I live in the San Jose, Ca. and we get a few major storms each year. My question is, how big of a problem is rain fade? Anyone live in my area and could give me some feedback? Thanks.
Question about the frequency of "Rain Fade"?
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Ace said:
I'm in Rohnert Park, not exactly your neighborhood, but our climate is similar. I've had DisnNetwork for 6 years. I have lost signal, maybe, 4 times in that time and never for more than 2 minutes. It only happens when it is really pouring. I don't see it as a problem at all.
G
Guest
Guest
You will get all kinds of answers. At one of thre other forums I once asked if there was any real data on how often DBS goes out vs. cable. The primary response was from a cable installer over there who insisted to me that cable simply does not go down due to weather.
It will vary a lot base don climate and signal strength is all I can say. But my DBS has been far more reliable than my cable ever was.
It will vary a lot base don climate and signal strength is all I can say. But my DBS has been far more reliable than my cable ever was.
I am on the other coast (in Connecticut) And can recall in the last 4 years on one hand when Rain fade knocked out my signal.
Not bad for 4 years.
Not bad for 4 years.
Ace,
I live in San Francisco Bay Area, real near you in Fremont.
I've had Dish 3 years, and have only noticed rain fade knock out signal one time. And it was really really raining hard!
I live in San Francisco Bay Area, real near you in Fremont.
I've had Dish 3 years, and have only noticed rain fade knock out signal one time. And it was really really raining hard!
I'm quite a bit farther north than you (Seattle), where the look angle on the satellites is very flat (mid-30 degrees, versus your probable mid-40 degrees). Even all the way up here, it's VERY rare to have rain fade. We had record rainfall the last two days (like 3-5 inches in one day), and I didn't get rain fade. I think that you'll be very happy with the stability of the signal, unless you get real gully-washers (like in the midwest, south, and east). This is assuming your dish is aimed properly (not just at the edge of a lockable signal). I'm always impressed at how well it stays locked. The only drop outs I get are when the seaplanes fly in front of my dish. :shock:
RainFade *should* be rare. I always tell my customers that if they would be driving down the highway with the wipers on high speed and would still need to pull off of the road, that they will lose signal. If you lose it more than that, or if the signal doesn't return when the downpour stops, I would highly suspect leaky coax/connections or a cracked LNB. Just my opinion.
If your signal strength is not high enough you will experience more rainfades. If you still have a high signal strength and still experience rainfades then I would check your wire connections outside and if that was not the culpret you could get a larger dish to help combat rainfade. I believe they make a larger Dish500 for Hawaii/Alaska that you could use for this.
ROLLTIDE said:
I live in Pensacola, Florida and mine has gone out abuut 4 time in the last year and only when the initial wave of a storm passes over. Maybe you need to fine tune your dish. What is your signal strength.
I live in the Philadelphia area and in the past 5 years I had about a dozen outages normally only lasting a few minutes. (much better than my cable)
Anytime any clouds get between your dish and the satellite, the received signal strength from the satellite will drop off a little. The amount of signal loss is relative to the quantity of moisture in the clouds. The good news is that until the signal drops below a level that your receiver requires to maintain a lock on the satellite, you will not experience any picture quality differences as the signal strength changes. Provided that your dish is installed and aimed properly, most storms will not create enough signal drop to cause you to lose the satellite signal. During an average summer it Maryland, I experience about 6-8 "rain fade" signal losses. These never last more than 2 or 3 minutes at most and usually less than 1 minute. Because of direction that storms approach my house, I usually experience the signal loss shortly before a really heavy rain storm hits, and then have a fully useable signal by the time the rain actually starts. I use these outages as my 10 minute warning that we're about to get a drenching storm. The reliability of my dish signal is much better than I ever had with cable tv. Cable TV relies on signal amplification equipment powered by the electric company. All it takes is a power failure somewhere "upstream" from your cable feed and you're looking at snow on your cable box...
- Paul
- Paul
There is however wet-snow fade. Not the fluffy stuff we get in the middle of the winter, but the heavy wet stuff that we get at the end of the season. It sticks to the dish and sometimes causes problems. A broom or strong sunlight is usually all that is needed to clear up that problem. Then again, I've heard some people having "Dish Buried in snowdrift on roof fade" too..... When the snow is deeper than your lnbf, signal sucks...
Radio Shack had "dish warmers" on special order from their warehouse. I bought a couple for professional ku band dishes we used at work. They were on the flat roof and iced up nearly every winter.md_paul said:
That's the nice thing about having a nearly vertical dish ... snow slides off. I suppose one could use a spray coating to help ease the sliding. Thats what some do with the professional 3-4meter dishes.
JL
