30" Dish not helping Rain Fade

LOBO2999

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Apr 1, 2004
823
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Cumming, GA
I got my 30" dish a week ago and I get a singal of 99% but this morning it has been raining alot and I got no picture and my singal is 45% , My direct tv has a singal of 92% in this downpoor. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causeing this? I had them put a new LNB on the new dish when they installed it . Good thiing I still have Direct tv, I will never be able to go with voom and drop direct tv if they cant get this fixed and I would like too when the PVR comes out.
 
LOBO2999 said:
I got my 30" dish a week ago and I get a singal of 99% but this morning it has been raining alot and I got no picture and my singal is 45% , My direct tv has a singal of 92% in this downpoor. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causeing this? I had them put a new LNB on the new dish when they installed it . Good thiing I still have Direct tv, I will never be able to go with voom and drop direct tv if they cant get this fixed and I would like too when the PVR comes out.

With a 30" dish you may still get some rain fade with very heavy rain even if the dish is installed correctly - rain fade cannot be completely eliminated. When they installed the larger dish did they swap out the whole dish (including the arm) or just the reflector? Also, did they re-peak the dish?

A larger dish requires a longer feed arm to get the LNB to the focal point. An inexperienced installer may take the shortcut of just replacing the reflector, leaving the LNB out of the prime focal point. Also, a larger dish has a smaller beamwidth - meaning that if the installer just installs the new dish on the old mount without repeaking, you likely do not have the best possible signal. It may well register high in nice weather but then still drop off in rain.

Lastly - it may depend on where in the US you live and on what obstructions are around. If you are in Washington state, the 30" dish will not gain you as much as if you were in Florida. Might there be any obstructions? If the dish is installed pointing upslope on your roof (as mine is) and the angle is too low, your dish may be partially blocked by your roof and might require a slightly higher mounting tube.

If there is no obstruction, the repeaking is in order. Repeaking a dish which has good signal with no rain can be challenging - since you don't want to be up there in the rain. You would need an inline attenuator. With the attenuator inline, repeak the dish for the best signal. Then (obviously) remove the attenuator.
 
This was a good installer, I was up on the roof with him the hole time and we change out everything and it does have the extended arm for the LNB and it does have a new pole holding it onto the house and we re peaked it because we moved it higher up on the roof as for where I live its in GA. It is still raining here but not as heavy as it was and the signal is better around 90% , I would like to get up there while its raining, lol. But I'm not into being on a metal latter while its storming. But I will try re peaking it myself .
Thanks for the suggestions
 

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