I see Best Buy carries a product called "RainShield". It's supposed to reduce signal loss due to rain fade on your dish. Kinda beads up on the dish like rainex does on your windshield. Has anyone used this, or does anyone think it actually works?
Rainshield product
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Yup, I got a can in the garage that you can have if you want, I paid $ 12.95 for it and used it once ...... you can have it !
Here's the scoop on rainfade, it will happen. A larger dish and keeping the LNBF lens dry helps but not 100%. I just lost my signal for about 15 minutes and I have done quite a bit to combat it.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-forum/218322-keeping-rain-fade-minimum.html
The clouds filled with moisture took it out first here and it came back in mid storm. I'm very used to c band, we can get a monsoon and it don't phase it. When HITS programming was on G-16 ku I used get rain fade on that. I think I still need a bigger dish for Direct. I remember a friend of mine that does commercial installs for the broadcast industry telling me he was putting up 6 foot dishes for commercial direct systems to fight rain fade. May need to go that route.
Moisture attenuates a ku and ka signal much more because of the size of it's wavelength and high frequency. It's the nature of the beast.
That spray stuff kinda a joke. The truth lies in what I said above
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-forum/218322-keeping-rain-fade-minimum.html
The clouds filled with moisture took it out first here and it came back in mid storm. I'm very used to c band, we can get a monsoon and it don't phase it. When HITS programming was on G-16 ku I used get rain fade on that. I think I still need a bigger dish for Direct. I remember a friend of mine that does commercial installs for the broadcast industry telling me he was putting up 6 foot dishes for commercial direct systems to fight rain fade. May need to go that route.
Moisture attenuates a ku and ka signal much more because of the size of it's wavelength and high frequency. It's the nature of the beast.
That spray stuff kinda a joke. The truth lies in what I said above
I know Jimbo is no fan of the stuff but it does work, it just washes away so fast that you have to keep applying it all the time (hard for me since it's on my chimney). The best solution is to just have signals across the board in the high 90's. As far as rain-x or the newer windshield washer fluid with rain-x I know the stuff is great both in rain & snow. Put that stuff on your window before a trip around the snowbelt of South Bend & it's apples & oranges in what you can see.
6 foot is a baby dish to me. I have a 12 foot C band monster sitting in my yard.
Seriously though getting back to rain fade. Years ago NBC was using ku to feed their affiliates. They were using 15 foot dishes at the tv stations for ku. Why? Rain fade ... The bottom line is if you want to beat it you have to go gonzo with no holds barred. If I go to HD and want to look at 99 & 103 also I think I need a 4 foot for each bird. Maybe larger with ka like 6 to 8 foot.
My next move may be to use my 36x 39" Primestar for 101. I would have to figure out how to get 83 back though for RTV FTA. Musical dishes again
Just a crazy thought, wonder what would happen if I strapped a DSS LNBF on my 12 foot alongside my c band feed horn?
6 foot is a baby dish to me. I have a 12 foot C band monster sitting in my yard.
Seriously though getting back to rain fade. Years ago NBC was using ku to feed their affiliates. They were using 15 foot dishes at the tv stations for ku. Why? Rain fade ... The bottom line is if you want to beat it you have to go gonzo with no holds barred. If I go to HD and want to look at 99 & 103 also I think I need a 4 foot for each bird. Maybe larger with ka like 6 to 8 foot.
My next move may be to use my 36x 39" Primestar for 101. I would have to figure out how to get 83 back though for RTV FTA. Musical dishes again
Just a crazy thought, wonder what would happen if I strapped a DSS LNBF on my 12 foot alongside my c band feed horn?
I've done the 6 and 10 ft C-Band awhile back before I got into the D* stuff.
Q. Is there any way to use a C-Band set up and pick the correct signals to get the D* signals ?
Sure why not. If your going to look at more than 101 I would suggest 3 lnbf's on a fixed dish especially with KA . A dish is a dish as long as the BUD is ku ready it will work. The reason I say use a fixed dish for ka is because the beamwidth is so narrow it would be a bear to get the actuator to track perfect each time.
I know Skyvision used to sell a feed that did c band and DSS. You can also strap a DSS lnbf along the c band feed.
There used to be a website that sold a vast array of adapters, hardware, etc to convert the C band dishes for multiple Dishnet and DirecTV LNB's, I went through my bookmarks and can't find it now, the website seemed to be geared for sales "down south".
A search on google for "C Band LNB adapter" will show some adapters. A former advertiser here also had them.
Only interested if they will do both KA and KU for D*, which I don't see why it wouldn't come to think of it.
Using a C Band dish to get D* would definitely help with the Rain fade issue.
However, it would be VERY difficult to take camping !
The stuff the OP mentioned is snake oil.
It's not the water on the dish, it's the rain drops blocking the signal between the satellite and your dish causing rain fade. When a real badass storm hits sometimes I get rain fade up to a minute before the rain is actually hitting the dish.
Even if you could have a star trek type of force field around the entire dish stopping rain from hitting the dish you'd still have rain fade issues. The force field might even block the satellite signals. You'd have to fine tune the force field frequency.
It's not the water on the dish, it's the rain drops blocking the signal between the satellite and your dish causing rain fade. When a real badass storm hits sometimes I get rain fade up to a minute before the rain is actually hitting the dish.
Even if you could have a star trek type of force field around the entire dish stopping rain from hitting the dish you'd still have rain fade issues. The force field might even block the satellite signals. You'd have to fine tune the force field frequency.
Everybody is pointing at the dish getting water droplets.....
It's the storm thats blocking your signal to the dish/lnb thats causing the problem.
When you can control that, let me know.
Ever notice how you will lose signal BEFORE the storm gets there ?
When I lose signal it tells me to bring the stuff in from outside ....
It's the storm thats blocking your signal to the dish/lnb thats causing the problem.
When you can control that, let me know.
Ever notice how you will lose signal BEFORE the storm gets there ?
When I lose signal it tells me to bring the stuff in from outside ....
High moisture content in the clouds causes attenuation at ku & ka frequency's. Once the clouds let loose the signal is allowed to penetrate again. A larger dish with more surface area helps because it has a good margin above threshold. Your signal will hang in there till you hit threshold.
A 18" dish has 3 db above threshold that puts you at +11 db using 8 db as threshold.. In a good storm you can loose 10 db or more. Increasing the dish size and getting you C/N (carrier to noise ratio) up to a +17 would allow you be 1db above threshold when all hell breaks loose. A large dish is needed to achieve a +11 db margin. Usually a +9 above threshold, which I am very close to now with my 90 cm 39X36 Primestar dish will work in most conditions. I will be testing it next rainstorm.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-forum/220018-new-rainfade-solution.html
I don't expect a complete solution to rainfade, but to work 99% of the time when the stock DirecTV dishes fell out.
A 18" dish has 3 db above threshold that puts you at +11 db using 8 db as threshold.. In a good storm you can loose 10 db or more. Increasing the dish size and getting you C/N (carrier to noise ratio) up to a +17 would allow you be 1db above threshold when all hell breaks loose. A large dish is needed to achieve a +11 db margin. Usually a +9 above threshold, which I am very close to now with my 90 cm 39X36 Primestar dish will work in most conditions. I will be testing it next rainstorm.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-forum/220018-new-rainfade-solution.html
I don't expect a complete solution to rainfade, but to work 99% of the time when the stock DirecTV dishes fell out.
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