Directv Satellite Dish Covers

[98Civic]

A friend of mine has a satellite dish cover on his satellite dish and told me how it helps his signal fade alot by keeping the rain and snow off his dish.

My question is does anyone on here have a satellite dish cover for their Directv satellite and does it infact help signal fade by keeping the rain and snow off of it? Thanks!

 

[JerseyMatt]

It does nothing at all for rain fade, because rain fade has nothing to do with water on the dish, it's the water in the clouds that blocks the signal. Yes, they will keep the snow from accumulating on the dish, but I would only spend the money if it's completely inaccessible from the ground. With the design of the new dishes, snow doesn't really stick to them anyway.

 

[Jimbo]

It does nothing at all for rain fade, because rain fade has nothing to do with water on the dish, it's the water in the clouds that blocks the signal. Yes, they will keep the snow from accumulating on the dish, but I would only spend the money if it's completely inaccessible from the ground. With the design of the new dishes, snow doesn't really stick to them anyway.

This depends on where your at .....

The WET snow will stick to the dish....

 

[JerseyMatt]

Yeah but NC gets snow what, twice a year? Maybe? It ain't Buffalo! Hell it ain't even where I used to live in North Jersey, and boy we saw some Nor'easters! I can count on two hands the number of times I had to physically clear snow off the dish when I lived there. Most of those times I had signal up until the bottom half of the dish was actually buried under the snow. Granted the dish angle is lower up there (36 degrees), but even here (about the same latitude as NC) I'm at 45 degrees and with the design of the dish it doesn't really hold on to anything, and we had a few really good snows last winter.

 

[Jimbo]

Yeah but NC gets snow what, twice a year? Maybe? It ain't Buffalo! Hell it ain't even where I used to live in North Jersey, and boy we saw some Nor'easters! I can count on two hands the number of times I had to physically clear snow off the dish when I lived there. Most of those times I had signal up until the bottom half of the dish was actually buried under the snow. Granted the dish angle is lower up there (36 degrees), but even here (about the same latitude as NC) I'm at 45 degrees and with the design of the dish it doesn't really hold on to anything, and we had a few really good snows last winter.

Good point, I didn't realize he was in N.C.

 

[tvropro]

Covers are a joke, they attenuate microwave signals. Rain fade is caused by scatter of the signals due to the moisture in the clouds. Snowfade can be caused by the same plus wet snow on the dish or LNBF lens.