Discovered why my Primestar has bad rain fade!

[laseradam]

I noticed my Primestar on G10 had very bad rainfade and it took at least a day of clear skys for the signal to come back.

Yesterday i went out and looked into the "eye" of the Primestar LNB and saw a little puddle of water in there. I guess because of the low point angle of G10 when it rains the water runs "downhill" into the eye of the LNB. I blew it out with dry compressed air and am now getting signals in the high 70 to low 80s on G10. That is the highest I have ever had.

What I did was to take a sandwich bag and stretch it over the LNB. Using the rubber red gasket that was on the LNB around the Scalar? ring I friction fitted it over the opening to the LNB and then trimmed it around the edge. I suspect that at one time this Primestar LNB had some type of raincover for the LNB and that is what the red gasket held in place.

 

[Hermitman]

You want to make sure you punch some tiny air holes into the plastic cover. If not, condensation will collect on the inside of the plastic because of the heat generated from the LNB. Have fun.

 

[Gary Z]

laseradam,

Is this the type of LNB you have on your Primestar?

 

[laseradam]

No it looks like this on that is on sale on E-bay. I think I can see a weather cover on this picture.

 

[Gary Z]

I have the same type of LNB as in you picture on my other 2 Primestar dishes... they don't have a weather cover on them either.

 

[JohnH]

There is supposed to be an outer cover which acts as an awning in addition to the pictured cover on the face.

 

[PSB]

Here is what the weather cover looks like.........

 

[chadzx11]

That weather cover is for the oval dishes. There are lots of different kinds of primestar dishes. It sounds to me like he was refering to the plastic seal over the feed horn portion, like the white plastic cap on a d* or e* LNB. When I was with primestar, we got a shipment of oval dishes with defective plastic seals. We had an outbreak of intermittant signal problems. The first one I ran on, I determined it to be a bad LNB, so I took the old one off and put a new one (with the seal intact) on. Then, I dropped the LNB, and a bumblebee rolled out. Hell, I put the old LNB back on and it worked! I still replaced it, so that I could show everyone what I was talking about. "what do you mean, there was a bumblebee in the LNB?" He was camped out inside the neck of the thing.

The oval dishes had a dark grey plastic seal. Very prone to cracking and falling off. Never had problems like that on the big dishes that had the clearish seal.

That other cover is too keep the connectors out of the weather, not to keep bugs and water out of the front of the lnb itself.

 

[PSB]

I was referring to the LNBF pictured in post # 4

 

[WildBlue]

Can you tell me why you are using Primestar dishes. Isn't that yesterday?

 

[PSB]

They are BIG dish that can be retro fitted with new LOW noise LNB's

With my 40" Primestar I can skew the whole dish and not just the LNBF!

They can be had VERY cheaply or often for no cost at all....... need I say more

 

[Mr Tony]

agreed Pete

ALthough my Primestar cant be skewed...just the LNB can (but my DirecPC dish can)

 

[laseradam]

Chadzx11 is right. I was talking about the weather cover over the input to the feedhorn. When I first set up my Primestar I found a dead spider in the LNB eye. That was after tring to aim it for quite a while.

I would guess that a lot of people that have Primestar dishes aimed at G10 might have the same problem. In Cincinnati the elevation of G10 is something around 20deg. But since the dish is an offset dish the opening to the feedhorn that leads to the LNB eye slopes downhill toward the lnb. When it rains the water runs down toward the LNB and puddles there.

I wondered why the signal was still lost even after the rain passed. So last week the signal was still gone and not a cloud in the sky. That when I decided to do some investigating.

I think I must have had a water problem all along because before my signal quality was running in the low 60s and now it is staying in the high 70 to low 80s. I am just waiting for the next rain to see what happens.

 

[iafirebuff]

My Primestar dishes had Directv LNB's on them when I bought them. Spiders...YUCK!

 

[voomvoom]

Can't honestly say I've ever had a Spider issue, but I've had my fare share of Wasp. Never had a moisture problem either. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

Al

 

[Tron]

There's a nest of wasps (about a dozen of them at any given time!) just under my dish farm on the overhang of the shed roof. They've gotta go. Every time I climb up there, I'm afraid I'll disturb them and have to run across the roof with the whole bunch giving chase

Now where's that can of stuff the cable company uses to exterminate them....

 

[gabshere]

hit them on a cool morning or late evening when they are all there

i do have one of these lnb's with the rain shield

 

[Tron]

hit them on a cool morning or late evening when they are all there

i do have one of these lnb's with the rain shield

Sounds like a plan. I want to use that industrial strength insecticide that the cable/phone companies use when they open outdoor enclosures. It kills them so fast they just drop.