My friend down the street who has D* with one of the newer dishes keeps cable as a back up because he has to much rain fade.70% is Great strength. E* scale is different then D*. E* 70 now is about Equal to 105 of the scale the used to use. 50 and 60% are the average numbers for E* signal.
They dropped the scale down in a software release over a year ago.
Rain fade is no different. I'd like to see D* use a 24x19 inch dish for their service. But that will never happen since KA satellites are the most Prone to rain fade from the Narrow signal band.
But he does say its better then the old dish,