LOS During Light Rain / Sprinkling??

[NY Rangers 07]

Hi all,
Great forum!! It's funny how you congregate to these venues when a month ago I would never have thought to surf such a forum
Anyway, I'm a newbie to Sat television, been with cable my whole life and just recently switched two weeks ago to DTV. I tried doing as much research as I could before the switch regarding reliability of service and all that jazz, but of course as luck would have it I have already encountered something strange. When it starts to sprinkle here in the Syracuse, NY area (Liverpool, NY to be exact) I lose reception, picture gets blocky and finally cuts out or freezes. But when it's actually raining the picture/reception is fine, seems to be limited to light rain?? Is this normal??
I have the slimline AU-9 dish I think (the HD dish with three receptor things on it?) The HD-DVR box and three regular boxes throughout the house. There is absolutely nothing obstructing my dish's path to the sky. What gives?? I could just call them and explain the issue and I'm sure they would come out, but if it's a quick fix I thought I could just take care of it myself.. Any and all help or advice greatly appreciated...
Steve

 

[chopperjc]

Depends on clouds (moisture) too. My satellite will go down because where it is pointing are heavy clouds with a lot of moisture but in a small storm the heavy clouds may have passed your sight line and you are fine even if it is raining. Not a tech explanation but I am in Florida and it happens to me all the time.

 

[meStevo]

Ya keep in mind its line of sight, so what is raining on sprinkling on you is not necessarilly the reason for the loss of signal.

In Las Vegas, I've only lost signal once due to this kind of problem.... the sky was overcast... then suddenly we lost signal.

It came back, and I thought 'well that was odd'.

About 2 minutes later we were hit by probably the largest hailstorm I've ever seen.

If it seems to happen too frequently though, it could mean a dish alignment problem. You normally have it 'good enough' to get a signal given ideal conditions, but you should not lose everytime you get a drop of rain. Rain is just acting as interference, and the interruption as a result should be infrequent.

When I worked at D* a number of years ago, there were people who called in thanking us because they did not lose reception for any extended period of time while being hit by 3 hurricanes that one bad week or so that they had in Florida.

Of course, that was inbetween the hundreds of calls of people who no longer had dishes.

 

[NY Rangers 07]

Thanks for the feedback guys, this seems to happen every time it starts to rain. It has gone out 5-6 times already and I've only had it for two - three weeks. Guess I'll give them a call and report it, I'll assume it's a signal strength issue...