Rain*X on your dish and LNB ?

:usa i use the stuff you spray on your clothes and shoes. if i find the can ill post the name its in the camping section at wallmart for $5. its fantastic lasts me about 6mo!!!
 
The Rain Fadeaway product and site is a great example of techno-snake oil. I have used it from time to time when I've given presentations on related topics or marketing practices.

The claims are so bold and stated in such confident techno-babble that there is no wonder that many people would give it a try. And yet, there is no way it could possibly do what it claims to do. The very concept is ridiculous.
 
Okay, as we all know by now, coating the dish is not really going to slove the problem. My question is, "What Will?"

I remember when I got my first small dish. (i think it would be called a 300 today) I had trouble when the connectors would get wet. I 'Sat Seal'd them and had no trouble with rain again. No rain fade, no nothing. I lived it MN at the time and we would get some hum-dingers of storms.

Since moving to IN we get storms now and then. I now have a 500 dish. Every time a storm comes in from the south we lose the signal. My normal signals are in the 110~115 range on many different transponders and both 110° and 119°.

Is there anything I can do? Including getting a bigger dish. Or maybe adding tin foil to the outside of the dish to make it bigger? :p Or maybe going to two dishes and peaking them individually?
 
yes a bigger dish! and defiantly separating into two dishes will help. also higher up on the top of your house to make absolutely shure nothing is getting in the way. and no way no tin foil!:no and use electrical contact grease with weather boots!
 
pabeader said:
Okay, as we all know by now, coating the dish is not really going to slove the problem. My question is, "What Will?"

I remember when I got my first small dish. (i think it would be called a 300 today) I had trouble when the connectors would get wet. I 'Sat Seal'd them and had no trouble with rain again. No rain fade, no nothing. I lived it MN at the time and we would get some hum-dingers of storms.

Since moving to IN we get storms now and then. I now have a 500 dish. Every time a storm comes in from the south we lose the signal. My normal signals are in the 110~115 range on many different transponders and both 110° and 119°.

Is there anything I can do? Including getting a bigger dish. Or maybe adding tin foil to the outside of the dish to make it bigger? :p Or maybe going to two dishes and peaking them individually?

Two 90cm or greater dishes in the backyard and you'll never say rain fade again.
 
flytank said:
Hello there guys !!! Well, as a central Florida resident, I have embraced our summer with much excitement....not!!!!!! As most of you guys know the warm temperatures here generate thunder showers almost every afternoon. A local source told me that applying rain x (yes, the car windshield stuff) to my dishes as well as to the LNB's would cause the water to bead off of them and significantly increase my chances of NOT loosing my signal. I thought it sounded pretty interesting....anyone of you guru's have any input on this ? Scott.....anyone? Thanks in advance and Happy 4th of July to you alll!!!!!!!!

With regard to reducing rain fade, it's ALL snake oil (BS), period, the guy who told you that should be fired (if he's in the sat industry) if he really thinks that rain-x (or ANYTHING you spray, wipe or pour onto the dish) will reduce rain fade, rain fade happens WAY up in the sky, not the surface of your dish, if you want to reduce rainfade, make sure you are peaked well, and/OR get a larger dish (more surface area).

As for keeping snow off the dish, or sap, and the like, then rain-x will do. :)
 
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WD-40 or silicone spray works great for keeping snow off my dish. I've used it for years now and never have a problem in the winter months with snow accumulating on the dish. Before that, I always had snow build-up during snow events.

What everyone else has said here is correct: the rain-outs can't be prevented (without a larger dish). When a rain storm comes in from the south or southwest, my rain-out begins 2-4 minutes before it actually arrives at my dish outside my house.
 
digiblur said:
Two 90cm or greater dishes in the backyard and you'll never say rain fade again.

Want to bet?

I have 3 .90 and above dishes in the Continential USA and I see rain fade several times a week.
 
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The ad for the King's Rain Shield states:

" It is very seldom that water in the atmosphere alone is enough to make you lose TV picture."

Ha! I'd say about 80% of my rain fades happen before it starts raining on my house. Even if this magical stuff stopped all loss of signal from rain on the surface of my dish, I estimate this would help me maybe 5%-10% of the time. Maybe it would shorten the period of the rain fade by a minute or two if it really worked, after the blockage in the atmosphere lightened a bit and there was still water coating the surface of the dish.

And what is the malarky in this ad about satellite providers boosting their signals to areas that get more rain??? Dish uses some kind of magic to make sure that the Sci-Fi channel gets more power to Florida than to New Mexico?

This ad has more than its fair share of mumbo-jumbo.
 
Rain fade

Living in the South Central area of Florida, I, too, know about rain fade; however, I have never lost a signal due to dark clouds. I continue to receive a signal until there's a heavy down pour, which is daily... and expected :)

What's worse is the black screen of death - no picture, just sound. This occurs more often then the rain fade.
 
HDTVFanAtic said:
Want to bet?

I have 3 .90 and above dishes in the Continential USA and I see rain fade several times a week.

You must not have something right..... I have a 18 inch pointed at 119 for NASA and audio feeds. When it drops out or I know rain is coming I swing the 90cm over and never had a problem. The Invacom QPH-031 just keeps on trucking.
 
I have solved the rain fade issue and have applied for a patent. The device is called a dishbrella, a high tech umbrella that mounts over your dish. They are priced at $100 each and mount over the top of the Dish, but you can also stand on your roof or ladder and hold them over the affected dish during heavy rain and lightning. I will throw in some spray on stuff for free.
 
Read my lips! Nothing works for rain. You are wasting your money on umbrellas, shields and sprays. Move to Arizona or another dry area, that is the only thing that will work and when it rain there, you still lose signal. I know because I live in the rain capital of the USA.
 
Of course NONE of you have actually purchased, used or seen RAIN SHIELD :D
ONLY listen to people who actually have it in their hand and are using it :)


I would have agreed 110% until I actually seen it work.

Rain fade is caused by a few things, if you can eliminate one part of the equation it really does cut down considerably with the problem.

Ku signals are usually weaker than DBS signals, and I very very rarly get any kind of problems where as people I know with DBS call me during the heavy rain saying they have lost signal.

This stuff is wonderful!

Just put another application on my 36" dish for rainy season.
 
PSB said:
Of course NONE of you have actually purchased, used or seen RAIN SHIELD :D
ONLY listen to people who actually have it in their hand and are using it :)


I would have agreed 110% until I actually seen it work.

Rain fade is caused by a few things, if you can eliminate one part of the equation it really does cut down considerably with the problem.

Ku signals are usually weaker than DBS signals, and I very very rarly get any kind of problems where as people I know with DBS call me during the heavy rain saying they have lost signal.

This stuff is wonderful!

Just put another application on my 36" dish for rainy season.

I think the 36" dish has more to do with it than anything. The DBS'ers you know probably are using an 18" to your 36".
Spray some on your friends 18" dish and see what happens. As many have stated rainfade usually happens before a drop hits the dish.
 
No disrespect but,

It's snake oil, falsehoods, unless that stuff can dissapate storm cells located up in the sky, it doesn't work, the ones who think it worked, are suffering from the placebo effect, they might see a 5% reduction in attenuation if its torrential rain, not near enough to prevent rain fade, remember the product claims to SOLVE rainfade, I'm sorry, but no way.

Here is some site which describe what rain fade is and how it is caused, not one single part of any of these sites [1] even remotly states that rain on the surface of the dish has anything to do whatsoever with rain fade, with the exception of the sites which SELL product that purports to have a product that does [2], I don't blame them, gotta make money, but the fact is, it's fake, and I will never concede this stuff would have any noticable effect on rain fade whatsoever.

[1] Links supporting the fact that rainfade is caused by conditions in the atmosphere, not the dish itself:

http://www.solidsignal.com/satellite/rain_fade_about.asp

http://www.thefixchicks.com/2005/11/02/satellite-rain-fade/

http://www.telesat.ca/satellites/transmissions/rain-attenuation.htm

http://www.skycasters.com/satellite-internet-service-specs/system-reliability.html

http://www.dbsinstall.com/Help/signalloss-1.htm

Even NASA, which uses ACTS adaptive rain-fade compensation protocol to prevent rain fade, if this product SOLVED rainfade, NASA would just by a few gallons of this stuff rather than implementing ACTS, to be fair it DOES point out some effect of a wet dish over a dry dish, but that reduction was ~5% (certainly not enough to _solve_ rainfade), even so, one would not need to shell out 25 bucks to keep your dish dry (and the 5% reduction in attenuation would not be near enough to stop rainfade), if anything it might give you maybe 1 second or 2 of signal (I'm being generous here) before the REAL effect of rainfade make the signal fall below your receivers ability to lock onto the signal:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT1999/6000/6100acosta.html

[2] Sites which state that water on the dish face can cause rainfade (coincedently, they all sell products for it):
http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/kings-control/Rain-Shield-Fade-Solution.htm

http://www.wx2100.com/faqs.asp

I know there are more links disproving this snake oil, but I simply could not find anyone else who would claim that spraying something on your dish SOLVES (that is what it says in the ads) rain fade.
 
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This is the key paragraph from NASA link http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT1999/6000/6100acosta.html with my underline remark :
"Wet Antenna Experiment
Selecting a subtropical rain zone (Cocoa, Florida) and using a tipping bucket rain gauge to collect rainfall data over a 10-month period, Glenn’s researchers conducted the Wet Antenna Experiment to analyze the contribution that a wet feed and wet reflector antenna have on the signal path losses at Ka-band frequencies. The receiving signal strength was measured, and a small weather station was operated next to the T1VSAT terminals. The results indicated that feed wetness was the main contributor to system losses, with reflector wetness having less effect. The reflector losses were a result of scattering due to raindrop size at the reflector surface, which distorted the surface and reduced antenna gain significantly. Another observation showed that the cumulative fade distribution with a wet antenna was 3 to 5 dB worse than with a dry antenna."
 
damaged said:
No disrespect but,

It's snake oil, falsehoods, unless that stuff can dissapate storm cells located up in the sky, it doesn't work, the ones who think it worked, are suffering from the placebo effect, they might see a 5% reduction in attenuation if its torrential rain, not near enough to prevent rain fade, remember the product claims to SOLVE rainfade, I'm sorry, but no way.

Here is some site which describe what rain fade is and how it is caused, not one single part of any of these sites [1] even remotly states that rain on the surface of the dish has anything to do whatsoever with rain fade, with the exception of the sites which SELL product that purports to have a product that does [2], I don't blame them, gotta make money, but the fact is, it's fake, and I will never concede this stuff would have any noticable effect on rain fade whatsoever.

[1] Links supporting the fact that rainfade is caused by conditions in the atmosphere, not the dish itself:

http://www.solidsignal.com/satellite/rain_fade_about.asp

http://www.thefixchicks.com/2005/11/02/satellite-rain-fade/

http://www.telesat.ca/satellites/transmissions/rain-attenuation.htm

http://www.skycasters.com/satellite-internet-service-specs/system-reliability.html

http://www.dbsinstall.com/Help/signalloss-1.htm

Even NASA, which uses ACTS adaptive rain-fade compensation protocol to prevent rain fade, if this product SOLVED rainfade, NASA would just by a few gallons of this stuff rather than implementing ACTS, to be fair it DOES point out some effect of a wet dish over a dry dish, but that reduction was ~5% (certainly not enough to _solve_ rainfade), even so, one would not need to shell out 25 bucks to keep your dish dry (and the 5% reduction in attenuation would not be near enough to stop rainfade), if anything it might give you maybe 1 second or 2 of signal (I'm being generous here) before the REAL effect of rainfade make the signal fall below your receivers ability to lock onto the signal:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT1999/6000/6100acosta.html

[2] Sites which state that water on the dish face can cause rainfade (coincedently, they all sell products for it):
http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/kings-control/Rain-Shield-Fade-Solution.htm

http://www.wx2100.com/faqs.asp

I know there are more links disproving this snake oil, but I simply could not find anyone else who would claim that spraying something on your dish SOLVES (that is what it says in the ads) rain fade.

So you have NEVER seen it, or used it this is just your opinion.

Sadoun is a GREAT GOLD sponsor here at SatelliteGuys.US they do not sell snake oil, I would retract that comment if I were you.