In-line amps

[Reggie]

(DirecTV)

Would a in-line amplifier help at all with rainfade?

I have a Pase 3 dish and I typically have 90+ on all my transponders, on all 3 satellites (101, 110, and 119), but when I get a really heavy rainstorm the picture will drop out for about 3-5 minutes in the middle of the storm.

What do the CATV companies use to combat rainfade? My local cable co. has 3 or 4 round 18 inch dishes outside and two big C-Band dishes. They also have a big 100 foot tower to get out "locals" from New York (85 miles away, but same DMA).

During these storms our cable co. will lose the locals to static, but the satellite channels stay fine.

[AntAltMike]

An inline amplifier will not help. Only a larger dish will help.

Your cable company must, at the very least, be targeting Galaxy 1, Galaxy 5, Satcom 3 and Satcom 4 with large dishes. Some large dishes can be aimed at more than one satellite at the same time. These C-band signal sources are immune to the effects of rain fading.

Cable companies often use huge "spherical" antennas that are capable of receiving signal from all of the satellites in the sky. It is highly unlikely that your cable company is using any 18" dishes for receiving signals that it retransmits. It is possible that the dishes that look like 18" dishes from a distance are 1 meter or 1.2 meter dishes used to receive signals from Headend in the Sky (HITS)