Thread: Rain Fade

The other night I experienced some loss of signal during a pretty light rain. Hadn't noticed that before. Perhaps the rain was stronger at other points between my dish and the satellite.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows what a good set of signal strengths are? I know some transponders aren't important, and others use different bands, so that they aren't comparable.

I'm concerned because my readout on 99(s) doesn't look all that good

1-8: 0 0 67 95 86 0 NA NA
9-16: NA NA NA NA NA NA 57 0
17-24: 82 90 0 0 94 95 58 0
25-32: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0

That's 7 zeros and two others under 60.

On 101 I get nearly all 95-100, except for 3 zeros (all in the 4th position).

On 119, I have a lot of 95-100, except for a 46 and a 49.

Are these fairly normal readings?

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

The other night I experienced some loss of signal during a pretty light rain. Hadn't noticed that before. Perhaps the rain was stronger at other points between my dish and the satellite.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows what a good set of signal strengths are? I know some transponders aren't important, and others use different bands, so that they aren't comparable.

I'm concerned because my readout on 99(s) doesn't look all that good

1-8: 0 0 67 95 86 0 NA NA
9-16: NA NA NA NA NA NA 57 0
17-24: 82 90 0 0 94 95 58 0
25-32: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0

That's 7 zeros and two others under 60.

was it windy?


maybe bad switch or needs to be realigned... those numbers arent good but they arent HORRIBLE.. it doesnt take much bump or movement of the dish to throw off 99 and 103 for HD channels. 101 can tolerate a little movement.

On 101 I get nearly all 95-100, except for 3 zeros (all in the 4th position).

On 119, I have a lot of 95-100, except for a 46 and a 49.

Are these fairly normal readings?

yes...



101 is normal to have all 0s on 4th bc we do not use that transponders.

Also Tom, as for the 99(s) sat.
That is a sat that usually is mainly being used for your locals since it is the Spot Beam one on the 99, therefore a lot of them will have lower numbers as it is seeing some from other areas that don't feed your ares.
Normally you will, have one of the transponders that is very high (90's+) maybe more than one and you can count on that being the location of most of your locals stuff.

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

The other night I experienced some loss of signal during a pretty light rain. Hadn't noticed that before. Perhaps the rain was stronger at other points between my dish and the satellite.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows what a good set of signal strengths are? I know some transponders aren't important, and others use different bands, so that they aren't comparable.

I'm concerned because my readout on 99(s) doesn't look all that good

1-8: 0 0 67 95 86 0 NA NA
9-16: NA NA NA NA NA NA 57 0
17-24: 82 90 0 0 94 95 58 0
25-32: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0

That's 7 zeros and two others under 60.

On 101 I get nearly all 95-100, except for 3 zeros (all in the 4th position).

On 119, I have a lot of 95-100, except for a 46 and a 49.

Are these fairly normal readings?

You could do with a little tweaking, but those numbers aren't terrible. Remember that the (s) side of the reading is spotbeams - and you aren't going to get excellent numbers from all of them since most of them aren't for you.

It doesn't really matter a huge deal how hard it is actually raining - but how thick and wet the clouds are between you and the bird along your LOS. That's where you get the most distortion.

I'd do a GENTLE - VERY SLIGHT tweaking to improve the numbers - but your main aiming references are showing decent numbers.

Thanks for the info.

I was with Dish for 10 years, installed my dish on a pole mount, upgraded its LNBs, added a second dish, upgraded the LNBs again. No E* tech touched my dish setup in the 10 years I was with them. Tweaked it to max settings every now and then.

But this D* array is mounted on my roof, installed by a tech. I feel detached from it. Don't know the settings or transponders like I did with E*.

If the lower readings are my locals, then that doesn't bother me. I rarely ever watch them. Don't have a single timer set for a major network show. And I have an OTA fall back should I need to. In my rare viewings of those channels, I've never noticed a problem. So I'll just let it go, unless my rain fade problems intensify.