Rain Fade Discussion

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taxtwit

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Seem to be getting more and more rain fade this year (I'm in Edmonton), to the point where I'm seriously considering a dish swap. I have the standard 20" dish with a legacy quad LNB. I've search several threads on this and it appears that, for certain larger dishes, it would be necessary to change LNB/supporting arm/reinstall or realign dish), none of which I'm interested in doing. I'm also not interested in using two separate dishes for 91 and 82.

Anyone know what is the largest dish I can swap my 20" dish for without changing anything and still have everything work?

All responses much appreciated.
 
My thought is to wait it out. Keep in mind the lower signals this summer is temporary as they move around the birds. Once they are all in their right places and on full power see how it is at that point.
 
I would use nothing less than a 1 meter dish for Ku-band reception, I have a 1.1 meter Patriot works great on any Ku-band birds, you would need to do a whole new intall, and buy the braket for two or 3 lnbf's, well worth it in my book.
 
Is that really true? I thought they were finished moving the SATs....but why would that affect the transponder strength unless the movment of the SATs would require everyone to adjust their dishes?
 
I think what they are doing is moving them around, and to make sure we don't have to re-aim our dishes they are doing it one at a time. Eventually we will have 2 working satellites in each orbital slot, but until then we only have one in each slot. Before when there was 2 birds in the 91 slot we got spoiled with 100% signal strength.

As for them being done moving; I can't say for sure. But I can't see them taking away the one objection that most cable cos were saying as a reason to not get satellite; that being rain fade.
 
As long as I don't have to adjust the dish angles I'm good. I have noticed lately (past month or 2) that rain has affected TP 30 and dropping reception on channels sent on TP30 to below 45% - 50%.....but other than that there hasn't been a whole lot of change other than a little signal strength dropping here and there. As for cable? ewwww who'd want that? :P

Thanks for the info...
 
Yeah, I think it was a matter of when to do the moves. In winter you have the issue of snow fade; which can last all day. Whereas now most times rain fade affects your viewing for maybe an hour at a time. Plus most programs are in re-runs, and people are typically watching less TV.

Hopefully it's back up to normal levels for the fall.
 
There is not much you can do then. Larger dishes have larger mounting posts to handle the extra wind strain. EV no longer has larger dishes and those that are available are either for one EV style LNB or take LNBs with different mounting bases. The fault, again, lies with E*. They decided to go with dishes of minimum usable size and a non-standard LNB form. The dishes EV uses are designed for use in the US mainland so if you get much north of the 49th they become marginal.
 
This is one reason I am not a big fan of Ku-band and Ka-band services, I mean the main time I ever watch TV is when it is raining or snowing like crazy outside and you can go out, my C-band went out only about 5 times in 20 years because of extreme winds.

My 1.1 Patriot holds up pretty good when others with smaller reflectors have issues, though when it's really coming down it will still get cut off, thats the way Ku-band and Ka-band is, you will never see a professional downlink use a dish like what the dbs company's give there customers, I assure you that getting a 1 meter or 1.2 meter will be the best thing, may cost a bit and be a pain to install on your own but is well worth the time and effort, trust me.
 
Last fall, I went out and got a dish cover (black in color). Since then, I have had rain/snow fade issues maybe five times at the most. Signal strength for both 82 and 91 is in the high 80's/low 90's the vast majority of the time, with some transponders pulling in 100% at times. Like you, I am in Edmonton and have a 20" dish with a quad Legacy LNB setup. I'm not sure if anyone else here has one or has an opinion on them, but I'm a believer for sure.
 
In My old house the rain didn't seem to effect the satellite signal as much as it does in my new house. I had satellite service in the old house from 97 to about 2002 and service from 2003 to present in the new house. The old house the dish was located on the peak of the roof which was probably 18 feet off the ground. The new house the dish is on the roof of the garage about 10feet off the ground. Subjectively rain didn't seem to effect the dish as much as it does in the new house. Light rain showers seem to take the dish out whereas in the old house light rains didn't phase it. I've had an installer out to double check the signal strength and they say it is good ie normal.

Thoughts?

thanks,
Brendin
 
Light rain in your area should not affect signal too much.

Remember that heavy rain between you and the satellite will affect you, even though there is little or no rain locally.

Also as Express Vu only have one uplink station, heavy rain in Scarborough will affect all 1.8 million customers.....
 
I just called Bell yesterday and told them I was moving (I didn't tell them when I actually did move.. I just did the install myself) so that they would install a new dish and LNB because I thought my LNB was failing. It was down to 55% signal and seemed to be dropping over the last month. Maybe I jumped the gun if you are saying that they are moving satellites around. Oh well..;)
 
Wether the dish is near the ground or 20' up on the roof, the difference compared to the satellite distance is trivial.
And the amount of rain fade will be identical.
The difference is likely the passage of time and as the Nimiq fleet ages and the power drops, so to does the margin required to fend off rain fade.

Is it possible that station keeping the bird flying in the 'box' is more difficult with a near end of service satellite?
I Dunno, maybe some Telesat folks could comment.

As they pack more stations into any given transponder, has the FEC rate changed?
Are there now LESS bits available for error correction as they are now consumed with video payload at the expense of a correctable viewable signal?
 
ToberMoron if your adress i already been changed to the new one it s very unlikely that they will accept...if it wasn't, then good for you, they will send you a tech to fix your issue.
 
As satellites age, they don't necessarily become harder to maintain in their 'box'. But what does tend to happen is they may operate the satellite in what is called an inclined orbit. Basically, this makes the box slightly larger resulting in fewer station keeping maneuvers and conserving fuel, thus extending the life of the satellite. (Most satellites don't die because of lasck of power of failed equipment, they just run out of gas. Telesat actually has a very good reputation for being able to operate their satellite well beyond their designed life).

In most circumstances, this inclined orbit won;t make that big of a difference, particularly for DTH services where a small dish is being used. But if your dish was peaked while the satellite(s) was at one of its extremes rather than at the centre of the box, it could be more prone to signal fluctuations and rain fade outages. The times that the satellites are at or near the centre of the box are available on Telesat's website if you're interested in what time would be good to peak your dish.

If you're really interested, orbital predicts for pretty much any satellite are publicly available on the internet in the form of two line element sets.

Alternatively, they may have had to back off the power in order to maintain all the channels due to the somewhat well known power issues that a couple of their satellites have experienced.

I have no idea what exactly is casuing this specifically...just relating a couple of plausible explanations.

Personally, I've experienced more rain fade since I moved as well, but I went from a single 18" looking at 91, to a 20" looking at 82. Pretty much any dish that is set-up to look at more than one satellite at a time is a bit of a compromise.
 
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