Can weather elsewhere cause my signal to be dropped?

[janeslogin]

We live out in the high desert, no clouds, no trees, nothing.

But my recording of ABC News this morning showed no signal. There was one hell of a storm over the mountains about 12-20 miles away. Could that have had anything to do with my lost signal?

[harsh]

If you were trying to record content from an SD local, it may have been trashed by a problem with Echostar 14 last night. Reno LIL appear on an E14 spot beam.

[Michael P]

Depending on your dish's elevation it is possible that weather affect your reception even if the sky is clear locally. This is especially true for the few west coast installations with a 61.5 dish. With an elevation of only 9 degrees a weather system 300 miles away could interfere with your signal.

OTOH the local POP could also have a problem receiving the local station's signal. This happened to me Sunday with my local NBC station WKYC. In that case the stations transmitter had brief power outages, I knew it was the local station because I had the same channel on via ota in the bedroom and that set had a "no signal" message on the screen while the E* feed had a yellow screen. Fortunately the program was simulcast on an RSN (STO) and that feed went uninterrupted.

[BattleZone]

Rain/weather-related signal loss will happen when there is a heavy storm in between the dish and the satellite, so if there is a storm in the dish's Line-of-Sight, even if it is causing rain 30 miles away from you, it can cause a problem. Likewise, it can be pouring rain right over your house, but clear in your dish's LOS, and you'll have great signal.

The lower your elevation angle, the further through the clouds the signals have to travel to reach your dish, so the more like it is to have rain fade (from storms in the LOS, which may be many miles to your south).

[Stewart Vernon]

I usually don't see rain fade... but rather cloud fade. Often times when it is raining outside I am able to watch Dish just fine... BUT if there is a black cloud in the line-of-sight between my dish and the SAT in orbit, I'll lose signal even if it is not raining and the sun is out.

I've had many a time where the actual bad weather passed right by me... but the cloud did not.

Also, another thing we've had hit us every once in a while is bad weather at the Dish uplink site.

My weather can be fine... but if there is a big storm at the uplink site that interferes with the signal getting to the SAT... then that can kill you too, and you'll have to go check the weather in Colorado, for example, to find out what happened.

[BillJ]

I've gotten pretty good at predicting signal loss just by watching radar online. For me it's storms 25 to 40 miles to the southwest. When I see them developing I know 129 will soon go. Sometimes 110/119 are still okay, depending on how strong the storm is.

My friend switched to DTV a couple years ago. He often loses signal too so it isn't just a DISH issue.

[janeslogin]

If you were trying to record content from an SD local, it may have been trashed by a problem with Echostar 14 last night. Reno LIL appear on an E14 spot beam.

Thanks. It would have been SD Reno.

BTW, what does LIL mean? This forum with all it's good information rally needs an extensive glossary to have superb information. I think I can rule out LIL meaning Lithuanian Airlines (ICAO code) which, I think, is what it most often means.

[James Long]

BTW, what does LIL mean?Local into local. It is local TV stations being rebroadcast via satellite back into their local market.

This forum with all it's good information rally needs an extensive glossary to have superb information. I think I can rule out LIL meaning Lithuanian Airlines (ICAO code) which, I think, is what it most often means.Acronyms (http://www.dbstalk.com/acronyms.htm) are linked from our homepage.