Rain Fade

[AJ2086]

DBS system is comming soon (4-6 bussiness days) and I was wondering how bad is rain fade? How much rain does it take to cause rain fade? Will a drizzle effect it? Does snow also have the same effect?

[Tony S]

I live in eastern CT and have had DBS for several years. The signal almost never goes out. It has to raining very hard for the signal to cut out. Snow can cause trouble if it builds up on the dish or the LNB. But in all the years that I have had satellite, it has only gone out once due a really heavy snow storm.

One thing that I can tell you for sure though... it goes out way less often than cable ! :D

[Karl Foster]

We have had rain fade a few times over the past two years. It usually only lasts a few minutes.

We get a lot of snow, and I have only lost signal a couple of times during snow storms. If you get a ton of show, you should mount your dish so that it can be easily cleaned off.

[AJ2086]

LOL, My cable company goes out when its windy, when it rains, when it snows, beleive it or not also when it is foggy.

[MarkA]

I've never had rain fade. The only time I lost signal was when the dish got completely buried in snow. And we have pretty heavy rain here.

[ReddiWhip]

I rarely got rain/snow fade with DirecTV...my signal was usually strong enough (96-100). I switched to DishNetwork last Spring and had rain fade usually every time it rained. I checked the signal and it was coming in at mid 70s to mid 80s. So I got on my roof and reaimed my dish and now I get a signal ranging from mid 90s to 118 (on sat 119...less on 110) and haven't had any rain fade since.

You could also try a larger dish. Check out http://www.winegard.com/products/home/index.htm for larger dishes. They have 24", 30" and a 1 meter. Check with an installer about signal strength...you dont want to overload the LNB and receiver with the resulting signal.

[Kevin]

Signal loss due to weather is very rare with DBS. I've had Dish Network for 2 years now and I can recall only a couple of times when I lost the signal due to weather. Those two instances occurred during a severe thunderstorm and a bad snowstorm when the dish was buried. Signal fade is nothing to worry about, but if you're really worried about it, you should ask your dealer about a dish cover. They're inexpensive (some dealers give them away for free), and they help keep snow from accumulating on the dish.

[TNGTony]

AJ,

If you get a good signal on a clear day (80 or higher) , rain fade will only happen in the most severe storms or when there is a VERY thick cloud layer between you and the satellite. I live in Cincinnati where rolling pop-up thunderstorms are quite common in the summer. In the past 5 years, I've averaged a half dozen to a dozen rain fade events a year. Some have lasted as little as a few seconds and once it lasted close to 30 minutes (I was preparing to build an ark). On average, they lasted less than 5 minutes each. As I've posted before, timing is the problem. Having a rain fade event when Hercule Poirot is about to reveal the killer always seems like it's hours long. :)

But just to bring some perspective to the situation, after my 30 minute rain fade event, I was able to watch TV again. My neigbors with Cable lost service for close to two days.

After 3 rain fade events lasting less than 1 hour each in two months, my brother had in North Carolina was able to watch TV again while his neighbors were without service for over TWO MONTHS! The rainfade events....Bertha, ??? and Floyd (forgot the name of the middle hurricaine). That year he got thwacked with three hurricains in two months. Luckily he lives 50 miles inland and on high ground enough so he wasn't flooded out. And a Honda 2000 watt generator helped since there was no power for a week after Floyd.

So rainfade really isn't an issue.

See ya
Tony

[Steve Mehs]

I get rain fade an averge of 3 times per year and snow fade once per winter, with exception of this past winter when I got it twice.

[James_F]

Isn't rain fade due to the clouds not the rain? When the monsoons (http://www.azcentral.com/weather/monsoon/) start up here in Phoenix, I loose signal for sometimes, but not for very long....

[TNGTony]

James,

Your're right. Really rain fade should be called "moisture fade". It is the amount or water or water vapor between you and the satellite. Since clouds are 99.99999% composed of moisture, they are usually the culprits. Here I get Rain fade about 5 minutes before the downpour begins. And the signal returns well before the rain stops.

See ya
Tony

[RJS1111111]

Have you ever seen the signal disappear,
seconds before a nearby lightning strike,
then reappear seconds after that?

Those are kind of fun, too.

[Nick]

For the umpteenth time, dammit, it's LOSE, not LOOSE :rolleyes:

[James_F]

I am loosing my mind....

[Nick]

Way too subtle for most, James, but I get it.

Loosen it to the winds, my boy. Release your mind to the High Priestess of Progress. Embrace good grammar with every dendrite and axon of your being! Cast your brain cells upon the currents of personal development!

Oh, the glorious feeling of self-improvement!!!

It gives me a boner just thinking about it! :lol:

[Mike123abc]

Another way to avoid rain fade is to install a larger dish. I have not seen a larger version of the DISH 500 system, but you can point 2 dishes, one at 110, and one at 119. A 24" dish is supposed to cut 80% of rain fade.

You can go up to almost any size dish, but probably do not get much more return once you pass 35 inches. The way my roof line goes, you cannot see the dishes, so I went with larger dishes each pointing to individual satellites 61.5, 110, 119. I went ahead and went overkill with 35" dishes (they run about $45) since I was not going to buy small ones and then be dissatisfied and have to change them again.

I live in an area that has a tons of thunderstorms and was tired of having the boxes lock up because of rain.

Note: It takes a 64 switch and individual LNBs, so it is cheaper to have it done this way the first time you install because they use funky dual lnbfs that are useless for multidishes (not to mention SW 21).

[DarrellP]

I live in the Northwest and have lost my main 500 signal once for at most, 3 minutes and this was during a MAJOR downpour.

OTOH, my 6000 has an angle of 11 degrees and I had to put in a 24" dish to minimize dropouts on it. I can still "loose" it (sorry, Nick, had to do it) for awhile when it rains, but it is much more stable now.

[Jacob S]

Do those Dish covers that claim to prevent rain fade do just that?

[Nick]

Naaah, Jacob, they just keep your dish from getting wet.
The best way to deal with rain fade is to have a handy
supply of pre-recorded programs on your PVR. :D


Nickster :smoking:

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Do those Dish covers that claim to prevent rain fade do just that? Nope, the only way to cut down on rain fade is to get a bigger dish.

[James_F]

Or move to Phoenix... :D

[Kevin]

LOL, but there you might get smog fade!

[James_F]

Or sunday night, dust fade....

http://members.cox.net/jamesf1/transfer/wdust1.jpg

[Mike123abc]

I did some testing with 18" vs 35" dishes. On the 61.5 satellite since it was the easiest to mess with. My old 18" dish showed a Dishnetwork signal test strength from 76 to 96 (after I tweaked it with a signal meter to max it) depending on which transponder it was on. I move the Dual LNB over to the 35" dish and the signal now varies from 101 to 125 (a few are at 125 so I bet it is just maxed).

Only one transponder (#2) is at 101, 4 are 114-120, and the rest are 120-125 on the strength meter. I have not had a chance to test the signal strength in a big thunderstorm (only light rain), but I can stand in front of the dish and still get signal (of course I am not 35" wide).

[Spruceman]

At my place on Spruce Mtn in West Virginia, we get an average of 100 inches (liquid equivalent) per year. As the rain comes down quite heavy, rain fade occurs at least once a week. The longest I've ever gone without rain in the past 26 years is a stretch 8 days long. As heavy rain approaches, my satellite internet goes out first (takes little to knock Starband out), followed by the 18" DBS dishes, with the one-meter FSS dish for DMX music going out last.

It's odd that the govt has an IFLOWS rain guage only a couple miles from me; and it severly understates rainfall. Last weekend, we had 2.40 inches in a rain that was continuous from 7 am Sat to 1 PM Sunday. Yet the IFLOWS guage only indicated 0.04" for each of the two days. Creeks were at bankful, yet no flood watch was issued because their damn guages are so crappy. It's a good thing it wasnt a real flooding 7.2" with their gauges showing only .12 each day. They should fix it or take it offline.

[crkeehn]

I guess, as others have said, it depends on what kind of weather you get. Generally, if you are getting a good signal, it will take fairly heavy weather to knock out your system. A gentle spring rain won't do it, a heavy downpour will. In the Washington/Baltimore region, snow doesn't seem to be a problem, at least for me. I have never had a snowfall heavy enough to take out the system and it doesn't get deep enough to obscure the dish. We do during the summertime, get very heavy thunderstorms, generally they take the satellite signal out for 10-15 minutes (of course in the middle of a crucial scene).