signal loss light to moderate rain

[tekman]

I am having an issue with signal loss during overcast(not heavy) and light to moderate rainfall. The affected stations are those on 61.5. 72 and 77 do not exhibit any loss of signal. Is it normal to lose the signal from one satellite and not the others. I have had a technician to my home on three different occasions. The last time it was the Quality Assurance Specialist. The first tech replaced the LNB, the second "cleaned up" some connections, the last said everything looked great, but did say that it was unusual to have just one of the satellites lose the signal and not the others. The dish is a 1000.4 and I have a 722 and 222 receiver. Thoughts or suggestions?

 

[bross]

What are your signal levels on 61.5 when the weather is good?

 

[tekman]

What are your signal levels on 61.5 when the weather is good?

61.5 = 45-50
72 = 50-55
77 = 55-60

 

[MikeD-C05]

Sounds like good signals to me. Supposedly 50 and above is great for strength. The signal scale has been reduced now and 50 -75 is where the old scale was comparable to 80- 95 strength. So you should be great. Much better than here in southeast Texas. I get anywhere from 40 -48 on 72.7 , 45-50 on 77 and 40-60 on 61.5 sat.

 

[Andrewwski]

Doesn't sound great to me. Up here we're still using a single dish for 61.5, but signal strengths during clear weather for it are between 75-80. 45 during clear weather doesn't sound good. 110/119 are usually 70-75 during clear weather.

It probably does depend on the dish and area of the country though.

 

[bross]

Those signal strengths should be fine. I would look at the cable and connectors on the cable runs. Typical rain fade passes pretty quickly. If you loose signal for hours after a storm, I would suspect a bad connection that is letting water in. Check at the ground block and any other connections. There should be loops in the cable before any connection so water running along the cable drips off before the connection.

 

[tekman]

Thanks for all of the replies. The techs have verified that all of the connections are ok. My question remains, why the drop out only from 61.5. I would think that if the storm is severe enough to cause adrop from that satellite that the other two would have signal loss also>

Thanks

 

[Rey]

Thanks for all of the replies. The techs have verified that all of the connections are ok. My question remains, why the drop out only from 61.5. I would think that if the storm is severe enough to cause adrop from that satellite that the other two would have signal loss also>

Thanks

they drop out of the 61.5 faster because even with the disk peaked the signals are not the best. my signals at 61.5 at best were in their 50's. while at 119 and 110 were at the 80's and even 90's.

 

[dannsh]

Four Corners Cortez/Dolores, CO DVR 622

Yesterday we had trouble all afternoon into the evening with signal loss. We were having thunder storms. All three satellites were not working 110,119,129. Tuner 2 was getting MSNBC and then was completely out. Tuner 1 was getting HDNET, but nothing else. In the evening the thunder storms had stopped, but we are not sure how clear things were to the south. We have everything back this morning.

Are there any others in the four corners area who had the same problem?

 

[bbtkd]

Check mount stability and have it repeaked

I am having an issue with signal loss during overcast(not heavy) and light to moderate rainfall. The affected stations are those on 61.5. 72 and 77 do not exhibit any loss of signal. Is it normal to lose the signal from one satellite and not the others. I have had a technician to my home on three different occasions. The last time it was the Quality Assurance Specialist. The first tech replaced the LNB, the second "cleaned up" some connections, the last said everything looked great, but did say that it was unusual to have just one of the satellites lose the signal and not the others. The dish is a 1000.4 and I have a 722 and 222 receiver. Thoughts or suggestions?

I'd sure look at two things; stability of the mount and aim. For the first year we had Dish, we could count on losing signal when winds were gusting over 25MPH or so, which is pretty common here. I went up and tightened bolts and found that one of three going into my roof was stripped and useless, so I replaced it with a larger one. This helped some - it had to be windier, but still not quite right. I had the installer come out to repeak it, and that fixed it. We only get dropouts when we have summer storms to the South and Southwest. If it is not aimed perfectly, it is quite possible to be "good enough" on one satellite but marginal on another. Then when rain hits, it attenuates the already marginal signal...

 

[Rey]

there's not much more you can do guys. having had both satellite services,this is common for both and not much more can be done except making sure from time to time your dish is peaked. sometimes rain is better than these very thick clouds you'll get with some of these storms that will completely block the signal.

 

[Super Dave]

I had a similar issue when I switched from DTV to Dish. It was a bad install, the LNB was full of water every time it rained. Now I lose the signal for maybe 2 minutes during a torrential downpour, otherwise all is good.

 

[pendragon]

We had occasional drop-outs on 110, 119 and 129 during heavy downpours when we first got Dish. I checked everything and peaked the dishes a little bit more. We still had rain fade. I finally put up 76 cm dishes, one for each satellite. That pretty much cured everything.

We had a couple of 3"/hour downpours last week according to our family weather station. When they were at the peak I was checking transponder levels on all the birds, while making a HD recording off 129. The lowest level I saw was 48, but most transponders were in the 60s at their lowest points. The recording was perfect. We couldn't even see to the street out the window. With the little dishes we'd be off-line before we got to 1"/hour.

 

[dannsh]

Update

Yesterday we had trouble all afternoon into the evening with signal loss. We were having thunder storms. All three satellites were not working 110,119,129. Tuner 2 was getting MSNBC and then was completely out. Tuner 1 was getting HDNET, but nothing else. In the evening the thunder storms had stopped, but we are not sure how clear things were to the south. We have everything back this morning.

Are there any others in the four corners area who had the same problem?

We have a tech coming out today to check our dish placement and mounting. I check the dish and it appears loose. We get some channels on one satellite but not others.
On the system info we get red with white x's on all three satellites.

It appears to not to be a weather problem, but I am sure the weather exacerbates the problem.

 

[eddie willers]

I had a customer that had problems, but every time we came out (sunny day) everything would be fine (i.e., good signal).

Turned out that there was a tree limb above the 129 sat that would droop from wet leaves and make it come down just enough to weaken the signal.

 

[dannsh]

Update 2

I had a customer that had problems, but every time we came out (sunny day) everything would be fine (i.e., good signal).

Turned out that there was a tree limb above the 129 sat that would droop from wet leaves and make it come down just enough to weaken the signal.

We had multiple problems. The Technician said he has been replacing a lot of LNBF's due to static electricity from lighting. Our LNBF was bad. He replaced the dish 500 with a dish 1000. Now we only have one dish. Our 522 got zapped and he replaced the 522.

Also he secured our mounting bracket with two more screws and adjusted the signal strength. Everything up and running.