Rain Fade.....Any Bigger Dish Solutions?

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pjs344

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Dec 2, 2014
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Idaho
Has anyone tried using the old Dtv world direct dish (dtv66e 36x24) or the Starchoice dish (75E 35x26) for use with Dtv ls3/ls5 swim Genie setup? These dishes are similar in size and bigger than the Dtv Slimline. It looks like the mounts are the same as the Slimline and if they are all that would be needed is one of the reflectors that can be swap out with the Slimline reflector. If the sl3 swim does not work I am sure the older 3lnb with swim setup would. I have a Genie HR44/200 with one Mini C41-100 with the Extra package and live in southern Idaho. I estimate a 35 foot cable run from sl3 to the Genie with one 2 way Dtv splitter.

Also has anyone tied using an outside antenna setup with a Genie swim system? I was thinking of dropping my locals and using an outside antenna using the Am21 OTF dual receiver, a Sonora AD14 amp diplexer along with a Sonora sdswmd2 diplexer designed to work with the Dtv(Dish) swim system to merge locals in and out of the same cable line without affecting swim signals.
 
I recently added a post about finding a bigger dish and I have found a few bigger multi sat dishes. I thought about using the Winegard 30" But it is only for one lnb and sat. The Primstar dish is bigger (40x30), one lnb/sat and also quite heavy compared to the aluminum dishes. There are 4 bigger sized dishes compared to the slimline/au9. The channel master andrew gain booster (37x28) dish which there seems to be a number of good reviews on preventing rain fade. But it is in limited supply and cost $$$. The rest of these are low cost dishes. The Star choice dish (35x26), the Dtv66e (36x24) and the newer Dtv36 (36x20). Just which one would work or work the best with the Dtv systems is the?? It seem the more square the dish the better for the main sats(99,101,103) and the more requangular the dish the more sats that can be added (110,119,129) So with that in mind the primestar would be fist in line, then tah star choice, Channel Master. Dtv66 and Dtv36.
 
Last edited:
Broke your posts off of 7 year old threads and merged to a new one.
 
pjs344 said:
r.

Also has anyone tied using an outside antenna setup with a Genie swim system? I was thinking of dropping my locals and using an outside antenna using the Am21 OTF dual receiver, a Sonora AD14 amp diplexer along with a Sonora sdswmd2 diplexer designed to work with the Dtv(Dish) swim system to merge locals in and out of the same cable line without affecting swim signals.
Click to expand...
While is true this diplexer wont affect SWM signals, OTA signals will collide with MoCA signals. Since you have a C41 that relies exclusively in MoCA, diplexing is out of the question for you.
 
This subject comes up every year or so. Some people have used the DirecTV Alaska/Hawaii dishes in the continental US. But larger dishes are not going to help much with "rain fade" on the HD signals. The signal losses are far higher than the few dB gain of the larger dishes.
 
What is your goal with a bigger dish/more signal, to fight rain fade?

If you are watching an HD channel and loose signal from weather, the SD version of the channel may still be watchable, so you could unhide SD duplicates to see if that helps.

If the world direct were to work with a slime line LNB on it, there would only be around 1dB of gain over the slim line reflector. That is not going to make much of a difference in a rain fade situation. The 1m Alaska/Hawaii dish would have around 5dB more gain than the slim line dish for the Ku signal at 101. 5dB may be enough to prevent rain fade in some storms, but some storms that cause rain fade are going to cause 10dB+ attenuation on Ku, more on Ka.

Do you have a LNB with SWM built in (1 coax from the LNB), or do you have a SWM8/16 and a legacy LNB (4 coax’s from the LNB). There is a very specific case where you can diplex OTA on the coax, but it is not DirecTV approved and a service tech will not provide support for it. If you have a SWM LNB you can use a SWM compatible diplexer to put an OTA antenna onto the SWM coax. In the house before the coax goes into any green label splitters you need to use a diplexer to split out the OTA from the SWM. So if you have a SWM LNB, and the power inserter, green label splitter (for the CCK, Genie, and Client), and genie are all together, you could put the AM21 with the genie and diplex OTA on the cable from the LNB. In most other situations you cannot diplex OTA.
 
As stvcmty says, the larger dish is not going to help you much. With SD signals (Ku) using the Alaska/Hawaii dish might reduce the incidence of rain fade but not by much. HD (Kusignals) are another story. 25-30dB or more signal attenuation is the norm, and the dish will gain you nothing except maybe cut the duration of the rain fade by a few seconds at the beginning and end of the storm interruption.
 
Dish Hoppers auto switch to SD and back during rain fade events, even with SD hidden in the guide. It works remarkably well to keep interruption to a minimum as storms go marching through the LOS. Would be a good thing to request from DirectTV.
 
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That's a good idea, I did not know the hopper did that....
 
patmurphey said:
Dish Hoppers auto switch to SD and back during rain fade events, even with SD hidden in the guide. It works remarkably well to keep interruption to a minimum as storms go marching through the LOS. Would be a good thing to request from DirectTV.
Click to expand...
So it automatically bounces between HD and SD ?
Not sure I'd like that.
 
Jimbo said:
So it automatically bounces between HD and SD ?
Not sure I'd like that.
Click to expand...

Rather have a blank screen for 5 minutes? Real life the other day, storm passes by, Hopper switches to SD, a few minutes later, storm passed switches back. Next storm heavier, Hopper switches to SD for a minute or so, then loss of all for about 10 seconds, then HD comes back. Pretty minimal interruption for the heavy rain.
 
patmurphey said:
Rather have a blank screen for 5 minutes? Real life the other day, storm passes by, Hopper switches to SD, a few minutes later, storm passed switches back. Next storm heavier, Hopper switches to SD for a minute or so, then loss of all for about 10 seconds, then HD comes back. Pretty minimal interruption for the heavy rain.
Click to expand...
Not bad ....
With D* when your Hopper switches over, I continue to watch in HD ....
Sure I lose signal once in awhile but it's very rare and take a very severe storm to knock it out.
 
Jimbo said:
Not bad ....
With D* when your Hopper switches over, I continue to watch in HD ....
Click to expand...

It only switches when the HD signal fails due to rain, interesting how you could "continue to watch". :biggrin

(Dish's signal band has a slight edge in rain penetration.)
 
Jimbo said:
Not bad ....
With D* when your Hopper switches over, I continue to watch in HD ....
Sure I lose signal once in awhile but it's very rare and take a very severe storm to knock it out.
Click to expand...
That has been my experience the last couple of years. Rain fade was terrible with the older dish and receivers but I don't seem to see it near as often with the Genie and Slimline....I don't have scientific data to back it up it just seems like its much better than it used to be.
 
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According to Physics...!
DirecTV uses higher frequencies which are more susceptible to attenuation by raindrops inside storm cells...
However, satellites that are lower on the horizon will be more susceptible to rain fade so it depends......
 
Let me put this one to rest.

Directv has an Alaska/HI DISH that is 1.2 meter.

The gain is only a few DB.

So we do lots of commercial installs and they all spec a standard slimline dish.

If commercial Directv installs spec a slimline Dish, then a larger Dish for s residential type application is simply not possible, or they would use them for large commercial or MDU installs.
 
And some SD locals and other channels are only on 119. If your installed with a swm3 or dswm, and it switches you wouldn't have that channel. Look at this from the employee's point of view. We have a lot of idiot customers... I can see the service calls now

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
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