30W on a Primestar doesnt like the rain.

[melgarga]

I put up a Primestar for Hispasat about 3 weeks ago. At about 10-11 deg elevation above the horizon for this part of the footprint, the thing looks really odd "pointed" at the ground, but works great, sorta. I've had NO rain here since well before I put this thing up, until today. At 87-92 Q on the CS 6K I didnt expect rain fade, but sure enough it went down. I attributed it to looking virtually horizontal thru the rain, but when the rain stopped, it didnt come back....hmmmm.
RTNs did on an identical dish pointed at 83..........I expected them to drop out, they were even pix'ing pretty bad on the BUD.
After about an hour of checking everything from connections to config, to re-doing az & el a few times, I happen to notice the scaler was full of water! I never gave consideration to this because when used elsewhere in the arc, the scaler cant hold water. So I tipped 'er back (it's on a 'portable mount') to let the water run out of the feedhorn, stood it back up and BAM - 72Q (I KNEW I had it pointed right) tilted it back again for about 30-40 sec this time and when I stood it back up I was up to 87Q.
Looks like I will be fashioning some sort of rain cap, for my lil' rain catcher........or doing the inverted dish thing. That will solve the issue of the scaler being at an angle to catch rainwater, but will look even stranger than the way it does now......lol
Just thought I'd share that, in case some others have a P* pointed low enough to catch and hold rainwater too.

 

[colbec]

I use a 33" dish for Hispasat and find the worst thing is rain water beading on the plastic front of the lnb. Wipe it off and I am good to go until it beads again. It is due to the dish pointing low on the horizon, which puts the lnb at an ideal angle to catch rain where it is inconvenient and a hood won't work. Fortunately it is not very frequent and only a real problem when the beading freezes.

 

[melgarga]

This one is the style that does not have a platic cover, so the rain actually catches in the rings of the scaler until they fill up. You are right though, any rainshield would have to be designed to slope sufficiently, not just cover the feed or it would just bead up as you said and still interfere. Freezing not really an issue here. On avarage, the total hours "below freezing" per year are probably less that 18-24, sometimes less, and 80% of that is between 30-32 deg F. Humidity and mosquitos not withstanding, being less than 60mi from the warm Gulf Coast waters has it's advantages.