Snow loves the BUDs

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lumpkin666

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Feb 21, 2007
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After receiving over 2 foot of snow here in Iowa in 3 days time (not our typical snowfall here), The BUDs are filled with snow - probably at least 8 inches of snow. Signal strength on c-band is still booming like always! Now after the next wave hits this afternoon, the ku dishes will probably be under the snow. A Dish500 on my roof is already buried, but since the music channels have scrambled, not much use for that dish anyhow.
 
My dishes are high enough that I would need at least 5 1/2 feet of snow to bury my Primestar dish totally. The other Ku dish is by the roofline of my garage roof so that would need about 9 ft. And my C band dish is on a 18' pole so forget it, can't happen. I took into account when I put up my P* that there woud be snow drifts and Im glad I did since right now I have 13" or so under the dish.

In all the years I had C band (22 years) I never seen it go out completely from anything.

If I don't find another use for my 18" dish pointed at dish network? It may come down this summer. I have the coax disconnected now.
 
I took some pictures of my BUD this morning - looks pretty neat with all of the snow stuck to it. We had freezing rain and then a really wet heavy snow yesterday. I moved my BUD to the lowest satellite I've got programmed in @ 135 West so that it wouldn't fill up with snow and put unnecessary strain on the mounts overnight. It still caught a bunch of snow. And yes - it is still working fine - the snow hasn't affected the signal at all - gotta love the BUD!. I've got the Nasa channel tuned in waiting to see if they launch today.
 
I had to go outside a short while ago to sweep some of the snow off of the dish. The sun has come out and is starting to melt the snow/ice. The melting snow was running down the dish to the ice buildup on the bottom and re-freezing I think. The weight on the bottom end of the dish was getting heavier, so it was pulling the dish down and was degrading the signal to the point where the Nasa channel on 135 was breaking up. I took a good 10 lbs of snow off of the dish and the dish lifted back up enough to clear up the Nasa channel again. For the next short while, I've pointed the dish directly at the sun for a short bit to try gather up some heat to melt the remaining ice.
 
We got 20 inches here in Milwaukee!!!!!!!!!

My dishes have motors so a simple 148 degree snow dump works well. It was a very windy storm so most blew off the fixed dishes. About a month ago we got a very wet and heavy snow that sticked to everything... so I had to take the broom and clear them off.
 
For the past 20 years when heavy snow is forecast I always park the dish at a lower position. Most times the snow slides off on it's own.

This is my first winter with my 1 meter Primestar dish. I have it pointed at G10 with the elevation set at 20.9 deg. At that setting it almost appears pointed down and nothing sticks to it. I like that eyebrow that shades the LNB. I bet that helps too.
 
C-band is superior in reliability during bad weather. I figured that out quickly. we had some pretty heavy snow and freezing rain one day. My neighbor's D* was "searching for satellite signal" while I was getting strong digital c-band reception.

Even heavily snow covered - my 7.5' sami mesh had great c-band reception (HBO -G1 4DTV) while Ku suffered a bit. No ku on my 75cm at the same time.

C-band FTW!
 
I don't think snow does much to affect C band's signal. It's the weight of the heavy snow that starts to pull it off the arc. When we have big snowstorms unless I need to watch something up in the arc I always park it on a low satellite. I have been known to watch something good during the storm such as I did on G-3's RTN's about a week ago and then after my show I had to clean out double the snow because I had it up in the sky. BTW My digital G-3 RTN's were solid as a rock even with my dish filled up with wet heavy snow that took me 10 minutes to brush out. Gotta love C band.
 
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