West coast voomers, do you have rain fade?

[dankgus]

I need the DVR!

I still get rain fade even with the 24" dish. Yesterday we had some serious rain and we were out of Voom for hours. If I had the DVR, I could build up a cache of unwatched TV that I like, and save it for a rainy day (ha ha, literally!).

--Dan

 

[Jobman]

Rain Fade - Drop

I am in Vallejo, East Bay Area. Up against the eastern side of a hill, so my reception should be iffy anyway. I get a pretty consistant 92, but during the last rain storm, I got pretty much ZIPPO signal from Voom. Even a light sprinkle would cause a blackout.
I am calling Voom to see about the larger dish.
I only get 4 OTA channels here, due to my location on the hill. Monday night football on ABC is great when it works on the OTA, but get even a breeze and it's gone.

 

[deeann]

Sacramento, yep on the rain fade. The 24" dish was delivered yesterday and it's supposed to be installed today.

 

[deeann]

So far so good with the 24". Haven't had any really heavy rain yet, but we're not losing signal in light to moderate rain.

 

[cmurray]

First rain fade/outage

Well, I had my first rain fade. It was completely out , which seems unexceptable and I know I am not the only one that has expressed this. I can't imagine that I will tolerate much more of this, especially since the west coast looks to be in for a wet Fall and Winter. I hope this "larger" dish is being rolled out or just about to be, because if that is the only fix for this, people are going to be dropping like flies sooner than later and I really don't want to do be one of them.

 

[cmurray]

Well, I had my first rain fade. It was completely out , which seems unexceptable and I know I am not the only one that has expressed this. I can't imagine that I will tolerate much more of this, especially since the west coast looks to be in for a wet Fall and Winter. I hope this "larger" dish is being rolled out or just about to be, because if that is the only fix for this, people are going to be dropping like flies sooner than later and I really don't want to do be one of them.

Just put in a call to Voom and have an appt. on Nov. 6 to see if a 24" dish should be installed. I don't think it's a matter of if it should, but that it must, if that is what will fix the rain fade problem. I hope that the equipment will be in hand and will be installed that day.

 

[Kaysadeya]

The "dish guy" from Crave Electronics came out and was clueless (as usual) that I explicitly requested that he be equipped with a 24' dish before coming out. Instead of upgrading my dish, he stomped around on my roof for 30 minutes. When I explained that I had requested that he NOT show up without a 24" dish, he took out his work order and noted that it was written right there. He then explained that he had the same experience with another customer and acted all confused.

Bottom line: Call the installer a day before your service call to confirm they have the correct hardware

 

[deeann]

Kaysadeya, that sounds familiar.

 

[Kaysadeya]

:river Another storm, more rain fade (right in the middle of Steve Winwood, no less ). At least it's not a complete blackout like last time; only pixelated hiccups.

Got "the Crave guy" scheduled (again) to install a 24" dish on Friday. Assuming he shows up and shows up with the hardware, I'll report back if this eliminates the problem. !sadroll

 

[tdillon]

Since I have gotten the 24 inch dish installed I have had NO rain fade. Of course, it hasn't rained since I got it installed, either. My signal is pegged at 99 and I swear that the channels lock in quicker and the program guide now downloads even if I am changing channels after a reboot. (I am sure this is just wishful thinking, however).

 

[Taron1]

I now have the 24Inch dish and it has stopped the rain fade for me in Rancho Cordova.

 

[cmurray]

Since I have gotten the 24 inch dish installed I have had NO rain fade. Of course, it hasn't rained since I got it installed, either. My signal is pegged at 99 and I swear that the channels lock in quicker and the program guide now downloads even if I am changing channels after a reboot. (I am sure this is just wishful thinking, however).

Hey there,

I hopefully will have mine installed on Saturday. Cross fingers that they actually have the dish to install and not just come out to say it's ok to order it. Let us know Tdillon, if there is any fade tomorrow.. I think there is supposed to be some rain.

 

[tdillon]

No rain today, but there is haziness to the east. Signal is still 99 with occasional dips to 98.

 

[Kaysadeya]

:river Another storm, more rain fade (right in the middle of Steve Winwood, no less ). At least it's not a complete blackout like last time; only pixelated hiccups.

Got "the Crave guy" scheduled (again) to install a 24" dish on Friday. Assuming he shows up and shows up with the hardware, I'll report back if this eliminates the problem. !sadroll

Well, "the Crave guy" was a no-show again today. Called Crave and their customer service rep rudely explained over and over again that the problem was that I hadn't made an appointment. She couldn't seem to be able to process that I had in fact made an appointment (through VOOM) and was staring at the email verification as we spoke. :sleeo

Contacted VOOM and hope to hear back directly from Crave on a new appointment. I guess Crave is the only satellite installer in the bay area. Based on my numerous experiences with them so far and what's posted here, it appears that they're acting like some arrogant monopoly and are ripe for some competition.

 

[cmurray]

No rain today, but there is haziness to the east. Signal is still 99 with occasional dips to 98.

Hey tdillon, I had the same guy come out as you for the 24" install....he had mentioned you and I said..oh yeah, that is tdillon.. his jaw dropped...lol. He was shocked that we all talk about each other and we are so into it. So, was this guy good and seem knowledgable? He seemed nice. I guess they didn't have the dish on hand, so he has to order it and probably will be out next week.

 

[tdillon]

Too funny, I had told him that you were trying to get the upgraded dish too. At the time, he wasn't aware of your scheduled service call. He is okay, friendly, and likes to talk about the future of the 3 providers. He will try to push Directv if you let him talk, but I don't think he knows what HD is all about. He still thinks that Oprah on channel 7 is THE BEST HD he has ever watched. Oprah is still filmed in SD, so I know he doesn't know what he is talking about. He is open to trying new things if you are convincing enough in your arguments.

 

[FreddyvsJasonvsAsh]

I'm in Las Vegas and have no service for the past 2 days because of rain. My friend across the street has DISH and had no problems. I wonder why his sat was fine and my VOOM was not working?

 

[tdillon]

I did experience rain yesterday, finally. My signal dropped to 98. This was not a large storm, and I suspect the clouds were not in the signal robbing area. I didn't experience any discernable signal degradation of my viewing experience.

 

[Kaysadeya]

Finally got my 24" in dish installed. No rain today (or in the forecast), but we did have a very heavy fog this morning. I don't know if this would normally be a problem, but my signal strength was '99' when checked by the installer :clap . I'll report back next time we get a *real* storm in the bay area.

 

[tdillon]

Two nights ago we had a very heavy rain, even some hailstones. My 24 inch antenna worked A LOT better than the old 18 inch. There was about 30 minutes where the signal would break up for a couple of seconds, but this was more acceptable than losing the entire signal for 2 days at a time. During the worst part of the storm my signal did still drop to under 70, but when I had the 18 inch dish when the signal went away it was so bad that there was no signal strength reported.