does rain/snow really kill the reception

[S43R80]

D*=DirectV
E*=Echostar (Dish Network)
V*=Voom

Thanks!

 

[korsjs]

In FL, you can lose signal a lot. Kind of weird, that through all the hurricanes, we never lost the signal, but during normal afternoon rainfall, it goes out all the time.

 

[thiggin2]

In FL, you can lose signal a lot. Kind of weird, that through all the hurricanes, we never lost the signal

I couldn't tell, we lost power for 2 days

 

[thiggin2]

but during normal afternoon rainfall, it goes out all the time.

I think its because of the Very Dark clouds and very heavy rains we get blocks the signal. Most people dont really know how hard it rains down here so they dont really understand how much signal can be lost even with a very good signal on a clear day.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Thundersnow - been there! at 12,000MSL on a chairlift - that's scary!

As for signal improving in moister air - maybe it attenuates some terrestrial interference? Just a thought I pulled from ... well, from somewhere.

 

[Tony S]

Also, for you CT people, how has the weather been to your service in our climate?

I live in eastern CT and have had E* for a long time (1997 I think). In all that time the satellite has only cut out maybe once a year due to very heavy rain. Cable always tries to scare people by pointing out the rain-fade issue, but in reality I had far more outages back when I had cable.

 

[bcshields]

Whenever someone asks me this I say "Dish has 10 million subscribers, Direct has over 13.5 Million. 23.5 Million families can't be wrong."

 

[don_riggins]

DBS has been known to go out with adverse conditions but if its happening on a frequent basis then there may be some other technical issue.

 

[JohnM]

I'm in the Dallas area. I lose signal sometimes in moderate to heavy rain. Usually lasts for a few minutes. Its actually better than cable used to be - I would lose my cable signal every time it rained! I never did figure that one out. My cable was actually out pretty often for one reason or another. Dish is much more reliable.

 

[Kevinw]

I've had 3 dishes at 2 houses and wouldn't exactly call the loss of signal "rare." I'd call it "every thunderstorm" along with "some moderately heavy rains/snows."

Now, if it were only 1 of the 3 dishes where this happened, I'd say it was badly aimed. But all of them?

My signal loss may be 5 minutes or up to 1/2 hour.

I have this problem at work. Sat is on roof unprotected from the elements. Any moderate or rain will knock it out for about 5-10 minutes no longer than an hour.
At home the dish is under a 14 inch overhang. I rarely if ever have rain fade.

 

[Kevinw]

I'm in the Dallas area. I lose signal sometimes in moderate to heavy rain. Usually lasts for a few minutes. Its actually better than cable used to be - I would lose my cable signal every time it rained! I never did figure that one out. My cable was actually out pretty often for one reason or another. Dish is much more reliable.

Cable was always an issue- Aldephia would be out every moderate rain or better.

 

[J3ff]

Ok guys, I think some of you are bending the truth.

I recently had Dish installed.... Simon approved all my signal strengths. The service is great. HOWEVER, I had to cancel 2 out of 3 tv's because my family COULD NOT STAND THE RAIN FADE!

Everytime it would be heavy rain (In CT) the thing will go out for at LEAST 15 mins.....

I dont know about snow, but are you telling me that everytime it snows I'm going to have to go up on the roof and wipe em down? C'mon people give this guy honest answers.

I've had dish 3 months max and it's gone out in every heavy rain storm we've had.

I'm sure tonight when we get rain it will be out as well.

thats the truth! (oh by the way my uncle has DirectTV, same crap happens to him as well)

Satalite is DEFINITLY not 100 % in my oppinion. I can't believe that in the first 3 months I've had this happen about 6 times, while others say 1 time a year. Gimmie a break! Tell this guy the truth!

 

[Cyclone]

I watch Dish in the rain all of the time without any drop outs. It really takes those "red/purple" storms on the Doppler radar to block my reception. Even then its usually only out for moments.

I'm not bending the truth at all here either. Last year the Hurricane Isabell knocked out cable for 2 days here, I watched Dish TV during the entire storm without a single drop out.

If you get rain fade with anything less than a violent storm, then your dish is not aimed as good as it could be, or you are far north.

 

[TuxCoder]

I have this problem at work. Sat is on roof unprotected from the elements. Any moderate or rain will knock it out for about 5-10 minutes no longer than an hour.
At home the dish is under a 14 inch overhang. I rarely if ever have rain fade.

Actually the rain hitting the dish doesn't account for much if any signal loss. Rather it's the couple miles (diagonally, based on your dish's elevation angle) worth of rain in the atmosphere between your dish and the satellite. Together all those drops make a curtain that, in heavy rain, is thick enough to obscure basically all of the space beams from the satellites.

 

[Mr Tony]

I stand by my reply

3 times in 4 years in Minnesota with the snow.

Haven't lost signal in a while due to rain....real heavy cloudcover I have

 

[atvman]

I only would lose signal at my camp in very heavy rain once or twice in a year. This was with a dish 500. I upgraded to a superdish because of locals on 121. One month later I had problems with rain and 119 was off all weekend. Techs came and thought the problem was with no rubber boots on the connections and some connectors laying on the roof. Some of those trees might be a problem but we can not tell you which ones because you might sue us. Well rain fade continued so I put the old Dish 500 back on the side of the camp which is 2 or 3 feet lower than the superdish aimed myself and got a reading 20 stronger on 110 and 119. Dish said the dish pro twin with the built in switch would not work combined with 121 LNB from superdish into a dp34 switch. Iceberg said this setup would work. Moderate rain motivated me to try. Iceberg was right this setup does work fine! My roof is too steep for me to fiddle with superdish adjustment. Anyway superdish will have to be moved because dish told me that will not re-install after metal roofing is installed. Thanks Iceberg you were right ! Happy in Rangeley Maine.

 

[Mr Tony]

I only would lose signal at my camp in very heavy rain once or twice in a year. This was with a dish 500. I upgraded to a superdish because of locals on 121. One month later I had problems with rain and 119 was off all weekend. Techs came and thought the problem was with no rubber boots on the connections and some connectors laying on the roof. Some of those trees might be a problem but we can not tell you which ones because you might sue us. Well rain fade continued so I put the old Dish 500 back on the side of the camp which is 2 or 3 feet lower than the superdish aimed myself and got a reading 20 stronger on 110 and 119. Dish said the dish pro twin with the built in switch would not work combined with 121 LNB from superdish into a dp34 switch. Iceberg said this setup would work. Moderate rain motivated me to try. Iceberg was right this setup does work fine! My roof is too steep for me to fiddle with superdish adjustment. Anyway superdish will have to be moved because dish told me that will not re-install after metal roofing is installed. Thanks Iceberg you were right ! Happy in Rangeley Maine.

Glad I could help

 

[ShadowEKU]

Ok guys, I think some of you are bending the truth.

I recently had Dish installed.... Simon approved all my signal strengths. The service is great. HOWEVER, I had to cancel 2 out of 3 tv's because my family COULD NOT STAND THE RAIN FADE!

Everytime it would be heavy rain (In CT) the thing will go out for at LEAST 15 mins.....

I dont know about snow, but are you telling me that everytime it snows I'm going to have to go up on the roof and wipe em down? C'mon people give this guy honest answers.

I've had dish 3 months max and it's gone out in every heavy rain storm we've had.

I'm sure tonight when we get rain it will be out as well.

thats the truth! (oh by the way my uncle has DirectTV, same crap happens to him as well)

Satalite is DEFINITLY not 100 % in my oppinion. I can't believe that in the first 3 months I've had this happen about 6 times, while others say 1 time a year. Gimmie a break! Tell this guy the truth!

I stand by my answer Ive had sat for 5 or 6 months... Its gone out maybe twice and this has been the most wet summer ever in KY. So no It doesnt go out that often... for me at least.. and I can stand a 15 minute outage every once in a while... can you say bathroom/food/let the dog out break... i mean if you are that dependant on your tv working 100% of the time then you might want to swith to OTA only our cable went out more than sat and for longer.

 

[Tony S]

Ok guys, I think some of you are bending the truth.

I was being completely truthful when I stated that I only lost the signal maybe once a year since 1997.

Maybe you live in an area that gets a lot more rain? Where do you live?

 

[SimpleSimon]

I'm in the Colorado mountains. I get short outages 1-5 minutes a couple of times a year due to thunderstorms. I have to wipe snow from the dish during the spring storms - that's when the snow is wet enough to stick. Other than that, no issues.

I don't remember what signal strengths I 'approved'. How about you tell us again what you've got on 110 & 119 transponders 11 & 12. At 100 on the 125 scale, you should NOT be having dropouts like you're saying. Is it a D500, or a SuperDish?