The dish and silicon spray

[AJ2086]

I remember reading before that spraying your dish with silicon spray will help keep the snow and rain from building up on the dish. I am getting my dish installed tommorow, should I spray it or no? I got the can and I am in CT and in the middle of winter. Does it effect ths signal? Should I use it on the LNBs or anything else?

[Unthinkable]

My $.02 and change. I live in a snowbelt area in central MA and I've never needed to spray anything like that on my dish here. I think you can safely get through a winter without ever needing it myself. Signal strength wasn't affected enough to interfere with my Dish picture by the 13 or so inches of snow we had in early January for what its worth.

[Karl Foster]

I have never lost signal in the winter due to snow build-up and mine is on my roof. I have lost it briefly (less than 30 minutes total over two years) during bad storms, but that was due to clouds, and no amount of silicone spray will prevent that.

[Steve Mehs]

I spayed Pam on the dish for the first two winters, didn't seemed to help. If they snow builds up I just get the latter and a broom and with two sweeps everythings fine. Nothing will prevent rain fade except for a larger dish, but if the clouds are too heavy and thick you'll still lose the lock. The best way to eliminate rain fade is move to the desert of get a solid c band dish and strap a DBS LNB to it. Neither solution is easy or cheap, so my advise, is just wait it out.

[AJ2086]

I'm not looking to avoid rain fade I am looking to avoid ice build up on the dish.

[Karl Foster]

If it is snowing outside, your dish will get snow on it, whether it has silicone spray on it or not, just like your car gets snow on it even if it is freshly waxed. A metal dish with cold air on both sides is going to get snow build-up. If you get a lot of snow, mount your dish low enough so you can sweep it off if you need to. Like I said in my previous post, my dish is mounted high on my roof, I live in a snowy climate, and haven't had problems with snow build-up affecting my reception. YMMV. If you are worried about it, spray it - it won't hurt. I just don't know if it will actually help much.

[Keith4USC]

We had a blizzard a few weeks back in Columbia, SC (2 inches) and I never lost signal..... I was surprised during the heavy snow that the signal stayed alive......

[John Corn]

AJ, I would just wait and see if your having problems with the snow. Here in Ohio I've never had any problems with the snow or ice.

[DishDude1]

They make a dish heater, it is a little heating element that goes on the back of the dish and you can plug it in whenever the ice builds up...here is a site with a couple different models.

http://shop.skyvision.com/store/d_dish_cover.html

[DCSholtis]

Ive got just a dish cover on mine....never had a prob yet with snow or rain fade here in Cleveland area

[DarrellP]

In the area of Oregon I live in, when we do get the rare snowfall, it is a gloppy wet mess and it sticks to everything. I tried Pam last year and it did not help at all. The only solution was to brush the snow off the dish.

[Neil Derryberry]

Using PAM keeps the peppers from sticking to the dish when I stir-fry... :D

[KenIdaho]

We had a blizzard a few weeks back in Columbia, SC (2 inches) and I never lost signal..... I was surprised during the heavy snow that the signal stayed alive......


I would not consider 2” of snow a blizzard.

I live in north Idaho where we do get snow most years. The first year I tried spray on Silica and several times I could not get a signal due to snow on the dish. My dish is on the roof and climbing on the roof with a foot of snow on it is not my idea of fun.

About two winters ago I bout a heater on E-bay, since then the only trouble I had was when I turned it off. I turned it back on and 10 minutes latter I had signal again. If your dish is where you can’t easily get to it and you get a fair amount of snow I would install a heater. If you can get to it easily use a broom they are cheaper.

[pbrown]

I've had fairly decent luck with Rain-X on my dish, but I'd never actually put that stuff on my windshield. It did help with ice buildup on the dish by helping water to go away.

[jened]

i live in upstate ny and we've had a lot of snow so far. my dish is mounted on a pole in the yard and there is like no ice or snow accumulation on it at all. the snow at one point was reaching the bottom of the dish and i was afraid with another big storm, there'd be trouble. signal strength seems unaffected and i haven't used any covers or spray on the dish 500.