rain fade so cal

sdsumann

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Oct 20, 2004
54
0
OK so I thought rain fade was a rarity, I am in southern California...and we have been having heavy rains. Its not for like 2 Min's. Basically I have not been able to watch my dish network for 2 days now.

What do I do?
 
Welcome to the forum, thats a bummer to say the least, depending on how long you have had the system I would give them a call and ask the installer to come have a look, it should only be cutting out when the rain gets REALLY hard, but NEVER for two days, maybe water has got into some of your connections, or the dish has never been pointed correctly in the first place........ask for some money off your next bill too, you are paying to watch TV after all, good luck!
 
I live in SoCal.. Orange County to be exact.. I have not seen any rain fade where I am at. We have gotten a lot of ran here , but no complaints from the family on loosing signal and I have not seen any myself. My guess is you have marginal signal to begin with..

Once the rain stops, what are your signal levels at and how much do they fluctuate?
 
WeeJava, I'm in Fontana for point of reference I am right where the 15 / 210 interchange is. I have the SBC/Dish deal where I have two satellites. I have checked the signals before and one satellite (I cannot remember which) has some numbers up to 120's but over different transponders it is drastically different as low as the 70's.

Since you are relatively close to me I would assume that you should have very similar numbers as myself. I do not believe that it is an issue with wet connectors because all connectors are compression sealed and the switch is under an eve. WeeJava just for reference what kind of numbers do you get for signal?

I do think that the installer (dish employee) did a bad job of aiming because he just put up the sat and sort of eyeballed it, he never checked the signal level before he left. I mean the signal was not down for 2 entire days, just a majority of it, then it would come back then out again, frustrating to say the least.
 
I'm in Riverside, never had rain fade. You should check your SS on transponders 10 & 11 on satellites 119 & 110. Both should be over 100 on units that have a scale to 125, or over 90 on older units. If you don't see that then you probably need to re-aim. It gets pretty windy out your way, I assume you haven't lost the signal during high winds? That would rule out any mounting issues.
 
From what I saw on the news, you ought to have rain fade! It was raining there like it does in Florida! I would not sweat it! Most likely one of those every 200 uear freak storms!
 
sdsumann said:
WeeJava, I'm in Fontana for point of reference I am right where the 15 / 210 interchange is. I have the SBC/Dish deal where I have two satellites. I have checked the signals before and one satellite (I cannot remember which) has some numbers up to 120's but over different transponders it is drastically different as low as the 70's.

Since you are relatively close to me I would assume that you should have very similar numbers as myself. I do not believe that it is an issue with wet connectors because all connectors are compression sealed and the switch is under an eve. WeeJava just for reference what kind of numbers do you get for signal?

I do think that the installer (dish employee) did a bad job of aiming because he just put up the sat and sort of eyeballed it, he never checked the signal level before he left. I mean the signal was not down for 2 entire days, just a majority of it, then it would come back then out again, frustrating to say the least.


My numbers are around 119 is about 99 and 110 is somewhere in the low 80s. My 148 is at 85. When I watch them they rarely fluctuate a few points. How much is your fluctuating? Is there any trees in your line of sight?

I have experienced this once and when I it happened it was during rain storms but the cause was a palm branch that was blowing in the wind. I eventually cut two of the palm trees down and my signal has not flaked out since. Could you be having trees branches that are getting blowing into the line of sight?

Check your signal next time you see this and see if you can make a corilation. Make sure you have a steady signal. Might want to get it re-aimed. To get Rainfade, I have seen it once or twice in my 6 years with Dish in SoCal you need a lot of rain... A lot!. ;)
 
I live in NW Oregon and have had Dish for over 5 years. I can count the number of times I have experienced rain fade on 1 hand and even then it has never lasted longer than 5 to 7 minutes. Sounds like you have an alignment or obstruction issue. Tree with wet leaves maybe?



NightRyder
 
ss numbers

ok guys so I am home here is my numbers.

Satellite 119

1 123
2 94
3 124
4 95
5 0
6 95
7 0
8 97
9 0
10 97
11 103
12 97
13 99
14 95
15 100
16 99
17 99
18 96
19 100
20 96
21 100
22 103

Satellite 110

1 92
2 124
3 100
4 0
5 92
6 0
7 88
8 84
9 90
10 90
11 95
12 93
13 84
14 90
15 81
16 91
17 85
18 93
19 93
20 90
21 92
22 98
23 99
24 100
25 99
26 95
27 98
29 102
31 101


satellite 121

i got wrong sat echostar 119 west error


satellite 148

wrong sat

satellite 61.5

wrong sat echostar 119 west


Are these numbers in line or is it out of alignment?
 
Signal Strengths look good. Are they fluctuating a lot or pretty steady.. Are they jumping around or solid? Did you check your line of site for possible obstructions given some wind?
 
ajohnson said:
I'm in Riverside, never had rain fade. You should check your SS on transponders 10 & 11 on satellites 119 & 110. Both should be over 100 on units that have a scale to 125, or over 90 on older units. If you don't see that then you probably need to re-aim. It gets pretty windy out your way, I assume you haven't lost the signal during high winds? That would rule out any mounting issues.
AJ. I notice you keep talking about using transponders 10 & 11. Not good. Use 11 & 12 instead. 110-10 is a spotbeam, and will throw you off big-time depending on where you are.
http://ekb.dbstalk.com/pictures/echo8.gif