Rain Fade Problems

[DSpud]

Ha mostly gatos y perro's but I am not from here, just stationed here for a while. lol

 

[Joe Diamond]

I always had great picture till I would come home from work and the dish would be filled with snow .... then I got nothing or Sparkles till I had time to go out and clean it off.

I then moved and went with the D* as I didn't want to have to deal with taking the C-Band down and re installing it again.

However, if they still had programming that they did back then, I might consider it.

I think it cost me like $500-600 that was programming and the ST , now I pay 3 x that.

Jimbo,

Those C band rigs had loyal fans! I remember several rigs that were still up years after they ceased to be usable. I don't think it was the expense of removing them that kept them that way either. I remember little graveled yards with fences and painted dishes just waiting for a signal.

I made a few C banders happy by bolting the 18" Directv mast inside their C band dish. The rainbow cable was in good condition and already run to the first TV. Just put the multiswitch behind that location and deal the rest of the boxes from there.

Joe

 

[Jimbo]

Cool,

Uh, a question?

Where you are in Texas...does it rain cats and dogs or gato and perro?

Joe

Must not be in Southern Texas, it hardly ever rains there !

 

[Jimbo]

Jimbo,

Those C band rigs had loyal fans! I remember several rigs that were still up years after they ceased to be usable. I don't think it was the expense of removing them that kept them that way either. I remember little graveled yards with fences and painted dishes just waiting for a signal.

I made a few C banders happy by bolting the 18" Directv mast inside their C band dish. The rainbow cable was in good condition and already run to the first TV. Just put the multiswitch behind that location and deal the rest of the boxes from there.

Joe

Sounds like the kinda jobs I like !

 

[PMKS]

It must be something with you being in Texas. We live in Washington state where it rains a lot and we might get a rain fade once a year if that. It has to due with the clouds blocking the signal. Everything is bigger in Texas.

In my ten years of surfing forums, etc. The rain fade problem seems to be worse in the South ( Florida, Texas, etc ) I was told once that this was due to the angle the dish is "looking" at the Satellite.....

DIRECTV uses Ka band for their HD channels and it is indeed more susceptible to rain fade. The SD channels are mostly Ku band (as are all of DISH's channels) and should be more resistant to fade.

Very true, It's been raining a LOT here on the Texas coast lately, I currently have a SL5 dish and will lose my HD channels and switch to SD and the SD feed of the same channel is fine, obviously KA is either a way weaker signal, or is more susceptible than KU regarding rain fade.

I used a 36-inch dish for the 101 sat for years before I had to change to the SL5 to get the new HD feeds. I hardly ever had rainouts with the 36" dish. I'm looking at getting a bigger dish, but the Alaska/Hawaii dish/LNB option seems be the only less complicated option to get the 99/101/103 sats on a bigger dish until someone makes a separate KA LNB kit and a combiner for a DirecTV set-up.

 

[scoop8]

There may be something to that, rain fade being more prevelant in the southern areas of the U.S. I'm in Dallas and from what I've read on the forum during my time here, my rain fade duration would seem to last a little longer than what other members have posted here.

I have a SL5 & HR23 with nearly every sig in the mid-high 90's. I had a tech out recently after I had my roof shingles replaced and he re-mounted and peaked the dish. The sig's were better than I had with my original install a couple of years ago.

We've not had enough heavy rain in Dallas since the dish re-alignment so I'm not sure yet about the comparisons with the new alignment signals.

 

[harshness]

Very true, It's been raining a LOT here on the Texas coast lately, I currently have a SL5 dish and will lose my HD channels and switch to SD and the SD feed of the same channel is fine, obviously KA is either a way weaker signal, or is more susceptible than KU regarding rain fade.

Ka band is nearly double the radio frequency so it doesn't penetrate as well. It also features relatively tight spot beams with little fringe area.

DIRECTV seems to be pursuing BSS reverse band going forward that returns downlink to lower frequencies.

 

[tvropro]

The higher the frequency the more attenuation from moisture. What they need to do is bring the spectrum down to a lower frequency. The problem with that is bigger dishes are needed and all the lower freq's are taken.

 

[Jimbo]

There may be something to that, rain fade being more prevelant in the southern areas of the U.S. I'm in Dallas and from what I've read on the forum during my time here, my rain fade duration would seem to last a little longer than what other members have posted here.

I have a SL5 & HR23 with nearly every sig in the mid-high 90's. I had a tech out recently after I had my roof shingles replaced and he re-mounted and peaked the dish. The sig's were better than I had with my original install a couple of years ago.

We've not had enough heavy rain in Dallas since the dish re-alignment so I'm not sure yet about the comparisons with the new alignment signals.

There is something to you being farther south, the angle of your dish is more up and down than up here in the north.

In the long run, up here the fact that we are at a more steep angle actually helps us in the winter when the snow hits, it takes a wetter snow to stick usually.