How big is big enough to 99.9% eliminate rain fade

[machapungo]

My dish pro fades out easy when it rains. Here are my options as I see it:
1. Keep the Dish Pro Add one bigger fixed dish with one LNB canableized from the Dish Pro. Then, tweak the current dish pro to better pick up the rest.
2. Keep the Dish Pro dual and add two bigger fixed dishes each with a canableized LNB.
3. Throw out the Dish pro and get three bigger dishes with each looking at a bird.

The first question is, will tweaking the Dish Pro to look at fewer satellites ever add enough signal strength to permit keeping it

If not, then option 3 seems to be the only reasonable answer. I live in central N. Carolina.
​

.The second question is, how big should added dishes be to virtually guarantee NO rain fade 99.8% of the time

I would rather spend more bucks to go bigger than risk not quite doing the job.

Is anything less than a 4' dish likely to make me happy

6' 7' 8' dish , "daylight come an me wan go home" !!!!

Current dish pro has one dual lnb and two single lnb's which = 4 but
. 110 + 119 + 129 = 3 lnb's What the heck is # 4 for? Excuse my ignorance.

I think the dual is for 110 and 119. All 4 go into a dpp 44 switch.

I have 3 receivers. 522, 722, and an FTA. but only the 722 (1st floor) is connected via a separator. I plan to get another separator for a second existing cable to the 522 on the 2nd floor. If I want to switch the TV connected to the 522 to the FTA should I put a splitter before the 522 separator and send one splitter leg to the FTA

... OR... should I go to the trouble to run another cable from the dpp-44 into my crawl space, up through a two story pvc pipe into my attic and then down to the 2nd story room containing the 522 and FTA.

. Thanks for all advice.

 

[KAB]

You are getting way ahead of yourself. More than likely all you need is a dish re-peak. You are in the Eastern Arc area, and could be picking up the different set of sats, 61.5, 72.7 and 77. However, your 522 (MPEG2) would need to be retired since EA is all MPEG 4. Another alternative would be one Dish 500 for 110/119 and another aimed at 72.7. Are you currently getting HD locals and from what city. Again, tweaking would be called for. Bigger dishes are not going to help.

 

[Mr Tony]

since you are in the US all a bigger dish would do is slow down the rain fade. Its usually not the rain that causes it to go out...its dark cloud cover

Last week I lost D* service for 10 minutes due to very dark cloud cover to the south (a tornado was going through about 20 miles south of me)....then the rain came and I had service even though it was pouring due to the cloud cover being not so dark

 

[ebms1]

since you are in the US all a bigger dish would do is slow down the rain fade. Its usually not the rain that causes it to go out...its dark cloud cover

Last week I lost D* service for 10 minutes due to very dark cloud cover to the south (a tornado was going through about 20 miles south of me)....then the rain came and I had service even though it was pouring due to the cloud cover being not so dark

my theory is that it is the concentration of rain ... i think that the rain fade is due as to the size of a rain drop is close to the size of the wavelength of ku or dss...

so if you have lots of rain in a distance ... it is more concentrated than when it comes upon you....


as for the other ... larger dishes do work better ... but ... you will not be able to cut out rain fade...... the bigger the dish ... the more collected signal.... however ... the rain will eventualy take over due to the fact that the concentration of droplets decreace your amount to be collected...

let me say this ... i had the triple lnb dish for dtv when we rode out katrina in new orleans ... my dish was pointed perfectly ...we did not lose tv till the power went out .... at 4 am... after the height of the storm i got the generator running & signal was still there...... a lot has to do with pointing ...

the higher the signal ... the more time you have before you get rain fade...

 

[ebms1]

My dish pro fades out easy when it rains. Here are my options as I see it:
1. Keep the Dish Pro Add one bigger fixed dish with one LNB canableized from the Dish Pro. Then, tweak the current dish pro to better pick up the rest.
2. Keep the Dish Pro dual and add two bigger fixed dishes each with a canableized LNB.
3. Throw out the Dish pro and get three bigger dishes with each looking at a bird.

The first question is, will tweaking the Dish Pro to look at fewer satellites ever add enough signal strength to permit keeping it

If not, then option 3 seems to be the only reasonable answer. I live in central N. Carolina.​

.The second question is, how big should added dishes be to virtually guarantee NO rain fade 99.8% of the time

I would rather spend more bucks to go bigger than risk not quite doing the job.

Is anything less than a 4' dish likely to make me happy

6' 7' 8' dish , "daylight come an me wan go home" !!!!

Current dish pro has one dual lnb and two single lnb's which = 4 but
. 110 + 119 + 129 = 3 lnb's What the heck is # 4 for? Excuse my ignorance.

I think the dual is for 110 and 119. All 4 go into a dpp 44 switch.

I have 3 receivers. 522, 722, and an FTA. but only the 722 (1st floor) is connected via a separator. I plan to get another separator for a second existing cable to the 522 on the 2nd floor. If I want to switch the TV connected to the 522 to the FTA should I put a splitter before the 522 separator and send one splitter leg to the FTA

... OR... should I go to the trouble to run another cable from the dpp-44 into my crawl space, up through a two story pvc pipe into my attic and then down to the 2nd story room containing the 522 and FTA.

. Thanks for all advice.

this is what we do at commercial sites ... get you 3 30" dishes with dishpro lnb...

4' might be better ... but the price is lots...

run one line from each to the 44 ....


the other 4th input can be used for international

 

[digiblur]

If you want to do it big then get the biggest dishes you can with single LNBs in each of them connected to a 44 switch. Kinda overkill but if you've got the money and time and it can be a fun hobby project.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi, here are a few things to ponder. The mpeg2 signals from the pair at 110/119 seem to hold out a little better in heavy rain. I have also noticed that sometimes when there is something on that I really want to keep watching I can hit the power button on the remote (off then on) and then quickly hit the guide button and force a change from HD to the duplicate SD channel when I get the lost signal box. With the HD and SD channels being on different satellites I can often keep the pictures going. I would think the more of a spread you have between satellites the better this would work. Try hitting the info button twice on the remote when you have one of your favourite channels on and find out what satellite it is on. Menu 6-1-3 should display the satellites you are currently receiving.

Perhaps you could add just one 30 inch dish for your most important channels and get a lot of bang for the buck. A winegard 76CM FTA dish does not cost much and comes with a stack of spacers for the LNB mount that should allow easy mounting of a single LNB.

Would an upgrade to EA using the dish 1000.4 and the 4th port going to the winegard on 110 or 119 be something to consider? That should give you a clean and solid performing setup.

Good luck, DC

 

[whatchel1]

Not agreeing this time

since you are in the US all a bigger dish would do is slow down the rain fade. Its usually not the rain that causes it to go out...its dark cloud cover

Last week I lost D* service for 10 minutes due to very dark cloud cover to the south (a tornado was going through about 20 miles south of me)....then the rain came and I had service even though it was pouring due to the cloud cover being not so dark

Iceberg I just can't agree with your statement here. It is rain fade that was the problem. The dish for you was pointed thru a rainstorm to your S (roughly). Just because it wasn't raining at your house doesn't mean that it wasn't 1 L of a rain storm thru those dark clouds you are talking about.
Also a larger dish does reduce rain fade. I use larger dishes and rarely have rain fade.
As far as the OP's question. I have used .9 meter on 61.5 as it being the weakest right now. In August won't make as much difference since it will be looking at a new bird. Before I went to EA I used the .9 meter when 129 was the weak bird. Never saw drop outs like others did at the time. OK back to sizes. I have an old Primstar .65 meter on the 72.7, .7 on 77 (which I may stop using after I "move" to my aunt's address in DFW area) and the above mentioned .9 on 61.5. My signal quality is only about 10 or so points higher than the 3 individual single LNB dish 500's I have used. Thing is rain fade is almost non-existent.

 

[r10fret]

Even large 4 meter or larger commercial ku band systems like NBC affiliates use still get rain fade in FL sometimes, its inherent with ku band. Thats why NBC has a c-band back up feed for affiliates and everybody else commercially delivers through C-band. And yes a larger consumer size dish like a 24" or 36" will give you more of a buffer but still may not prevent a total loss of signal near the peak of the weather event.

Ideally you could have 2 receivers one config on a EA dish and one on WA dish and switch back and forth between receivers as the storm moves across. Properly peaked that would be the best solution for reducing downtime.

 

[Mr Tony]

Iceberg I just can't agree with your statement here. It is rain fade that was the problem. The dish for you was pointed thru a rainstorm to your S (roughly). Just because it wasn't raining at your house doesn't mean that it wasn't 1 L of a rain storm thru those dark clouds you are talking about.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that people always say "oh it rains I lose signal" when in alot of cases its not the rain that makes the signal go out. I have to explain it to my dad every time dark storm clouds are to the south and its not raining yet his E* system goes out.

Also a larger dish does reduce rain fade. I use larger dishes and rarely have rain fade.

I'm fully aware of that. Why do you think I use a 4 footer on Shaw Directv when the "stock" dish for my area (Minneapolis) is a 30"

 

[whatchel1]

C-band rarely used as back up

Even large 4 meter or larger commercial ku band systems like NBC affiliates use still get rain fade in FL sometimes, its inherent with ku band. Thats why NBC has a c-band back up feed for affiliates and everybody else commercially delivers through C-band. And yes a larger consumer size dish like a 24" or 36" will give you more of a buffer but still may not prevent a total loss of signal near the peak of the weather event.

Ideally you could have 2 receivers one config on a EA dish and one on WA dish and switch back and forth between receivers as the storm moves across. Properly peaked that would be the best solution for reducing downtime.

I recently left an NBC station the only times that we used the C-band was when NBC was switching out so equipment or when we worked on something that would interrupt the KU dish. The C-band feed doesn't always carry the programming anymore. When we had troubles at the station w/ some new receivers & the firmware loaded into them we had to call in and ask the the prime time be turned on for the C-band. PBS also uses KU band for their feeds w/ 1 C-band feed.

 

[r10fret]

C-band East coast feed is usually up 24/7 as a hot spare, don't know about central/mountain or pacific feed could also be maybe they don't authorize some non O&Os to see it, yeah I know about the PBS stuff in KU but they aren't really commercial. One local PBS (primary) has a lot of rain fade events on the live feed and on delayed stuff, guess they don't care to find a workaround from an alt tx site TSL, they have a slate up about tech dif almost every day in the summer.

 

[machapungo]

WOW !!! Great and Super prompt responses.

Satellite Guys, I'm impressed and almost overwhelmed with your thoughtful experienced responses. Many thanks to all of you experts. Here are my initial thoughts and question regarding your input.

Regarding the MPEG2 / 4 issue and my 522. The 522 was a free upgrade from DishNetwork
when I upgraded to HD but it hasn't ever been used because of an old cra* RCA TV on the 2nt floor. Just got a new 40"LCD replacement. Apparently, you're saying that the 522 is a dead duck in the EA. Hmmm! I checked the SAT's via point dish and I am receiving 110W,118W,119W,and 129W. So do I have to care about the EA

Now that I'm aware of these 4 Sat's I'm no longer in doubt as to why I have 4 Lnb's. One of the apparent singles has two viaable femals connections but only one is connected. What's up here

I too have lossed signal with no rain yet but dark clouds coming. And I have had some rain and not lost signal. But these instances are the exception and the rule is rain equals no signal in my experience. I understand from your feedback that larger dishes will minimize but not guarantee the ability to escape rain fade. And that's Ok. Little fade is better than my current lots of fade.
I forgot to mention that there are no trees or obstructions blocking the dish except for a telephone pole and associated wires. Presumably that's not a problem.

It sounds like the consensus is that going to at least 3 larger dishes will go a long way to fix my problem. and I wonder if one of them should be larger than the other two and mororized.

That way, if things really get crummy I could point that bigger dish to whatever I wanted. And I
might have some fun as you guys do just polking around in the sky. If I decide to do this what
size dish and what brand / size motor would be appropriate

I examined my LNB's by disconnecting the cable on at a time and then using point dish to see which sat(s) were missing. I turned out that as I face of the concave dish a single LNB 110 is on the left with 119 followed by 118 as a dual in the center and a 129 single on the right.
The 119 Lnb seeme to do a good job of catching 105 and 72.2 signal strength.

Signal Strengths on todays nice sunny sky.:
!29.17 = 45 & 129.15 = 84
119.15 = 84
118.15 = 45
110.15 = 77
I presume thest are typical for a dish pro plus. If not, what's up

OOPS!!! I just bumped into what you guys mean by EA and WA. Hmmmm!!!. Looks like I've found yet more food for thought and perhaps more reason to consider having one movable dish.

Thanks again.

 

[navychop]

BTW, I don't think you can count on getting all channels with a 110/119/72.7 setup.

 

[ebms1]

My dish pro fades out easy when it rains. Here are my options as I see it:
1. Keep the Dish Pro Add one bigger fixed dish with one LNB canableized from the Dish Pro. Then, tweak the current dish pro to better pick up the rest.
2. Keep the Dish Pro dual and add two bigger fixed dishes each with a canableized LNB.
3. Throw out the Dish pro and get three bigger dishes with each looking at a bird.

The first question is, will tweaking the Dish Pro to look at fewer satellites ever add enough signal strength to permit keeping it

If not, then option 3 seems to be the only reasonable answer. I live in central N. Carolina.​

.The second question is, how big should added dishes be to virtually guarantee NO rain fade 99.8% of the time

I would rather spend more bucks to go bigger than risk not quite doing the job.

Is anything less than a 4' dish likely to make me happy

6' 7' 8' dish , "daylight come an me wan go home" !!!!

Current dish pro has one dual lnb and two single lnb's which = 4 but
. 110 + 119 + 129 = 3 lnb's What the heck is # 4 for? Excuse my ignorance.

I think the dual is for 110 and 119. All 4 go into a dpp 44 switch.

I have 3 receivers. 522, 722, and an FTA. but only the 722 (1st floor) is connected via a separator. I plan to get another separator for a second existing cable to the 522 on the 2nd floor. If I want to switch the TV connected to the 522 to the FTA should I put a splitter before the 522 separator and send one splitter leg to the FTA

... OR... should I go to the trouble to run another cable from the dpp-44 into my crawl space, up through a two story pvc pipe into my attic and then down to the 2nd story room containing the 522 and FTA.

. Thanks for all advice.

take a look

Rain fade refers primarily to the absorption of a microwave Radio Frequency (RF) signal by atmospheric rain, snow or ice, and losses are especially prevalent at frequencies above 11 GHz. It also refers to the degradation of a signal caused by the electromagnetic interference of the leading edge of a storm front. Rain fade can be caused by precipitation at the uplink or downlink location. However, it does not need to be raining at a location for it to be affected by rain fade, as the signal may pass through precipitation many miles away, especially if the satellite dish has a low look angle. From 5 to 20 percent of rain fade or satellite signal attenuation may also be caused by rain, snow or ice on the uplink or downlink antenna reflector, radome or feed horn.
Possible ways to overcome the effects of rain fade are site diversity, uplink power control, variable rate encoding, receiving antennas larger than the requested size for normal weather conditions, and hydrophobic coatings. Only superhydrophobic, Lotus effect surfaces repel snow and ice.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Usually a 24 inch Dish dedicated to each satellite will help cut down on rain fade.

 

[ebms1]

My dish pro fades out easy when it rains. Here are my options as I see it:
1. Keep the Dish Pro Add one bigger fixed dish with one LNB canableized from the Dish Pro. Then, tweak the current dish pro to better pick up the rest.
2. Keep the Dish Pro dual and add two bigger fixed dishes each with a canableized LNB.
3. Throw out the Dish pro and get three bigger dishes with each looking at a bird.

The first question is, will tweaking the Dish Pro to look at fewer satellites ever add enough signal strength to permit keeping it

If not, then option 3 seems to be the only reasonable answer. I live in central N. Carolina.​

.The second question is, how big should added dishes be to virtually guarantee NO rain fade 99.8% of the time

I would rather spend more bucks to go bigger than risk not quite doing the job.

Is anything less than a 4' dish likely to make me happy

6' 7' 8' dish , "daylight come an me wan go home" !!!!

Current dish pro has one dual lnb and two single lnb's which = 4 but
. 110 + 119 + 129 = 3 lnb's What the heck is # 4 for? Excuse my ignorance.

I think the dual is for 110 and 119. All 4 go into a dpp 44 switch.

I have 3 receivers. 522, 722, and an FTA. but only the 722 (1st floor) is connected via a separator. I plan to get another separator for a second existing cable to the 522 on the 2nd floor. If I want to switch the TV connected to the 522 to the FTA should I put a splitter before the 522 separator and send one splitter leg to the FTA

... OR... should I go to the trouble to run another cable from the dpp-44 into my crawl space, up through a two story pvc pipe into my attic and then down to the 2nd story room containing the 522 and FTA.

. Thanks for all advice.

here is another ...
Rain fade is an interruption of wireless communication signals as a result of rain or snow droplets whose separation approximates the signal wavelengths. The phenomenon can affect satellite Internet connections as well as satellite television and other systems.
Most satellite communication takes place in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. Signals at these wavelengths, typically on the order of a few inches, are affected by heavy concentrations of water droplets or ice crystals in the atmosphere. When the mean distance between water droplets or crystals is comparable to the wavelength of the electromagnetic signals, severe attenuation can occur. The observed effect is a degradation or loss of communications during heavy downpours, snow squalls, and blizzards.
Rain fade usually does not last long. Once a heavy shower or squall has passed, normal communications returns. However, during tropical storms or severe winter storms at northern latitudes, fadeouts can persist for hours at a time. The phenomenon occurs with all types of satellite systems, including geostationary (GEO), low-earth-orbit (LEO), and medium-earth-orbit (MEO). It can also affect the Global Positioning System (GPS).

 

[MikeD-C05]

I wonder where you can get this hydrophobic coatings. Imagine if you could actually paint your dish with this stuff and prevent rain fade.

 

[ebms1]

I wonder where you can get this hydrophobic coatings. Imagine if you could actually paint your dish with this stuff and prevent rain fade.

http://www.oakley.com/innovation/optical_superiority/hydrophobic
hydrophobic
This demonstrates how water beads up and slides off a lens treated with Oakley’s permanent Hydrophobic coating. The smudge-resistant barrier also repels skin oils and other ...


i think they are meaning something like "rainx"

 

[DishSubLA]

While there is true rain fade that is far less a problem today because of reflector size, power, and FEC, once again Iceberg is correct: it is often the density of the cloud that most often can result in a loss of signal. This was also confirmed on a recent Tech Forum where both Mark and Dan made this very clear regarding how most Dish customers experience rain fade. I have experienced and seen this myself and I did notice the really, really dark clouds, wasn't raining at downlink, nor could I see perception within line-of-sight, that did cause brief loss of signal until the really dark cloud moved on past.