Direct TV RAIN FADE ISSUE, new here

[CLR4THEAPCH]

Hey folks, I have been searching for this type of forum that can help me with fain fade.. I have only been a dish network owner for only a few weeks and live in Central Florida..

Back in the day I was one of the originals with C-bamd and the 12 foot raydux dish in the back yard.. (80's) and went away to cable when most stuff went to KU and scrambled.. I am familiar with this subject once again, understanding the size of the KU wave length matching the sixe of rain drops and all..

I did a search of this subject here in this section and found some stuff that was faily old.. so I was hoping that some one can help now... maybe a new fix out here..

I have 2 HD receivers and 2 standard's from Direct TV.. one larger dish with 3 LNB's on it. Lat week we had a cloud cover with light rain and the sets went dead.. then the regular sets came back on, I assume from sat 119.. but the HD from sat 103 was dead.. it was sme time of calling, resets and unplugs before I got everything back up and running..
I did manage to get a Teck out and he checke the Dish and cables.. says everything was right on the mark.. and they this was expected...

Needless to say, I was Pi$$ off because I was told this did not happen much, maybe a tropical storm.. I was also under the impression that KU was better equipped to handle rain that was C-bamd.. Boy was I wrong..

SO now I am stuck in a 2 year contract and I know the weather here in Florida is rain every day in the spring, I hope maybe a larger disch would help, but would rather get some expert advise here before I go off half cocked.. thanks in advance..

 

[bhamster]

Well I live up here in Northwest and it rains here alot..I have directv and I can count on one hand signal loss due to rain....all my sat's are in the high 80's low 90's..it's pouring as I type this and my HR21's are up and running just fine..

 

[harshness]

If you are a DISH Network subscriber, you should have posted this in the DISH Network forums.

Rain fade in Florida is a fact of life. That being said, there are some things you can do to optimized the dish and hopefully minimize the fade.

Which channels are fading?

 

[CLR4THEAPCH]

Direct TV... here

Sorry, I am a Direct TV subscriber.. only 2 weeks old.. all my signals are in the 90's in clear skys.. the HD channels fallout first with signals on the 40's to 60's.. then the other channles went out.. once the clouds started to brak up, and I had pressed all the little red buttons to reset, they came back up..

Maybe I sould not be doing anything with they start seeking the sats.. and just wait for the weather to clear..

I have 2 HD only receivers and 2 regular's.. as I stated the teck came back out, and he said everything was set fine, and installed correctly..

I was thinking that maybe that channel master dish would help with rain fade as they claim, but dont want to spend money for no reason..
thanks for the help..

 

[jtwex]

Check your 103 & 99 birds (Both Conus & Spotbeam) & make sure these are 95+, easily obtainable in Florida. Having all your signals as close to 100% is the best way to start, but the HD feeds come from 99/103. It has always followed this pattern for me:

Spotbeam HD feeds pixelate & fail. (99s)
National HD feeds pixelate & fail. (103c)
Mpeg-2 HD feeds pixelate & fail. (110)
Individual SD feeds pixelate & fail. (101/119)

This doesn't happen too often & really has no rhyme or reason when looking at the severity of the storm. I've been in huge downpours where the signal stays strong & other times just a threatening sky to the south causes problems. Once again, maxing out the 103/99 is about the best thing you can do. If it was severe enough to knock out your SD channels (101 feeds) I'm afraid you're never going to see the HD stuff (99/103). Upgrading to the larger dish might be your best option.

 

[Jimbo]

Check your 103 & 99 birds (Both Conus & Spotbeam) & make sure these are 95+, easily obtainable in Florida. Having all your signals as close to 100% is the best way to start, but the HD feeds come from 99/103. It has always followed this pattern for me:

Spotbeam HD feeds pixelate & fail. (99s)
National HD feeds pixelate & fail. (103c)
Mpeg-2 HD feeds pixelate & fail. (110)
Individual SD feeds pixelate & fail. (101/119)

This doesn't happen too often & really has no rhyme or reason when looking at the severity of the storm. I've been in huge downpours where the signal stays strong & other times just a threatening sky to the south causes problems. Once again, maxing out the 103/99 is about the best thing you can do. If it was severe enough to knock out your SD channels (101 feeds) I'm afraid you're never going to see the HD stuff (99/103). Upgrading to the larger dish might be your best option.

That would require them to have a larger dish that handles both KA and KU signals, I have not heard of any.

CLR4THEAPCH,
Which dish do you have ?
Do you have a AU-9 (says "Slimline " on it) or the older AT-9 with the sidecar set up ?

Jimbo

 

[jtwex]

I've only seen the ads for the larger dishes claiming better signal; I had no idea they were restricted to only one signal frequency.

 

[harshness]

There aren't currently any significantly larger dishes designed for use with the DIRECTV Ka LNB assemblies.

As I said, rain fade is a fact of life. The Ka band stuff goes out first because it is quite a bit higher frequency and it doesn't penetrate as well as lower (Ku) frequencies. When you Ku band stuff goes out, there isn't much hope of getting a signal no matter how large the dish. As you have noticed, the DIRECTV dish is pretty large already in comparison to other DBS dishes.

 

[harshness]

I've only seen the ads for the larger dishes claiming better signal; I had no idea they were restricted to only one signal frequency.

It isn't that they are restricted to a particular frequency -- it is that they have to be the right curvature to give the angles that the 5 LNBs need to line up properly. Larger dishes typically mean a longer focal length which doesn't work well with the LNB. Not only do the satellite's signals have to hit their respective apertures, but they need to go down the wave guide without bouncing off the sides.

 

[boba]

"C" band takes a hurricane to produce rain fade.
"Ku" band higher frequency stronger satellite broadcast strength to offset fade but needs at least a 5' dish to eliminate fade.
Ka still higher frequency and still stronger broadcast strength from satellite. Dish size is fixed by Directv design for Ka & Ku reception. Rain fade is inevitable but with a well aimed system can be minimal. Ka will always fail first and recover last, just get used to it and forget about resets that will just delay your recovery.