Improving Dish signal.

[thiggin2]

I live in the state of Florida and as most people know we receive alot of rain. I have the dish 500 installed and was wondering if there is a way to improve the signal on a rainy day. Everytime it rains I loose signal, I talk to other people that have Direct and they say they very seldomly ever loose signal.
I have a great signal on nice days(100-125).
Thanks.

 

[retiredTech]

Is this light rain that you are losing signal lock?
How long does the loss last?
Do you lose every channel, both 119 sat and 110 sat?
With 100+ level, you should only lose lock during heavy rain and usually only briefly.
Is there a tree or other object (that when wet) that could be blocking your dish?
Larger dishes can provide some gain, but with 100+ level you should not be losing lock very often. I would look for other possible causes.

 

[thiggin2]

I loose it for 5-10 min at times. It happens in medium type rain.
I have a freind that live close by and when I loose mine he still has good signal there. I have nothing blocking the view.

 

[Stargazer]

Maybe it is a connection that is getting water in it. Look at the different transponders. Do some of them show weaker signals than the other ones by a difference of 10% or more (some showing up lower than 100 such as 80 or 90)? It may mean that your dish still needs to be tweaked a little more for maximum signal strength to help with rain fade.

 

[thiggin2]

So you find the transponder with the lowerest sigal and use that one to tweak the dish??
Also does anyone know of a bigger dish that will work with the dish 500 setup??

 

[styxfix]

So you find the transponder with the lowerest sigal and use that one to tweak the dish??
Also does anyone know of a bigger dish that will work with the dish 500 setup??

How about the Superdish. However, I do think w/ some tweaking you should get some improvement with your exsiting setup. I had the same problem w/ a wing sat. (strong signal durring good weather, but no signal when it rain) and after some slight tweaking of the dish, I've had no problems even with heavy rain.

 

[Stargazer]

The SuperDish is even harder to deal with since you have to tweak for three satellites at once, particularly the FSS 105/121 slot which has less signal anyways. You have to tweak for that FSS satellite so you are more likely to have a weaker satellite signal for 110 and 119, because if you try to tweak 110 and 119 then you will weaken the FSS signal.

 

[beast37799]

i wonder if anyone bothered to to try this out at dish before they put out the superdish

 

[GaryPen]

Try out a Dish product before releasing it to the public? Hmmmm. Absolutely brilliant! Quick. Someone get Charlie on the phone!

 

[styxfix]

If I remember correctly, according to DISH, the Super-dish won't even work to get the FSS sat. in that SE corner of the country. I think some of Florida, some of the mid-west nothern states and the west coast north of Monterey, CA won't be able to use the Super-dish because of the footprint of that sat. However, it may improve the rain fade on the other two main sats on the 110 & 119. I don't think he even needs the FSS sat. yet.

 

[Chris Freeland]

If I remember correctly, according to DISH, the Super-dish won't even work to get the FSS sat. in that SE corner of the country. I think some of Florida, some of the mid-west nothern states and the west coast north of Monterey, CA won't be able to use the Super-dish because of the footprint of that sat. However, it may improve the rain fade on the other two main sats on the 110 & 119. I don't think he even needs the FSS sat. yet.

Super Dish is not a solution for rain fade, 105 is for locals is some markets only, none of which are in FL. 121 will reach FL but their are not any FL locals here either, only reason for 121 Super Dish in FL are for some International.

I would replace your outside cable connections and seal them good, I agree with Stargazer and believe you are probably getting watter inside your cable.

 

[thiggin2]

Well I went and tweaked the dish the best I could, I guess I will see if that helped the next time it rains.
I also have weather sealing connectors on all my outside connections.