[gelat]

I'm moving to the coast, literally right on the NH/Maine border. Having spent all my dirctv life in Texas or California, weather ruining my tv has been limited to about 5 times of heavy rain in 7+ years.

How often will snow render my recorded/live tv unviewable?

 

[litzdog911]

It depends a lot on the type of snow .... wet, sticky snow causes more disruption than dry powdery snow. Just be sure that your dish is mounted low enough where you can easily reach it with a broom to brush off the snow and you'll be fine.

 

[jimmyv2000]

I has D* For a number of years in NH and rarely had an issue with snow Even with a slimlime dish.
A few things here.
#1 Make sure that ALL CONUS Sats are 95+
#2 Your Dish should be within an area you can reach with a broom to clean it off if needed
#3 Be Sure That 2 mono poles are used if you are getting a roof install

 

[robl45]

when I had dish in Boston years ago. like 2000-2002, snow was no issue.

 

[golfnut-n-nh]

No interruptions this year. We only had two storms this year inwhich I never lost my signal. Never lost my signal during hurricane Irene. Under normal circumstances, being on the coast results in lessor snow totals than the interior. I would not worry about rain/snow fade.

 

[Hoffer]

I've had DirecTV in Minnesota for like 11 years now. I don't ever remember losing signal due to snow. I will lose signal during a thunderstorm during the summer. Only get a couple of them a year and they blow through relatively quickly.

 

[nike5580]

I'm moving to the coast, literally right on the NH/Maine border. Having spent all my dirctv life in Texas or California, weather ruining my tv has been limited to about 5 times of heavy rain in 7+ years.

How often will snow render my recorded/live tv unviewable?

The coastal area of NH tends to get less snow. I am in central NH, and I have only had an issue with snow two winters ago. But we had a lot of snow that year, and all the snow falling off the roof (metal roof) made a pile of snow that was over the top of the dish. The LNB on my dish is around 6' off the ground.

 

[NewForceFiveFan]

Simple answer is no, you'll have no trouble with snow up here. Even when we've had a lot of snow there wasn't any real outages except during a rare hale storm. I've lived on Narragansett Bay for over 36 years. 14 of those with Directv or Dish with no snow-related outages whatsoever. When I was a kid we had more trouble with cable tv outages caused by lines on the telephone poles than with satellite dish. The snow outage rumor was spread by the cable tv industry to scare potential defectors to dbs over 15 years ago and is complete hogwash. Maybe if you were up at the north pole you might have a weaker signal strength due to the curve of the earth but not in new england. Also we had very little snow up here this year and an indian summer we had just the last couple weeks was wonderful.

 

[TBlazer07]

How often will snow render my recorded/live tv unviewable?

If you keep your receivers under an umbrella when it rains or snows there should be no problem. :lol:

 

[TigersFanJJ]

#3 Be Sure That 2 mono poles are used if you are getting a roof install

There is a new "stub" mount for roofs that doesn't use monopoles. Only found one pic after a quick search. You can see it here. It's a nice, really strong little mount.

 

[raott]

Simple answer is no, you'll have no trouble with snow up here. Even when we've had a lot of snow there wasn't any real outages except during a rare hale storm. I've lived on Narragansett Bay for over 36 years. 14 of those with Directv or Dish with no snow-related outages whatsoever. When I was a kid we had more trouble with cable tv outages caused by lines on the telephone poles than with satellite dish. The snow outage rumor was spread by the cable tv industry to scare potential defectors to dbs over 15 years ago and is complete hogwash. Maybe if you were up at the north pole you might have a weaker signal strength due to the curve of the earth but not in new england. Also we had very little snow up here this year and an indian summer we had just the last couple weeks was wonderful.

Snow outage is not hogwash at all. A heavy wet snow buildup on your dish will cause an outage.

So far this week, I've read on this site that not rain, tornados, hurricanes, thunderstorms nor snow will cause rain fade.

 

[markfp]

I've said this before. I live in "snow country" in Upstate New York,which probably gets as much snow as they get in Maine, and in the almost 13 years with DirecTV I've never had a single snow related outage. It can't be just me. Nobody uses dish covers or heaters around here either. Usually the only time in winter somebody loses the signal is if their dish gets blown out of alignment in a heavy wind.

I'm not a techie, but as I understand it, it all depends on the angle of your dish in relation to the satellites. The further North you are the straighter the dish and the less of a "bowl" it makes to collect snow. When "nor'easters" come up the coast from the south, folks in states like Maryland and Virginia do have issues, no question about it, but this far north everything is normal.

Still, it doesn't hurt to be cautious. Make sure your dish is locked down tight and in perfect alignment. And regardless where we live, it's always a good idea to have it in an accessible place just in case you do have to get to it for some reason.

 

[LCDSpazz]

I have far more outage problems with rain/storms in the summer than snow in the winter.

 

[fluffybear]

I'm moving to the coast, literally right on the NH/Maine border. Having spent all my dirctv life in Texas or California, weather ruining my tv has been limited to about 5 times of heavy rain in 7+ years.

How often will snow render my recorded/live tv unviewable?

As others have pointed out, it will all depend on the amount and type of snow you have. When we lived in Northern Minnesota, we typically would lose our signal 2 or 3 times a year but typically it would be from ice and not snow build up.
If there is any possibility you might want to consider mounting the dish on a pole rather then roof mount (easier access). We had ours mounted on a pole 4 feet up just outside the back door and would take a paint brush every now and then and wipe off any snow which had accumulated. As for ice build up, we had a bottle of Rain-X De-icer near by (same stuff you use on your windshield) and would give the dish a few squirts and within seconds the ice would crack and fall right off.

 

[cnmurray8]

I live in Central New Hampshire and have only had a snow outage during the heavy wet snow that sticks and builds up on the dish. Very rare up here most snow storms are dry and fluffy snow. Heavy thunderstorms have caused more outages and then that is rare and very short. My cable goes out more.

 

[sunking]

The nice thing about the northern latitudes is that the dish is at a pretty vertical orientation. Unless it's snowing like crazy and super wet, snow it isn't a problem. In 10+ years I've never had to clean my dish.

Of course the bad part about the north is that for this same reason we tend to lose signal more often during a bad rain storm than say Florida because we angle through more cloud cover.

 

[zeus]

I've said this before. I live in "snow country" in Upstate New York,which probably gets as much snow as they get in Maine, and in the almost 13 years with DirecTV I've never had a single snow related outage. It can't be just me. Nobody uses dish covers or heaters around here either. Usually the only time in winter somebody loses the signal is if their dish gets blown out of alignment in a heavy wind.

I live in northern Maine and have had D* and E* for a total of 13+ years and I am yet to have a single snow related outage using satellite on any equipment, even with seasons such as 2007-2008 where we got 200 inches (16.66 feet) of snow.

Now rain on the other hand...

 

[sbl]

I very rarely have an issue with snow on the dish. I did make certain to mount it within broom's reach of a window. Maybe 3 or 4 times in the last ten years I've had to brush the dish off. Actually, the LNB icing up is more likely to be an issue... At our latitude the dish is fairly vertical.

I do not recommend putting a dish on the roof if you can avoid it.

 

[dueport]

First, welcome to the easy coast. Second, on snow fade, I live near the coast in southern Maine with D* for two years and have had mild signal strength reduction (causing mild pixelation) during very heavy wet snow blizzards. I did have total loss when 6-8 inches accumulated on the dish which required a trip to the roof to clear the dish. Ours in mounted on the second floor side of the house above the garage which looks great aesthetically because you can't see it from the front but makes clearing the dish in the winter a challenge.