing:
Look for the simple stuff first. Check plug end connections in the house. Where you have screw-together coax plugs, open them up and just check that the centre core wire still connects to the centre pin of the plug.
If you are using moulded coax fly leads, swap a couple of leads. The chances of two going faulty at the same time are incredibly small, so this will show you whether there's a lead fault on one.
Where your aerial signal passes through a recorder, switch it on. Some recorders have eco settings so that in standby even the RF pass through is powered down. This can be changed in the settings, but if the box got a firmware update overnight then there's always the possibility that the setting was returned to default.
1st rule of thumb is don't be tempted to do a full retune.
What you do instead for testing is a manual tune, one mux at a time.
The main BBC and ITV station muxes are generally the strongest signals. Even if you're not receiving a signal, put the TV on BBC1 SD, then go in to manual tuning and try a channel scan. The chances are you won't pick up anything, but you should see indications for signal strength and quality. If both are low then there's a total signal loss. If Strength is high but Quality is low then and amp still works but the aerial or cable from it isn't delivering the signal.
Cable to buy:
- * Anything all copper *
- Webro WF100 is about the best without going mad
- Labgear PF100, Triax TX100, Nexans NX100 are all decent
- CT100 has started to become available again, but I wouldn't choose it over the others listed above even if cheaper
ETA: CT100 was an all-copper cable with an air spaced dielectric (the insulation between the centre core and the braid & foil shield. (Scroll down the
Megalithia page here for a picture comparing CT100 with WF100.)
Air spacing was- and remains- an effective insulator. In fact, in the early days of foam insulators they had a problem with water tracking through the cables where as CT100 didn't. Those problems with foam cables were resolved in the design.
The reason why air spaced cell cable lost out to foam at that point was they're easily kinked. The cells collapse if bent too far. Foam isn't immune, but it is more resilient.
Say "CT100" to anyone with a long enough memory and we'll immediately think of air spaced cables. That's what CT100 was. This new stuff from Doncaster Cables isn't air spaced. It's foam. It isn't CT100 of old, so quite why they're using CT100 as a name is a bit of a mystery. Philex (Labgear), Triax and Nexans all managed to come up with two letters followed by '100' to indicate and equivalent to Webro WF100 without crashing an old product name. I wonder what Doncaster couldn't do the same?
Anyway, the Doncaster "not-really-CT100-but-called-CT100" looks like it's a semi- copper cable. It has a copper core, and a copper foil, but the braid is what they call a "copper composite", whatever that means. My guess is aluminium with a copper anodised layer. IOW, an economy version with a lower grade braid than WF/PF/TX/NX-100.
What's also surprising too is that the company doesn't appear to list a full set of specs for it. The most useful bits for a quick comparison are the attenuation at frequency. This tells us how much signal the cable loses. They don't list this on their web site. Here's a link to the Doncaster site for that cable:
Welcome to Doncaster Cables - Satellite TV Coaxial Cable as CT100
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end of ETA ---
Stuff to avoid is anything involving aluminium or CCS CCA cabling.
