# How often do you REALLY lose your signal?



## splendorlex (Jul 16, 2012)

It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


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## Xsabresx (Oct 8, 2007)

It takes some pretty heavy rain for me to lose my signal. How often? That is hard to say because I get less rain than someone in IL. Having said that, if the dish is peaked properly it will take a lot for the signal to go out.


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## raott (Nov 23, 2005)

"splendorlex" said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


If there is a thunderstorm or heavy rain between you and the satellites, you are going to lose signal. It's just an issue with the tech you have to deal with. I lost signal last night for about 20 minutes during a severe t-storm. With that said, I'd be willing to bet my outages due to rain or storms is less than a typical cable outage in my area.

There are a few people who claim to have not lost signal through hurricanes. Personally, I don't buy it for a minute and clearly, the hurricane was not sitting over them.

You can still watch recorded programs unless you power goes out. Ie last night, power went out for about 10 seconds. The DVR would not work until signal was restored.


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## dondude32 (Apr 3, 2003)

Southwest Florida we lose our signal all the time. During the summer as much as 3 times a week. Doesn't last long .


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Due to changing weather patterns where I live rain fade has increased slightly. The approaching storm patterns are directly in my dish's los. Snow fade only occurs with wet, heavy snow.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

In my old location hail and wet snow collecting on the dish were the only times.

I moved last fall and have had only one since. I checked the weather RADAR and there was a orange/red cell passing to the south. Lasted less than 20 mins.

Yes you can watch recordings while this is happening, but if you lose power, you might not be able to.

I did some testing last week with a AIM meter to try to find out more about rainfade and ways to reduce it.

It turned out the only thing is to maximize the SNR/CNR output from the LNB. There are slight variations between LNBs, but really dish alignment for the highest SNR/CNR is all that can be done.


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## BennyGregg (Jul 17, 2009)

First, my signal strength readings are excellent.

We lose signal during thunderstorms, the sort of storms that are very intense; the outages last from 5 to 20 minutes. This happens a half dozen times a year or so.

I find that switching to SD versions of HD channels eliminates or shortens the outage in some cases.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BennyGregg said:


> First, my signal strength readings are excellent.
> 
> We lose signal during thunderstorms, the sort of storms that are very intense; the outages last from 5 to 20 minutes. This happens a half dozen times a year or so.
> 
> *I find that switching to SD versions of HD channels eliminates or shortens the outage in some cases.*


The 101 transponders have a higher SNR than those on 99/103 do.


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## Justin23 (Jan 11, 2008)

I live in Orlando with 95+ signal strength. I usually don't have issues with the rain, but I've noticed it's the storms with very dense rainclouds that causes the biggest issue for me. The average down time is only 3-5 minutes. I think the longest one I've ever had in the 4 years with D* is 20 minutes...and that was an "end of the world monsoon" taking place.

I do what someone else mentioned above & switch to the SD channel since HD is more sensitive to rain fade.


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## dondude32 (Apr 3, 2003)

BennyGregg said:


> First, my signal strength readings are excellent.
> 
> We lose signal during thunderstorms, the sort of storms that are very intense; the outages last from 5 to 20 minutes. This happens a half dozen times a year or so.
> 
> I find that switching to SD versions of HD channels eliminates or shortens the outage in some cases.


Thanks for the tip!


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## PK6301 (May 16, 2012)

I lost signal twice in the 2 1/2 months I have had service, Both times due to heavy storms in the area off Lake Erie. But the outage only lasted about 10 minutes. But just in case I keep 2 or 3 un-watched programs on the DVR. If not there is always the DVD collection.


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## Go Beavs (Nov 18, 2008)

For me, it's usually 2-3 times a year. Once I realize the signal is gone, I go out on the deck and wipe the heavy snow off the dish with a broom and I'm back in business.

I usually check and dither my dish once a year or so in the summer. It's been working well for me.


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## leier911 (Oct 17, 2006)

Pretty much any time a big storm comes, heavy clouds, heavy rain. So in otherwords, any rain time! Adjustments have been made, etc. and tests, all my signals are high 90s, 96,95, 98, etc. doesn't matter, it still goes to searching for signal for about 5 min then comes back


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## gcd0865 (Jul 23, 2008)

My situation is similar - any time we get a heavy summertime thunderstorm, it goes out for anywhere from a few minutes to 10-15 minutes or so, depending on how long it takes for the heavy storm to move through. Moderate (non-thunderstorm) rain, at any time of the year, doesn't ever seem to knock it out. Neither does heavy snowfall. Maybe twice a year, we'll get wet snow that sticks to the dish and blocks reception, but I just brush off the dish and it's fine. Whenever I lose the signal, I just switch over to the antenna and watch something OTA for a while (like the storm report on a local channel). My clear-weather signal strengths are in the 90's, so my dish is pretty well aligned/peaked.


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## jordanhallmann (Apr 23, 2012)

You should get your dish realigned. Mine used to go out all the time when it rained but last night we had a real bad thunderstorm with very heavy rain and my dish was peaked and I did not loose signal for one second.


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## joes87 (Jun 6, 2007)

I loose HD signal about 6 or 7 times a year during real bad storms or snow. Normally it only lasts for a few minutes. Most of the time I can still get the standard def channels in so its not a big deal. I would say total LOS is 3 times a year and then its only for a few minutes.


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## shuye (Oct 20, 2008)

During very heavy rainstorms, we lose our signal for a few minutes. I would say it happens maybe 2-3 times a month during the spring and summer.

One thing that I am glad to have done is get a battery backup on all of our receivers - that way, if we lose power briefly, we don't have to wait for the receiver to reset it self and go through the self check procedure which can take a few minutes and can seem like forever if it happens during a show or sporting event that you are watching.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

In the downpour we had yesterday, I know I would have lost signal. It doesn't affect me all that often, maybe once every 2-3 months or less, usually not lasting long. Of course there are likely times I did lose signal, but didn't notice it because nothing was recording, etc.

Generally, SD is a bit more resilient than HD.


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## splendorlex (Jul 16, 2012)

Thanks all, I'm still trying to weigh my options for the new house we're moving into in a couple weeks. It's either Comcast or DirecTV. I like the DVR and picture quality of DTV, but I have found Comcast pretty darn reliable in my area, if there are outages they can easily last more than 20 minutes, but they are rare. 

Pricing is honestly a bit of a tossup. The full boat on DTV will run me under $60 the first 3 months, but then into the 80s per after that, higher still in year 2. I would still have to get Comcast for internet in any case, which is $30 the first 6 months. Just getting the full boat for TV and Internet through Comcast will run me $158 a month for the first year.

Decisions, decisions.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

A good installer needs to take a few steps more than the minimum to align the dish.
The AIM has a guided alignment, followed by a IV test, which is fairly critical for SNR on all the SATs. This is good, but to get the best rainfade resistance, the tech should look at the 99 & 103 SATs to make sure their SNR is the highest it can be.
Some don't have meters that can read the 99 & 103, so they do their best [or not], but don't leave the job done as well as it can be, which may end up with more rainfade than there could be.

I found my best 99/103 SNR was within 2 turns of the fine adjusters.


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## Richard (Apr 24, 2002)

For me, it's not so much the rain, but the position and make up of the storm clouds producing the rain. if a storm comes in from the North, I don't lose signal, but if it comes from the south, I almost always get at least some signal interference, no matter if it actually rains or not.


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## GBFAN (Nov 13, 2006)

The storms that rolled through Illinois last night were pretty wicked. I almost never watch live programing so I really didn't notice if we lost signal or not.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Richard said:



> For me, it's not so much the rain, but the position and make up of the storm clouds producing the rain. if a storm comes in from the North, I don't lose signal, but if it comes from the south, I almost always get at least some signal interference, no matter if it actually rains or not.


It has to be in the slant angle between the dish and the SAT, so we're all looking South, and what's north doesn't matter.


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## maartena (Nov 1, 2010)

In the 2 years I have had DirecTV, I have never ever lost my signal. At least, not that I have noticed.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

maartena said:


> In the 2 years I have had DirecTV, I have never ever lost my signal. At least, not that I have noticed.


And of course, this has nothing to do with it: Location: SoCal! :lol:


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## snowcat (May 29, 2007)

I am like most of you. I lose it in heavy rain for 5 to 20 minutes. It happens only a few times a year, and during that time I just switch to my antenna and watch local channels (or use the DVR).

I had it happen with Dish as well. It's just physics.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

Living in a tropical area, for the rainy season (now), lose signal briefly for 5 mins or so. Happens 1x a week on average but the rain has to be very heavy. OTA is very important to me as a workaround.

I know Comcast makes a big deal out of this in their ads, but they neglect to say when they go out, its for hours at a time.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

I live in Seattle. While we get a lot of rain, it is very seldom heavy thunderstorm type rain. I have only lost signal to rain/storm once that I can remember in over 10 years with DirecTV. I usually have one or two instances each winter with signal loss due to wet snow accumulation on the dish, but I can reach it and brush it off so it isn't an issue.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

When I lived in MI and had Dish I would lose it maybe once a month in the summer, never lost it in the winter. I recently moved to SW FL and now lose it a couple times a week during this summer. About half the time I just lose HD and the other lose both HD and SD. The dish has been double checked for alignment.


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## SledgeHammer (Dec 28, 2007)

I like in So Cal. Have had DTV since 2002 and have lost signal ONCE due to weather.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

HD: when it is a good amount of rain falling
SD: When it pours, and even then not a lot. I remember I ordered a fight several years ago on ppv. It poured down rain from start to finish. Never lost signal during the actual event. The pregame show, lost a lot of that. Made me think somehow the signal can adjust to the rain in the area if given enough time. But that sounds even too high tech for now.


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## PK6301 (May 16, 2012)

Living near Lake Erie we once lost signal during the Steelers playoff game.. (not a good thing when you live in Steeler country ) !danger:

I laughed Im a Packer Fan


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## Old_School (Nov 29, 2011)

Wow.. in 32 posts no mention or recommends of a dish heater..... i have one and have never had a issue with snow or loosing signal from snow.

Yesterday we had a massive cell come thought my area (red and pink on the radar) ripping winds, heavy down pours and 1" hail... lost both Directv and my internet from Comcast. 

Directv was down for about 1 1/2 minutes, Comcast was down till about 10:30 this morning!:eek2:


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## splendorlex (Jul 16, 2012)

DirecTV ordered, we'll see how it goes. I went with the top end STB.


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## apinkel (May 28, 2004)

veryoldschool said:


> A good installer needs to take a few steps more than the minimum to align the dish.
> The AIM has a guided alignment, followed by a IV test, which is fairly critical for SNR on all the SATs. This is good, but to get the best rainfade resistance, the tech should look at the 99 & 103 SATs to make sure their SNR is the highest it can be.
> Some don't have meters that can read the 99 & 103, so they do their best [or not], but don't leave the job done as well as it can be, which may end up with more rainfade than there could be.
> 
> I found my best 99/103 SNR was within 2 turns of the fine adjusters.


Is this something that I can do without any special signal meters i.e. have one person at the DVR checking signal levels a second person can adjust the dish?

I think my install took longer than my installer anticipated so I think he rushed the aim a bit... I'd had DTV in the past and had minimal outages during storms... it's far worse with this installation.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

apinkel said:


> Is this something that I can do without any special signal meters i.e. have one person at the DVR checking signal levels a second person can adjust the dish?
> 
> I think my install took longer than my installer anticipated so I think he rushed the aim a bit... I'd had DTV in the past and had minimal outages during storms... it's far worse with this installation.


Yes.
Before I had the use of the meter, I needed to make some changes to my dish as I upgraded from the SWiM LNB to a SWiM-16.
I moved a receiver and TV so I could see it from the dish. I set the receiver to show signal levels and the meter display. I adjusted the dish while checking the 99 SAT.

When I got the meter I checked and found I'd gotten it centered.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

NR4P said:


> Living in a tropical area, for the rainy season (now), lose signal briefly for 5 mins or so. Happens 1x a week on average but the rain has to be very heavy. OTA is very important to me as a workaround.
> 
> I know Comcast makes a big deal out of this in their ads, but they neglect to say when they go out, its for hours at a time.


Oh, darn. I just lost Comcast internet for an hour, and it's restored now. I should have tested to see if their TV signal was out as well. (no box, just the unscrambled channels).

I lose signal, noticeably, once or twice a year. Less than internet going down or slowing to a crawl.


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## Satelliteracer (Dec 6, 2006)

splendorlex said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


One time a year, maybe twice for a few minutes tops. So. Cal has it's advantages.

Let me put it this way, I lose my Time Warner cable broadband service probably 4 to 5 times a year and it has nothing to do with weather.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"splendorlex" said:


> DirecTV ordered, we'll see how it goes. I went with the top end STB.


HR34?


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

splendorlex said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were *some fairly big storms last night*, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


Yep, big nasty storms do knock out the signal for a short period. The same storms also take out power line and cable tv. Their restoral is not as quick as DirecTV.


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## sweep49 (Jul 15, 2008)

Maybe 6-7 times a year. Not a big deal. Have ota available for the major networks which can help sometimes plus the dvr. If the power goes off here it's probably time to crawl into the closet and pray.


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

We've had lots of rain so far this year. Probably 4-5 times since May. But it is almost always a very heavy thunderstorm with lots of lightening. So I'm usually powering down/unplugging my electronics just in case.


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## Retro (Nov 27, 2007)

I'm in Southwest Louisiana and we get a lot of rain including tropical storms and of course the occasional hurricane... It has to be a heavy downpour and primarily the storm has to be building from the south to go out.. It rained every day last week for a least a couple of hours and no loss of signal that i was aware of. It's rare and usually short.

Back in 2007, Hurricane Ike grazed us from the southwest with mostly rain and Hurricane Gutsav grazed us from the east with mostly wind around 70 mph gusts and we didn't lose power or signal at all.

I really get annoyed by those cable commercials that act like it goes out everytime it rains everywhere.


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## splendorlex (Jul 16, 2012)

dpeters11 said:


> HR34?


Yes, the Media Center one that I had to pay $100 up front for.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Satelliteracer said:


> One time a year, maybe twice for a few minutes tops. So. Cal has it's advantages.
> 
> Let me put it this way, I lose my Time Warner cable broadband service probably 4 to 5 times a year and it has nothing to do with weather.


I have the same issues with Time Warner.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Retro said:


> I'm in Southwest Louisiana and we get a lot of rain including tropical storms and of course the occasional hurricane... It has to be a heavy downpour and primarily the storm has to be building from the south to go out.. It rained every day last week for a least a couple of hours and no loss of signal that i was aware of. It's rare and usually short.
> 
> Back in 2007, Hurricane Ike grazed us from the southwest with mostly rain and Hurricane Gutsav grazed us from the east with mostly wind around 70 mph gusts and we didn't lose power or signal at all.
> 
> I really get annoyed by those cable commercials that act like it goes out everytime it rains everywhere.


Heh. Me too.

I wonder if they show those commercials in, say, Scottsdale?


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## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

I live in Central Florida halfway between Orlando and Tampa...Winter Haven to be specific.

My dish is well peaked. I will lose signal if there is a heavy storm with tall thunderheaders to the southwest of my location. The duration is usually betwween 2 and5 minutes, sometimes longer. It depends on size and movement of the storm cell.

Oddly enough, I sometimes lose my signal as the storm is moving toward me and lies to the southwest, and then by the time it is actually on top of me my signal has returned because most of the interfering weather is not between the satellites and my dish.

And as others have pointed out, I can be experiencing an outage on HD channels and then tune in an SD signal successfully.

But I would bet that over the course of a year I experience less than 60 minutes total of weather related outage time.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

HarleyD said:


> I live in Central Florida halfway between Orlando and Tampa...Winter Haven to be specific.
> 
> My dish is well peaked. I will lose signal if there is a heavy storm with tall thunderheaders to the southwest of my location. The duration is usually betwween 2 and5 minutes, sometimes longer. It depends on size and movement of the storm cell.
> 
> ...


DirecTV really tries to make you "the center of their world":


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## pistolpete52 (Sep 3, 2010)

Living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, we get rain pretty much every afternoon. And I generally lose my signal every time that it does rain. Most of the time, it's for a few minutes, but I've also had signal losses that have lasted 30 plus minutes.


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## TheDurk (Mar 8, 2007)

I lose signal in summer thunderstorms. That can be twice, or a dozen times depending on the summer. Probably three times this year so far--it takes the yellow/red stuff on the radar, just rain won't do it. It is usually out for 5-20 minutes. I never lost signal during Hurricane Irene last year but it was breaking up by the time it got up here.


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## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> DirecTV really tries to make you "the center of their world":
> 
> View attachment 29623


I remain in geosynchronous orbit around the things that matter to me and I am a legend in my own mind.


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## SteveHas (Feb 7, 2007)

Here in the Boston area, we loose our signal very rarely honestly. Perhaps 2-3 times a year, and only when a very very strong rain, or heavy snow is _*approaching*_. Once the storm is overhead signal returns. 
On the rare occasion we loose it is for a very very short time, maybe 5 minutes max. In fact we have come to appreciate the "Storm warning" aspect of the brief outage as it warns us something big is coming.
Yet another reason why the lies the cable companies like to spread about satellite TV really pi$$ me off.
*
Big factor however is how strong is your signal in normal conditions, and how well did the installer aim the dish.*
I have signal strength on the high 90's, or 100, on nearly all transponders.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

Just south of Lansing, MI we lose signal maybe 2-3 times per year and only during very heavy storms/cloud cover.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

splendorlex said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


I live in California so we very seldom get heavy rain. I lost the signal once for about five minutes in over four years use.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

HarleyD said:


> I remain in geosynchronous orbit around the things that matter to me and I am a legend in my own mind.


Heh, like so many of us here. But you're the first I've seen to admit it!


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

Very rare that i louse signal and i haven't alined the dish in over two years.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

billsharpe said:


> I live in California so we very seldom get heavy rain. I lost the signal once for about five minutes in over four years use.


about the same time you've had any rain too. :lol:


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

1. Any time there are strong thunderstorms to the south, interrupting the line-of-site between my dish and the satellite, we will have short (a few minutes) outages. This is normal for Iowa. These losses show up on HD channels first. When we have strong storms, once a week, we lose a couple minutes here and there, once a week. If we have more storms, we have more outages. Lately, we've been in a drought, so there have been very few storms. 

2. Heavy wet snow build up on the dish itself requires a broom (our dishes are both low), will cause an outage, but is fixable with a broom.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Below is a typical daily storm that comes through. Look in the Cape Coral area (SWFL) and see the storm that moved through around 7PM. That cell caused me to lose HD for about 10 min and SD for about 1 min. Something like this happens 3 or 4 times a week.

http://radblast-sf.wunderground.com...843199&DELAY=30&delay=20&width=640&height=480


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## LOBO2999 (Apr 9, 2004)

I know this sounds crazy , but I rarely lost my single until I got any in house Directv HR recivers, I have 3 . The units I had ( still HAve one hook up) where Tivos , HD and SD units . I still have one of the Tivos on my account and everytime I loose single or Picture I go to the room with the Tivo and check both tuners and channels and they are never out , when the other 3 HR recivers are . Why , I dont know ,Maybe someone here does. I have always had in the 93 to 95 single range .


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

LOBO2999 said:


> I know this sounds crazy , but I rarely lost my single until I got any in house Directv HR recivers, ... .


The reason is because your Tivo units are only using signal from 101 while the HR's are primarily using 99 and 103. The difference between Ka and Ku is significant when it comes to rain fade.

I lost signal about a week ago due to a severe storm. My HD channels were gone completely, yet SD on a simple D11 receiver remained almost the entire time (I did have a very brief outage of those also, but not near as long as the HD).


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LOBO2999 said:


> I know this sounds crazy , but I rarely lost my single until I got any in house Directv HR recivers, I have 3 . The units I had ( still HAve one hook up) where Tivos , HD and SD units . I still have one of the Tivos on my account and everytime I loose single or Picture I go to the room with the Tivo and check both tuners and channels and they are never out , when the other 3 HR recivers are . Why , I dont know ,Maybe someone here does. I have always had in the 93 to 95 single range .


Your Tivos are MPEG-2, so they're only getting the Ku signals, which are less affected by rainfade than the higher frequency Ka signals, used for MPEG-4 HD.


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## Fateswarning (Jun 25, 2012)

I won't be up and running until Monday but my next door neighbor has had D* for two years and hasn't noticed any dropped signal.

We live in San Diego so...


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## tvropro (Nov 3, 2010)

I loose signal every time we have a big rain storm roll through here. It will go out before the rain event when the dark clouds roll in. Sometimes it comes back when the rain starts to die down but if it picks up it goes back out. Sometimes the storm ends and its still out for a bit. Been like that since the day I got Direct. We had a massive storm roll through here that evening. 

Using a 90 cm dish peaked to the max helps a bit with moderate downpour but not all that much when the attenuation is high due to the cloud cover with, moisture and scatter of the signal due to it. 

What it really boils down to is where your located, what angle the storm comes in from and it's intensity. 

Ku and Ka bands were never designed for 100% rain fade free operation due to the frequency's. Ka (HD) is 3 times worse than ku (SD) with attenuation. 

Another thing most people don't know is the fec and the modulation that is being used plays a roll also. Direct use very little error correction (6/7) on the SD channels to try to stretch the bandwidth. On HD they use mpeg 4 8psk, it requires more signal than mpeg 2 does. Using ka and mpeg 4 are two strikes against reliability for HD. They would do better to use 3/4 fec on SD for the rain fade problem but then the picture would be worse than it is now since the data would be used for more error correction that would tolerate the loss of signal better . You can only cram so much data in a transponder it has to be used for one thing or another. Over compression has always been a problem with small dish DTH satellite providers.


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## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

Rarely do I lose signal. It takes an orange/red/purple rain event either over me or slightly to the SW for it to happen. But my signals are dead on with most over 95.

Now here is the funny thing. Next door neighbor has a son who is a DirecTV installer. Husband wants DirecTV, but wife is so afraid of rain fade. She has to be able to watch TV before bed. Husband travels a lot, so he gave up trying so they have cable.

Backup to last month's Derecho storm. I had TV back as soon as the generator was up and running. She was without cable for 4 days AFTER the power came back on so a total of 11 days. See why I am willing to deal with a little rain fade.


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## EdL (Sep 1, 2007)

Bellevue/Omaha, NE - For 10 to 30 minutes whenever there is a thunder storm, which can be everyday in the spring. The snows not the problem, I had the dish installed on a pole so I can just brush the build up off.


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## kevinwmsn (Aug 19, 2006)

I've had D* since 2006, and it usually holds up well till the summer thunderstorms hit. I have lost signal every day for the past 6 days. I'm in the raining season, while most of the country is in a drought. Before SWM it would stay out longer. The key is to have a backup plan, be sure to check SD version of channel, SD is better than nothing at all, or OTA. I have UPS on my DVRs to handle the quick power blips that is more annoying, but the UPS avoids 10 min reboots of the boxes. Anyone living on the gulf coast will tell you will go down for a few minutes to 15 min vs being down hours/days at a time with cable. There were plenty of upset cable subsribers that were mad when their cable went out during the national championship game and there wasn't any weather problems.


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## tulanejosh (May 23, 2008)

only in very heavy storms. And generally - I don't even notice because we watch so much dvr content and so few things live. I do have an OTA hooked up to the tv just in case we need to get some info about a particularly severe set of thunderstorms, but honestly never use it. Internet weather will do just fine in that instance.


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## jimbo56 (Nov 13, 2007)

In Buffalo, with a well-peaked dish, I only lost signal a few times a year during rainstorms, usually only lasting a couple of minutes or so. Heavy snow accumulating on the dish would cause signal loss, but the dish is located low enough where I could just brush it off easily.

Signal loss is a virtual non-factor in deciding whether or not to sign up for DirecTV, regardless of what the cable companies try to tell you


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Yesterday's outage near Cape Coral, lost HD twice for a total of 20 minutes, lost SD once for 5 minutes.

http://radblast-sf.wunderground.com...929599&DELAY=30&delay=20&width=640&height=480


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## Earguy (May 14, 2012)

I got DirecTV in March, with a direct line of sight to the sky. I get rain fade EVERY time it rains, and often when it's _threatening_ to rain. It's not what I was promised when I subscribed.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

"Earguy" said:


> I got DirecTV in March, with a direct line of sight to the sky. I get rain fade EVERY time it rains, and often when it's threatening to rain. It's not what I was promised when I subscribed.


Sound like an alignment issue.


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## Guesst925XTU (Jan 29, 2004)

About 10 - 20 times per year but most of those times it is for less than three minutes.

Last time I got "searching for satellite signal" for longer than three minutes was during the recent derecho. (We got wind gusts in excess of 70mph and a rainfall rate of about 2 inches per hour for several hours.) The DirecTV signal was in-and-out all night. Comcast was out on my street for four days as a result of this storm (trees took out some wires).


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Earguy said:


> I got DirecTV in March, with a direct line of sight to the sky. I get rain fade EVERY time it rains, and often when it's _threatening_ to rain. It's not what I was promised when I subscribed.


There is something very wrong with your system, probably alignment of the dish. In the midwest, where we get strong (and usually frequent, but not this year) thunderstorms to the south of us, we will have short (5 or so minutes, sometimes 10) outages associated with these thunderstorms. Rain in the immediate location of the dish never produces signal loss here. It has to be line of sight between the dish and the sat itself (elevation approximately 40 degrees), and contain a ton of water (red to orange on the radar). Blue or green on the radar does not result in signal loss.

If you are losing signal when it is merely raining on you, you have other problems. Either the alignment is awful, or you have bad connections. In any case, something is killing the signal and what you report is not normal. You need a truck roll.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

I get a signal loss during strong storm fronts that come across daily sometimes in the summer in Florida. But it is rare that I get a blank part in a recording due to an interruption.
But I also do not record or watch daytime tv..


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## JcT21 (Nov 30, 2004)

HD goes out when a strong storm comes through, but its never over a minute or two. however the SD is rarely ever out. when the HD is out, SD has always worked just fine. the only time i recall SD being out was when i had a few inches of snow on my dish last winter. but complete loss of signal, both HD & SD wont even total 20 minutes a year.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

3x today it went out on ESPN while Watching the British Open.

First 2 times the SD feed hung in there but the third time lost both feeds when Adam Scott was putting on the 18th. Just as he lined up the putt, lost the HD and SD feeds. By the time it came back, he had missed it and lost the tourney. Worst timing possible.

Very disturbing....

BTW these were very quick dense squalls. During good weather mid-90 sat readings on 99 and 103 national feeds.


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## TXD16 (Oct 30, 2008)

shuye said:


> During very heavy rainstorms, we lose our signal for a few minutes. I would say it happens maybe 2-3 times a month during the spring and summer.


A very accurate description and probably why SE Texas may very well lead the nation in purchases of AM21s! 



shuye said:


> One thing that I am glad to have done is get a battery backup on all of our receivers - that way, if we lose power briefly, we don't have to wait for the receiver to reset it self and go through the self check procedure which can take a few minutes and can seem like forever if it happens during a show or sporting event that you are watching.


As you have discovered, in this part of the country, UPSs are more of a necessity than an option.


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## Earguy (May 14, 2012)

hasan said:


> There is something very wrong with your system, probably alignment of the dish. In the midwest, where we get strong (and usually frequent, but not this year) thunderstorms to the south of us, we will have short (5 or so minutes, sometimes 10) outages associated with these thunderstorms. Rain in the immediate location of the dish never produces signal loss here. It has to be line of sight between the dish and the sat itself (elevation approximately 40 degrees), and contain a ton of water (red to orange on the radar). Blue or green on the radar does not result in signal loss.
> 
> If you are losing signal when it is merely raining on you, you have other problems. Either the alignment is awful, or you have bad connections. In any case, something is killing the signal and what you report is not normal. You need a truck roll.


But in good weather my signals are good. Will a call accomplish anything?


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Without a dish heater, I can lose signal once or twice in the early and late winter if we get a sloppy ice/snow storm.

Peace,
Tom


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Earguy said:


> But in good weather my signals are good. Will a call accomplish anything?


Are you sure your signals are "good" in good weather? (you need to run a test and post the numbers, unless you already did that and I missed it)

If your signal levels really are "good", then you have a cable/connector problem and they would find that out with a truck roll.

There is no way you should lose signal every time it rains, no matter how lightly. Rain fade should be the exception, not the rule.


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## bjlc (Aug 20, 2004)

the longest I ever lost signal was one night two years ago in a snow storm.. about an hour.. until the snow slid off the dish.. I have found that if you change channels too much , that receiver wont boot up as fast as one that has remained on one channel, or that was the case with my old receivers.. I haven't had too much outage since I have been up graded and had my dish realigned. and we had no winter here last year. no winter at all. with my old receivers.. if you tried to change channels and couldn't find a working one, I found that I had to reboot the whole receiver while other receivers in the house worked just fine..


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hasan said:


> Are you sure your signals are "good" in good weather? (you need to run a test and post the numbers, unless you already did that and I missed it)
> 
> If your signal levels really are "good", then you have a cable/connector problem and they would find that out with a truck roll.
> 
> There is no way you should lose signal every time it rains, no matter how lightly. Rain fade should be the exception, not the rule.


The software has improvements for the system test that would give dish alignment error, and re-running the SAT setup mimics the IV install test, where if the power level, and SNR aren't as good as they should be, it will indicate which SATs and even and/or odd TPs that fail.

While the percentage screens are a good indication, they're improved tests now.


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## EKrimmer (Mar 21, 2008)

Here in Southern California storms are not so much the issue but the Santa Ana winds. We live at the base of a pass where the winds can get funneled to sustained 45 mph with gust even higher - often for several days on end. In 12 years with DTV we've lost signal perhaps 4 times to the point that an installer had to come out to reallign as the winds managed to simply move the dish that much.

I thought the mount was solid until I saw how the last installer redid everything. It's been problem-free for over a year now.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Lost HD for about 5 minutes around 3pm ET

http://radblast-sf.wunderground.com...015999&DELAY=30&delay=20&width=640&height=480


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Here in North Texas, we lose signal two or three times a month during peak storm season. I can look at the weather radar and estimate exactly when it will happen - just look for the red storm center and estimate when it will be between me and the satellites. My signals are as high as you will ever see - 95+ on 99c/103ca/103cb. 99/100 on my locals. 

There are lots of statistics developed over the years by people who are concerned with satellite communications (not TV) that model the attenuation you get in different parts of the world. In the USA, North/East Texas, southern Oklahoma and Florida are by far the worst locations for "rain fade". In other states, you can get heavy rain but it often does not attenuate the signals enough to lose reception. 

"Rain fade" will always be worse on HD channels than on SD, because of the frequencies of the signals. The rain drops inside the storm clouds reflect more of the signal at HD frequencies so you lose the signal earlier and for longer.

So if you start getting 771s on HD channels, select the SD version if it is available and you may still get good reception.


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## maartena (Nov 1, 2010)

veryoldschool said:


> And of course, this has nothing to do with it: Location: SoCal! :lol:


Of course it has 

No snow in winter. But we do get an occasional rain storm from time to time, but even in the heaviest rain a few months ago I never lost signal.


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## Barry in Conyers (Jan 14, 2008)

I don't have much problem with "just" rain, but significant thunderstorms to the southwest will knock out HD just about every time for a few seconds up to 10-15 minutes depending on the strength of the storms. Thunderstorms in Atlanta can be substantial and mostly come from the southwest, so a loss of signal is a warning to shut things down. Just a guess, but probably about 10-12 interruptions of 5 minutes or longer this year (a dry year so far).

Not complaining / blaming DirecTV, just truthfully answering the question that the OP asked.


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## war59312 (Jul 17, 2012)

Mine has not gone out yet on me during the 3+ weeks I have now had DirecTV.

Then again that's mainly because I am using a 900w UPS (CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD).

My 900w UPS can power my entire setup for over half an hour.

Power has gone out about 10 times (less than 5mins each time) in the last three weeks due to weather.

Even with the bad weather the dish continued to function correctly. Even without power, thanks to UPS.


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## gwade (Aug 31, 2008)

Lost signal once for about a minute since 1996. Of course I live in sunny California.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

war59312 said:


> Mine has not gone out yet on me during the 3+ weeks I have now had DirecTV.
> 
> Then again that's mainly because I am using a 900w UPS (CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD).
> 
> ...


It would be relevant to know where you are.

Also, the query is about losing signal, not power!


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## KevetS (Jan 30, 2006)

We're in Michigan and hardly ever lose signal. Usually only happens with really wet snow.


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## Skyboss (Jan 22, 2004)

splendorlex said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


3 times in over 10 years. Cable was less reliable.


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## perkolater (Sep 6, 2006)

Just north east of Orlando we lost signal completely 3 times yesterday afternoon/evening between 5 and 6:00. The first two times lasted maybe 30 seconds each, then the third time we lost it for about 20 minutes. The storm that came through dumped about 3 inches of rain in my rain gauge in about 45 minutes so it was quite a wash out. I was actually surprised the signal came back when it did.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

"KevetS" said:


> We're in Michigan and hardly ever lose signal. Usually only happens with really wet snow.


Ironically enough, I lost signal for a few minutes yesterday am as a small (but dense) rain cloud passed by. First time this year that I noticed a signal loss.


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## crkeehn (Apr 23, 2002)

splendorlex said:


> It seems that any time I bring this up with folks I know who have DirecTV, they insist they rarely, if ever, lose their signal due to storms or whatnot. So I'm currently living with my sister in law while we wait to close on our house, and they just got DirecTV 2 weeks ago. There were some fairly big storms last night, and don't ya know it we lost the signal. So, try to be honest, how often does it happen? Also, when you lose signal, I'm assuming you can still watch recorded programming.


Recently, every afternoon. We have been plagued with extremely high temperatures resulting in severe thunderstorms, some of the recent downpours have been almost solid sheets of water (it seems that way :eek2: ) I have lost the SD signal for 1/2 to 1 hour, I suspect the HD will suffer even longer outages. Prerecorded material will play. This has been an unusual series of events for Raleigh. I can't remember any other time since I've been here that we've had so many and so regular a thunderstorm pattern.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

perkolater said:


> Just north east of Orlando we lost signal completely 3 times yesterday afternoon/evening between 5 and 6:00. The first two times lasted maybe 30 seconds each, then the third time we lost it for about 20 minutes. The storm that came through dumped about 3 inches of rain in my rain gauge in about 45 minutes so it was quite a wash out. I was actually surprised the signal came back when it did.


Fairly typical experience for your area (and mine!).


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## fleckrj (Sep 4, 2009)

veryoldschool said:


> DirecTV really tries to make you "the center of their world":
> 
> View attachment 29623


I live within the same contour as Florida (but just barely). It all depends on the direction from which the storm comes and the height of the thunderheads. I am one of those who claims that I did not lose signal during a hurricane, and that is true. We got about 10 inches of rain (not to mention sustained winds of about 80 mph), but we were on the southwestern edge of the storm. The bulk of the high clouds were not in the path to the satellite. Of course, during the worst of these, we lost power for four days, so I have no idea of what happened after the power went out, but we did not lose signal before we lost power. After the power was restored, the TWC customers still did not have cable, but I had DirecTV.

We have had some really strong but spotty storms this summer, with the tops of the clouds reaching more than 55,000 feet. When the storms are to the southwest, even if we are not getting rain at our house, we lose the signal for short periods (usually no more than 5 minutes). If the storm is directly overhead or from any location other than southwest, we do not lose signal, regardless of how much rain we have at our location. Last night, we had 2 inches of rain, but no loss of signal. The night before, we had no rain, but lost the signal for about 5 minutes as a storm moved south of us.


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## Podkayne (Nov 1, 2007)

My installation is about 4 years old; I get an outage seemingly with every heavy rain. We have learned to expect it.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

Either with every thunderstorm or rarely during a wet, heavy snow. It doesn't have to be raining to lose the signal -- in fact it's a good indication it's about to pour.


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## Garyunc (Oct 8, 2006)

bobcamp1 said:


> Either with every thunderstorm or rarely during a wet, heavy snow. It doesn't have to be raining to lose the signal -- in fact it's a good indication it's about to pour.


+1

I know when a heavy rain is coming before it arrives  SD will also go out for me if it is raining really hard.

Lost my signal for 4 hours yesterday due to a power outage :lol:


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## amh84 (Apr 19, 2010)

During monsoon season in AZ, the signal goes out only during the heaviest of rains. With moderate rainfall we get increased pixelation and rarely a short (<10 sec.) outage or two. 

Oddly, when it snowed here in January we didn't lose signal at all.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

bobcamp1 said:


> Either with every thunderstorm or rarely during a wet, heavy snow. It doesn't have to be raining to lose the signal -- in fact it's a good indication it's about to pour.


Yes, that's true, as it indicates there is very heavy precip to your south, between your dish and the satellite. Rarely, if ever, is rain heavy enough directly in front of the dish to cause an outage. If you look at your local radar image at the time of a loss (assuming it's current), you can pick out the cells that are causing the problem, quite easily.


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