View Full Version : Transponders on 99 and 101 all Zero's during heavy rain?
Every transponder is a zero on the 99 and 101....its a pretty heavy storm with heavy rain lighting thunder but little wind...The signals have been 80-90 before the storm...why are they all zeros now? They were like that for like 10 minutes....I've had direct for 6 months now and this is a first.. Is this common for HD signals at the beginning of a heavy storm to drop to zero? they are starting to go back up abit..
houskamp
03-29-09, 07:13 PM
if the rain is heavy enough it will block it out.. usualy less than a few minutes here..
Every transponder is a zero on the 99 and 101....its a pretty heavy storm with heavy rain lighting thunder but little wind...The signals have been 80-90 before the storm...why are they all zeros now? They were like that for like 10 minutes....I've had direct for 6 months now and this is a first.. Is this common for HD signals at the beginning of a heavy storm to drop to zero? they are starting to go back up abit..
I just checked and the signal on 99(c) has dropped off to the mid 60's here in eastern Virginia. The rest of the sats all score in the high 90's. Wonder why?
Bob H.
houskamp
03-29-09, 07:53 PM
newer sats are more sensitive to weather..
LameLefty
03-29-09, 08:32 PM
The radio frequencies used for DBS satellite transmissions are attenuated by water - therefore, periods of very heavy rain or intense storm cells high in the atmosphere along the line of sight between your dish and the satellites will reduce your signal strength. Heavy enough rain, big enough storm cells (or thick enough snow/ice on your dish itself) can totally block the signal. Ka band signals used for most HD is more sensitive to this attenuation than Ku band used for most SD.
Kenkong586
03-29-09, 08:41 PM
I have issues with the newer HD channels that are starting now and will continue until next winter. This will probably result in me dropping directv when my contract is up in May. I've had 2 service calls for this problem and it only occurs in the warmer months. If they don't fix it when on a third service call, then I'll have to go back to cable. I see no point in paying for a service where the provider has limited interest in the functionality of it and maximum interest in getting the money for said service.
joe diamond
03-29-09, 09:02 PM
Guys,
Rain Fade has always been part of the game! Suck it in and drive on! You are talking about a few minutes per year.
There will be other delivery systems coming along that bypass this problem. Just wait.
But know that after a storm.......when the sun comes through the clouds and the birds are singing again.............those sunny beams are the DTV customers who don't bitch about rain fade getting their signal first. The complaint department holds back signal for awhile from those who call and scream while it is raining.
Joe
Rain fade is due to certain laws of Physics, therefore until someone finds a way to rescind those Laws, rain fade is going to occur. If one has no tolerance for any outage at all then satellite delivered TV services are not for you. The problem is finding a delivery system that has no outages - good luck with that!
rebkell
03-29-09, 11:12 PM
Well, let's be totally honest here, the newer Mpeg4 sats are very sensitive to rain, especially if they aren't tweaked well, and D* doesn't seem to be very concerned with this, if the signals are in the 70's then they consider everything fine, when in fact it isn't fine, when slight rain and cloudiness causes intermittent outages, then it's not right, but they won't come back and tweak the dish unless you lose signal. The newer sats have a fine line between good service and crappy reception, and it is worse during the summer months here as well. The thing is that a decent tweaking of the dishes would most likely prevent 90% of the outages.
jimmyv2000
03-30-09, 06:15 PM
If you are at 95+ on all conus satellites on a clear day rain fade will be minimum.
If your hd sats are in the 70's or low 80's on a clear day, rain fade will happen quicker and more frequently.
Its always a good idea to check your stengths on a clear day then compare on days with heavy clouds and rain.
For me the only issues that i have with rain fade are in the summer during the heaviest of T-storms.
As far as snow my slimline has been up over 2 years now and i haven't lost my signal in any snowstorm and we get alot of snow here in NH. :D
rebkell
03-30-09, 07:22 PM
If you are at 95+ on all conus satellites on a clear day rain fade will be minimum.
If your hd sats are in the 70's or low 80's on a clear day, rain fade will happen quicker and more frequently.
Its always a good idea to check your stengths on a clear day then compare on days with heavy clouds and rain.
For me the only issues that i have with rain fade are in the summer during the heaviest of T-storms.
As far as snow my slimline has been up over 2 years now and i haven't lost my signal in any snowstorm and we get alot of snow here in NH. :D
Correct, I had a lot of trouble with outages last summer, and the hd sats were in the upper 70's to mid 80's and it was irksome, I had another unrelated problem and the tech while trying to figure out the other problem, tweaked the dish(he didn't even look at signals or even put a meter on it, he just adjusted it, but whatever he did bumped up the signals to the mid to upper 80 and low 90's and after that, it took some heavy heavy rain to lose signal from that point on.
ChrisPC
03-30-09, 11:47 PM
Well, let's be totally honest here, the newer Mpeg4 sats are very sensitive to rain, especially if they aren't tweaked well, and D* doesn't seem to be very concerned with this, if the signals are in the 70's then they consider everything fine
I always hated that; I had one of the first Ka/Ku dishes, and it had that problem. However, the new firmware won't let them finish the install without a signal of 90 or more, unless D* gives them permission.
rebkell
03-31-09, 12:10 AM
I always hated that; I had one of the first Ka/Ku dishes, and it had that problem. However, the new firmware won't let them finish the install without a signal of 90 or more, unless D* gives them permission.
Does that apply to all the sats?
Most of mine are currently in the mid 80's to low 90's on the 99 and 103 satellites, it would be nice if it was retroactive and they would come tweak the dish if the signals weren't in the range they demand on new installs.
LameLefty
03-31-09, 06:55 AM
Most of mine are currently in the mid 80's to low 90's on the 99 and 103 satellites, it would be nice if it was retroactive and they would come tweak the dish if the signals weren't in the range they demand on new installs.
You should be fine with those signals the vast majority of the time. You might lose picture a moment or two before someone with signals a couple points higher but you'll both still lose signal in heavy weather. There would be very, very few real world circumstances where you would lose signal while your neighbor with signals a few points higher wouldn't as well.
rebkell
03-31-09, 08:27 AM
You should be fine with those signals the vast majority of the time. You might lose picture a moment or two before someone with signals a couple points higher but you'll both still lose signal in heavy weather. There would be very, very few real world circumstances where you would lose signal while your neighbor with signals a few points higher wouldn't as well.
They hold up pretty well now, previously, before the tweak, with the signals in the mid 70's to mid 80's, I would lose reception on cloudy days and moderate rain. It was almost like an early warning system for rain at times.
Mike Bertelson
03-31-09, 09:12 AM
Guys,
Rain Fade has always been part of the game! Suck it in and drive on! You are talking about a few minutes per year.
There will be other delivery systems coming along that bypass this problem. Just wait.
But know that after a storm.......when the sun comes through the clouds and the birds are singing again.............those sunny beams are the DTV customers who don't bitch about rain fade getting their signal first. The complaint department holds back signal for awhile from those who call and scream while it is raining.
JoeI almost never get rain fade these days. It has to be a really bad storm to cause me a problem.
Every transponder is a zero on the 99 and 101....its a pretty heavy storm with heavy rain lighting thunder but little wind...The signals have been 80-90 before the storm...why are they all zeros now? They were like that for like 10 minutes....I've had direct for 6 months now and this is a first.. Is this common for HD signals at the beginning of a heavy storm to drop to zero? they are starting to go back up abit..Could you use this link to list your signal strengths?
http://signal.dvrdns.org/
It’ll help us out to have all the numbers.
Mike
joe diamond
03-31-09, 12:36 PM
The other factor, aside from tuning is the fact the atmospheric conditions are dynamic. That is, they change all the time. A perfectly aligned dish pointing at a stationary satellite 23,000 miles out can occasionally be interrupted by things beside rain. Sunspot activity and cloud cover are examples. The numbers change all the time.
Joe
As far as snow my slimline has been up over 2 years now and i haven't lost my signal in any snowstorm and we get alot of snow here in NH. :D
Snow is virtually never an issue unless there is a lot of heavy, wet snow buildup on the dish. A snowflake is mostly air with some loosely connected ice crystals. Raindrops, OTOH, are entirely water, which absorbs energy at the Ku/Ka frequencies. Rain is a much bigger potential problem than snow for sat reception.
And for rain fade, it all has to do with the amount of water in the LOS, not if its actually raining at the dish site. I've lost signal when it's not raining out, but a t-storm is close by. I've also had a perfectly fine signal when it's pouring outside. Facts of life that only occur for a few minutes a couple of days each summer.
skihoodoo
03-31-09, 11:42 PM
About a month after i was installed with just a slimline 5 lnb i had a moderate rain and i started having pix issues so i called directv to come out its a monday and that day i had already ordered a ext swm8 and the issues kept ongoing and the appointment was for friday well two days later my swm8 had arrived and the issues still where ongoing with the rain so the next day it cleared up and it was going to rain that night as well so i installed the swm8 myself and the issue went away i went ahead and let the installer come out and he actually said i did a very good job on installing it and went ahead and disconnected the cables so he could put boots on them and placed them back on and i have never had a problem since nothing was wrong with my lnb it was most likely a power issue to the lnb i had a power problem with dish network when i had them after i got a dpp 44 switch my issues went away with them as well
i will say this i can now also see a spot beam that is suppose to be focused a little over 500 miles away both SD/HD and still get 70s now if it rains decent i loose those spotbeams but that is to be expected
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