# Rain Fade



## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

Is Dish Network ever going to make Dish more reliable in the rain?

I've heard the different rebuttals to this objection, so please don't mention install quality etc.

The best rebuttal is to eliminate the objection.

Cable runs off of a dish as well but the cable dish is HUGE and if it is run by a major cable company the service in the rain is always better than dish.

If you believe rain fade is a myth or just a product of poor installs. Walk up and down a street and do a survey and then check the persons install, you will quickly find out that rain fade is not a myth.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

What's your point?


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## DNSFSS (Apr 4, 2008)

twcbrandon said:


> Is Dish Network ever going to make Dish more reliable in the rain?
> 
> I've heard the different rebuttals to this objection, so please don't mention install quality etc.
> 
> ...


Well...install quality is first and foremost, but I won't go there. Sure you wouldn't experience rain fade if you had about 50 10-foot dishes on your property, aimed at different sats for different channels...at least I think that's what you're talking about?

I'd rather have one small dish antenna on my house and see 2 or 3 sats and take the chance of periodic rain fade...


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

twcbrandon said:


> Is Dish Network ever going to make Dish more reliable in the rain?
> 
> I've heard the different rebuttals to this objection, so please don't mention install quality etc.
> 
> ...


put up a big dish like the cable company uses, one for each location you need to pick up and stick a dish lnb out at the end of the arm


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

DOn't feed the troll - 
twcbrandon = Time Warner Cable Brandon....


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

twcbrandon said:


> Cable runs off of a dish as well but the cable dish is HUGE and if it is run by a major cable company the service in the rain is always better than dish.


Funny story: In the six months that I had cable (for internet) I had more DAYS of outages than I have had HOURS with my DISH system over a period of six years. The 'major' cable company involved was Comcast. Not major enough?

While the cable companies have huge dishes they also introduce multiple points of failure ... if an amp goes out it could wipe out a neighborhood or a city. Ice storms bring down arial lines in this part of the country. Drivers can hit junction boxes or poles and take out service everywhere there is cable.

Even if it isn't the cable company's fault the customer still loses the service. I don't care if I lost service for three days because of a faulty amp or an extended power failure. I lost service.

With DISH Network I've never lost service for more than a few minutes. Even when my power is out, I crank up the generator and low and behold the satellite is still beaming service to me. The neighbors crank up their generators and still don't have "cable" TV. Reliability is more than just rain.



> If you believe rain fade is a myth or just a product of poor installs. Walk up and down a street and do a survey and then check the persons install, you will quickly find out that rain fade is not a myth.


You have left open the option of it being a poor install.  I'm not saying satellite will NEVER rain fade ... hopefully cable people won't lie and say cable never fails. But I can say that I have had more problems with cable than satellite. Rough math, satellite is statistically over 300 times more reliable at my house.

Funny story #2 ... but not a major cable operator. Private cable in an apartment I lived in. Smaller system and more reliable than Comcast until the day the snow came and filled their huge satellite DISH. A three day outage that lasted until I walked into the office and convinced the manager to let me clean the dish. It sure is a lot easier to brush off my DISH than a monster ... not that I have had to. My dishes are sheltered under the eves of my house. Try that with a cable company dish. 

The bigger the system the easier it is to take off the air somewhere in a community.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

I have never had cable but, my friends that do speak of outage that last days. That is not a statement that I can understand when speaking of my dish. My dish works most of the time, when the storms are bad enough to knock out my dish, it is usually bad enough to knock out my OTA antenna too. Nothing is perfect but, I do enjoy knowing that if snow does pile up on my dish I can do something about it. That is not the way it is with cable.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

scooper said:


> DOn't feed the troll -
> twcbrandon = Time Warner Cable Brandon....


Nah, you got it all wrong. He's a rep from *T*he *W*eather *C*hannel and he resents people blaming rain fade on rain.


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## RBD-Tx (Dec 21, 2008)

Satellite may suffer from occasional "rain fade" but it is nothing compared to regular cable outages and the near permanent interruption in cable service from a hurricane. In Southeast Texas thunderstorms are frequent and not much of a problem. Cable outages are a whole different story. Dish did not fade during Hurricane Humberto here two years ago. Two days after Hurricane Ike this year, we were back in our house, running Dish by generator. For the unfortunate cable customers, it it was many, many weeks.


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

Just as I excepted people giving REBUTTALS instead of solutions. Just to let you know I use the same rebutalls and more when I'm giving a rebuttal to the RAIN FADE OBJECTION.

I worked for time warner cable for about 4 years in the 90's. Ever since I've been selling Dish and Direct.

Twc is just a username that I've been using since the 90's.

It could stand for texas workforce commission or time warner cable or the weather channel or whatever.

. 

Houston averages 47.9 of rain a year. Houston averages a major hurricane maybe ONCE ever 20 years. Hurricane outages are rare. Rain fade is not rare.

Also, many many many people had to have their DISH realigned, I should know because installers were super busy after the hurricane. In fact my neighbor behind me who has Dish had to wait almost 2 months to get his satellite realigned.

He was without service for almost 2 months. No, I don't do installs so I didn't help him out and it is on a two story roof and I'm wimp afraid of heights.

NOT EVERYONE IN THE USA RECEIVES 47.9 INCHES OF RAIN OR MORE. 

I have worked areas were they receive less than 15 inches of rain and in those areas rain fade is rarely an issue.

If you don't believe rain fade makes people angry, go to Morgan City Louisiana in the summer time and you will experience some serious rain fade.

Better yet FIND the area in the USA that gets the most rain, I'm not talking about a constant drizzle type rain, I'm talking about the thick very dense clouds that linger over your dish and cause it to go out for looooooooooooooong periods.


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## ch3 (Dec 1, 2004)

When I first signed up with Dish 10 years ago, I continued cable (Adelphia) for about 4 years for locals (and later Internet). I have rain fade problems maybe once or twice a year with Dish and it only lasts for 5 or 10 minutes when a big thunderstorm was approaching from the right direction (i.e. south east).

However, cable frequently went out when it rained and the outage lasted for hours or on occasion days, not several minutes.

Fortunately Dish added my locals and cable raised there Internet price to a ridicules level (because I only had basic cable) - I say fortunate, because it made me switch to much less expensive DSL and I was rid of the cable company.


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

Call all the people that have canceled Dish and ask them why they canceled their service if they are in an area of the country that has similiar thunderstorm weather like Houston has, the majority will say they canceled because it went out in the rain.

Call all the people in a city like Los Vegas that canceled and I'm sure you'll get a different answer.

Where do you live? 

If you don't live in a city that gets 47.9 inches of rain a year I don't think you can understand what I'm saying. Seattle gets 36.2 a year on average just to give you a perspective. Also, seattle doesn't get the huge down pours like Houston, seattle usually has a slow steady rain, so that Dish is less likely to go out.

Again is there a solution to make Dish go out less in the rain? I've heard of spraying pam on the dish is that true or just a myth?

Is there any technology that could make the signal stronger etc.?


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

Comcast or time warner. Are the only two major cable companies I've competed against. In Houston.

I know nothing of adelphia, if adelphia is that bad I will be heading that way when the weather warms up to knock on their doors to sell dish.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Wimp.  Got ya beat. Vero Beach averages 51.2 inches of rain per year (including huge downpours like Houston). I don't consider a few (probably under 5 per year) short rain fade incedents to be a serious problem. When Hurricane Jeanne came through here in 2004 I was without power (and cable) for over a week. Once power was back cable was still gone for several days. If I had a generator I could have fired up the satellite dish at anytime. I do have cable internet here and I lost service a couple of weeks ago. It took them 3 days to get a tech out here to find the problem. Three days without service is probably more time than rain fade has caused in several years of dish ownership.

The Pam "solution" is for snow sticking to the dish, not rain fade. Rain fade is caused by the rain between the dish and the satellite, not by rain on the dish surface. The solution to rain fade comes along with the repeal of the laws of physics. Do that and rain fade will go away.


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## BaldEagle (Jun 19, 2006)

I've never experienced rain fade? Have had dish in 3 different homes in the last 10 years and have set up the dish on a tripod in my motorhome in numerous locations (15-20), most in Oregon where it does rain a little, and have never lost a signal in the rain.

What am I doing wrong to miss out on this feature?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

You're obviously not paying the fee. They charge extra for the rain fade option.


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

My experience with cable in Houston is that it almost never goes out at least when I was growing up, it is a big difference in the reliability. 

I used to work for a retailer in Houston and when his satellite would go out in the rain he hated it, because he would always get calls from customers complaining about rain fade.

I've sold customers and then the day it gets installed 5 minutes after the installer is done with the install it starts to pour and customer calls complaining and have even canceled.

I've had situations were a thunderstorm blocks out the service for 15 minutes within the first week of the person getting the dish and the person calls up furious.


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## DNSFSS (Apr 4, 2008)

twcbrandon said:


> Where do you live?
> 
> If you don't live in a city that gets 47.9 inches of rain a year I don't think you can understand what I'm saying. Seattle gets 36.2 a year on average just to give you a perspective. Also, seattle doesn't get the huge down pours like Houston, seattle usually has a slow steady rain, so that Dish is less likely to go out.
> 
> ...


Are you sure you're not *T*he *W*eather *C*hannel Brandon? Don't you find it pretty cool that we have the technology to launch a satellite 22.5k miles into a geosynchronous orbit and be able to spotbeam and broadcast to your house, let alone everybody else in the nation, receiving multiple birds from one dish? Pretty freakin' advanced if you ask me!

Sure, the signal might get lost when the weather is horrible, but you've got to take that issue up with 2 'people': Mother Nature and God. You can't tell me that it goes for DAYS with bad weather, I spent many years in Denton TX and some time in Houston, and yes, storms were bad, but they never lasted that long.

Up in my neck of the woods now, however, I have a rainforest neighboring me. It's called Forks, WA, and their average rainfall is 110.4 inches of rain. (http://www.forks-web.com/rainfall/ if you don't believe me) We have not been to ONE service call that wasn't install-related where the customer has experienced "rain fade". When an install is done properly, good dish mount location (under an eave, unexposed), good quality cable, proper fittings that have been torqued down, grounded dish, no staples, and just a completely verifiable install that would make Charlie proud, rain fade should not happen often.

Doesn't sound like you are selling much Dish and Direct product with all the negative talk you have about it...hopefully that's not your selling point! And with the weather as bad as you're saying, you must be getting a lot of returns and de-installs and unhappy customers.

14+ million people can't be wrong......


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## Calvin Carrigan (Dec 5, 2006)

Ditto on what has been said. I live where we get a lot of rain and I have had fade but I would rahter deal with that than the service and product I get from cable. I also choose to check the alignment myself and not have to wait 2 months for someone to come to my house.


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## bartendress (Oct 8, 2007)

twcbrandon said:


> My experience with cable in Houston is that it almost never goes out at least when I was growing up, it is a big difference in the reliability.
> 
> I used to work for a retailer in Houston and when his satellite would go out in the rain he hated it, because he would always get calls from customers complaining about rain fade.
> 
> ...


Maybe you should just leave Houston for an area where the storms are not so strong and frequent. As Richard noted, you can't change physics. Your options are play the cards in your hand or leave the table, really.

FWIW: I have not had one single problem with DISH since my install. I'm so glad I no longer have to deal with Time Horror.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

Maybe he should start using the dishes E* uses for AK, HI, and Puerto Rico?


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## ab187 (Nov 2, 2008)

twcbrandon said:


> My experience with cable in Houston is that it almost never goes out at least when I was growing up, it is a big difference in the reliability.
> 
> I used to work for a retailer in Houston and when his satellite would go out in the rain he hated it, because he would always get calls from customers complaining about rain fade.
> 
> ...


I live in Houston and most of what you are saying is complete BS. First of all cable goes out many times here. My relatives who lived in the Heights had crapcast and they had outages all the time. The picture quality through analog was snowy on certain channels and once they got digital the picture was very disappointing.

Second of all, I never experience rain fade. The ONLY times I have outages is when cold fronts come from the Northwest and block the signal due to all of the lightning that interferes with the signal.

Third of all, Dish network dishes are incredibly strong if put up right. I have a 1000.2 which has a very large surface area. During Ike I had roof tiles rip of my roof but my dish did not budge ONE INCH. Saturday afternoon I had my receiver hooked up to a generator and I was able to get service. Even 129 was still perfectly aligned. I took my neighbors two weeks to get cable television and Internet back.

I don't know what kind of answer you are expecting from this question. I am sure as hell not putting 3 five foot dishes on my roof. 129 is the only satellite that has reception problems but it is going to be replaced by one of the most advanced communications satellites ever built.


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## ch3 (Dec 1, 2004)

twcbrandon said:


> I know nothing of adelphia, if adelphia is that bad I will be heading that way when the weather warms up to knock on their doors to sell dish.


Adelphia at one point was the #4 cable company, now they are owned by Comcast, enough said.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

twcbrandon said:


> Houston averages 47.9 of rain a year. Houston averages a major hurricane maybe ONCE ever 20 years. Hurricane outages are rare. Rain fade is not rare.


So to recap, you are stating your limited local experience as a nationwide fact and refusing to listen to the multitudes that have experience otherwise?

And when was the last major hurricane in Houston? And the one before that? I believe you need to revise your estimate of "ONCE ever 20 years" because it seems much more often than that in our reality.


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## jmpfaff (Dec 13, 2004)

I've lived in NE Houston for 10 years. I had cable for 2 years with all sorts of outages. Dish for the last 8....and outages are very rare, and very brief.

Yes, Rain fade happens in an absolutely torrential thunderstorm. So do power outages and cable outages....

My experience from having several different install/upgrade experiences is that rain fade is very much installation related (well, maybe not 129, but that should be fixed soon). After a good installer visits...110 and 119 rarely go out. After a bad installer, it is a little more frequent.

If you are an installer looking for a solution....take the time to aim the dish properly!!!

And if you are a dealer / Dish executive looking for a solution....do a "post-install" survey of your customers, and give bonuses to the installers who get good scores.

And finally, if you are a customer, learn how to read the signal strength meter before your next installer visit, and "help" with the installation.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Poor installation is the reason for more than occasional rain fade.


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## Rduce (May 16, 2008)

I got rid of cable in 1986 for a 12’ Paraclipse C-Band antenna and have never looked back and finally switched to E* in 2003. Seriously, I can honestly say that rain or snow fade has not been a problem during that time and I live in S.W. Michigan.

I cannot even begin to guess how many times I had to go out a sweep the snow off that huge C-Band dish, I have never had to do that to the E* dish and the number of times that I have lost signal with a rain storm I can count on a single hand.

In fact the storms that cause the signal to go out are usually so intense you should really be more worried about taking cover than your DBS signal…

Just my 2 cents.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

> And if you are a dealer / Dish executive looking for a solution....do a "post-install" survey of your customers, and give bonuses to the installers who get good scores.


That's already done, not for every install, but for a random sampling.


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## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

For anyone that's so sure that cable is so much more reliable and rain fade is such a huge problem I say subscribe to cable and quit your b!tching and moaning about Dish! Or in the case that your job includes selling Dish then you should just learn to accept that rain fade is something that will happen from time to time and people will complain about it. Just like when you work for the cable company or the phone company or the power company people will complain about that when those services go out, it's part of the job learn to deal with it. Just to add my own experience to the many others here, the whole reason I went to Dish in the first place was the unreliability of my cable service. It seemed it would go out at least once or twice a month for no apparent reason (it could be beautiful and sunny) and the outtage could last anywhere from 3 to 48 hours at a time. Since i've had my Dish the longest i've ever lost my signal is a few minutes, so obviously for me Dish was a huge upgrade in reliability. I've also had a couple of jobs where I sold Dish as part of my job and i've sold it to hundreds of people and honestly the amount of time i've ever had people complain about rain fade to me is so small it's not even worth worrying about. From my own personal experience rain fade might not be a total myth but it does appear that it's something that cable companies try to make into a big deal when really it's not at all. I guess trying to make your competition look unreliable is easier then making your own service more reliable.


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## Bobham (Jan 26, 2008)

I live in Arkansas, and will rarely see my signal go out with an approaching thunderstorm. Not every storm causes a loss, which is interesting. Like Mr. Long, I had cable before Dish, and experienced many more outages, for longer periods. I have considered installing a larger reflector, and may do that one day, but to your point... a well-installed, grounded Dish 1000 system fades only rarely in my area... maybe 2 or 3 times per year for about 15 minutes each.


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## TechnoCat (Sep 4, 2005)

twcbrandon said:


> Is Dish Network ever going to make Dish more reliable in the rain?... The best rebuttal is to eliminate the objection.


I tried, but DBSTalk won't let me squelch posts from "twcbrandon", so the objectionable is still there. :sure:

Seriously, it's under your control. I used to have all sorts of "fade" due to being north of Seattle and using 129. Then I bought a second, bigger dish. Problems gone (except when the dishes get snow crusted all over them, but I have a broom for that.) If you want to avoid rain fade entirely, spend a C-note and it will go away.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The ignore feature still works ...
http://www.dbstalk.com/profile.php?do=editlist

Not very nice to announce ignores in thread but we do have the ignore feature.


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## SE_Sooner (Aug 12, 2008)

TechnoCat said:


> Seriously, it's under your control. I used to have all sorts of "fade" due to being north of Seattle and using 129. Then I bought a second, bigger dish. Problems gone (except when the dishes get snow crusted all over them, but I have a broom for that.) If you want to avoid rain fade entirely, spend a C-note and it will go away.


TechnoCat, I'd have to disagree. It is true a larger dish will fade less with approaching storms, but even large dishes fade under extreame weather conditions.

Earlier this year Dishes uplink center faded the entire nation and I don't think they use 18" dishes.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Richard King said:


> Wimp.  Got ya beat. Vero Beach averages 51.2 inches of rain per year (including huge downpours like Houston). I don't consider a few (probably under 5 per year) short rain fade incedents to be a serious problem. When Hurricane Jeanne came through here in 2004 I was without power (and cable) for over a week. Once power was back cable was still gone for several days. If I had a generator I could have fired up the satellite dish at anytime. I do have cable internet here and I lost service a couple of weeks ago. It took them 3 days to get a tech out here to find the problem. Three days without service is probably more time than rain fade has caused in several years of dish ownership.
> 
> The Pam "solution" is for snow sticking to the dish, not rain fade. Rain fade is caused by the rain between the dish and the satellite, not by rain on the dish surface. The solution to rain fade comes along with the repeal of the laws of physics. Do that and rain fade will go away.


Well we have you beat this week. Had to go home to Spokane, and recieved 42" of Snow in one day.(granted its still snowing on and off, but 42" in a day, beats all the rain fade issues you guys could get with 56" of rain in a year. Snow was falling so hard, made me miss the good ol Hard rain days of Seattle.


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

I like to watch the rain and when I do get rain fade, I know that I will be getting a nice cloudburst in a few minutes so I get up and go to watch it. Thank you Dish for the rain fade feature.


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## TechnoCat (Sep 4, 2005)

SE_Sooner said:


> TechnoCat, I'd have to disagree. It is true a larger dish will fade less with approaching storms, but even large dishes fade under extreame weather conditions. Earlier this year Dishes uplink center faded the entire nation and I don't think they use 18" dishes.


Different problems probably. I'm at the fringe of receivable, and the Pacific North-West has had amazing weather the past two weeks. Other than having issues when the dish was caked in snow, no problems. With my current setup, there are _some_ weather conditions that could do it... rain of frogs, hail the size of tennis balls, dense meteor shower, another eruption of Mt St Helens to the south... but in these cases you wouldn't be so worried about the plotline of the latest reality show anyhow. 

My experience (again, with being at the fringe and having to point at a crappy sat) is that the following are ways to prevent "fade", all of which are common sense here except to the OP:

Get the Dish pointed right. Most of us do that.
Keep the sight-path clear, which is perhaps 30-degrees higher than it would visually appear to be. (This poses a problem for me in an old-growth forest because, believe it or not, the lower angle was the clearer angle.)
Clean out snow/leaves if they get in the dish.
Get a bigger dish. Bigger dishs can compensate for a lot of inadequacies in aim, clarity and weather.
If your cable-run is long (mine is because the house is surrounded by big trees, so the dishes are mounted on a tree elsewhere), run very high grade coax with as few connections as possible. Higher grade cable and fewer connects really makes a difference on the long runs.


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## smbsocal (Dec 16, 2008)

Hello,

I am new to Dish, we just got the service yesterday so I can't comment on Dish's service.

Since moving to our current house 4 years ago we have had Adelphia now Time Warner Cable. Each time it rained we had serious 'rain fade'; this included sound outages, video artifacts and complete loss of service. This more it rained or the longer it rained the worse the problems were. In some cases we would have whole HD channels go out for a couple of days until the ground dried up. In general the service has improved since Time Warner took over but when it rains we always have issues. At first we were in a routine with calling the cable company out on a monthly basis due to outages but after a while we gave up on it. The issues we had came down to the neighborhood's amplifier getting wet and acting up in addition to 21 houses were being fed off of a run that should have only handled 5 houses (per an honest TWC tech it was pretty funny how many splitters they changed together).

As stated above I am new to Dish so I can't comment much on rain fade for Dish but I can confirm that 'rain fade' occured for me on our cable service and the 'rain fade' could last for 1 to 2 days. So a couple minutes of rain fade will be a good change of pace.

The reason it took us so long to switch is we had 7 TVs in the house and it took a while for me to finally get tired enough of the bad service to just remove TVs from the guest bedrooms and pool table to bring us down to 4 TVs.


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## Charise (Jan 25, 2004)

:welcome_s Welcome to DBSTalk, smbsocal. :balloons: 

You'll find that if you have any questions, many people here will be able to help you with answers that work. And congratulations on selecting satellite to deliver your TV programming. I've been with Dish Network for a number of years, and I love their DVRs and service.

Good luck!


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## AED55 (Oct 2, 2008)

Dish and cable both have issues from time to time, it's how they deal with them that counts.

I used to have TWC and it did not fail frequently, but when it did, the service from TW was terrible. When I called TW about an outage, almost without fail I was told there was a known issue in my area, and I could expect service to return within the hour, the 1 hour answer must have been scripted because this was always the time frame given. I don't remember a single time when the outage was restored in an hour.

When I report an electrical outage, the local utility's response is always "We are working to resolve the outage and will have your power restored as soon as possible". This may not be the answer I want to hear, but at least it's honest.

The issue that drove my decision to switch to Dish was when I was flat out lied to by a TW rep. My service went out on a Thursday morning, so I called to schedule a service call. The rep said I can have someone out tommorrow between 2 and 4PM to work on it. I stated that I would try to be home during that time, but could not be sure. He said that's OK, the problem is usually outside the house and if you're not home the service person will check outside and clear the problem if they can.

I was gone all day Friday and when I got home there was a message from the TW service rep stating that no one was at home, so no attempt was made to repair the problem. When I called to complain, I was told that someone has to be at home, because the service rep needs a signature verifying that service has been restored. At this point I work very hard to keep my composure and ask if they can have someone out tomorrow, oh no can't do that because field service doesn't work on the weekends. 

Long story short, TW service returns on Monday, climbs the pole in back of the house and replaces a defective coax connector, took about 20 minutes.

They constantly brag in their commercials about the free service you receive with your subscription. Free don't mean much if it's crap.


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## angiecopus (May 18, 2004)

my dish as been losing signals all night tonight. this never happened the last time we had some ice. and tonight all heck is breaking lose, 9 signal losses this is getting really ridiculous. now i am afraid my dish progamming will never come back.

very upset.


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## ZBoomer (Feb 21, 2008)

I lose signal for about 5 minutes a year with Dish; isn't that five 9's reliablity?

Companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that kind of reliability in their systems, and I only pay about $100/mo, lol.

I love the cable FUD commercials about satellite, completely overblowing the issue with rain, and WIND? WTF? You'd have to have a piss-poor dish install to lose signal with wind, but their commercials act like it's a common problem. News to the cable companies, wind can't blow a satellite signal, haha. It will still reach the dish.


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## Ohioankev (Jan 19, 2006)

jclewter79 said:


> Poor installation is the reason for more than occasional rain fade.


Not sure what my problem is at the moment. I get a solid 80 signal most of the time (which is the modified signal that used to read in the 100s when my dish was first installed) however starting a couple months after i added the second line and the receiver both receivers experience signal loss but its always between 11pm-6am when i'm recording anime off SciFi or Cartoon Network. During the day and prime time my signal is fine and everything records fine.

It wasn't raining but the wind was blowing, so is it wind fade ?

Back to the topic though, you want to talk about dish and rain fade, lets talk about Charter Communications after they upgraded my neighborhood with Fiber Optic lines in 2001. I made the switch to digital cable and high speed internet (only option at the time for HSI) but everytime it would rain the cable would go out and I would either get snowy pictures on the analog channels and no digital services. (No EPG Guide, no VOD, no HSI) Charter sold the cable company to Suddenlink and the internet service has gotten even worse from what I hear all the time. Not to mention I have an elderly relative who ditched her old standard landline for the new cable phone and she didn't have service for three days... really it's not smart to ditch your old landline, especially when you are elderly.

As for my Dish I have never experienced bad rain fade, and my neighbor at the time who had DirectTV used to lose his signal in light rain while my Dish kept on going.

PS sorry about the long rant, even going off topic to Cable provided phone service, personally I have my local land line, and skype for long distance. If I had the AT&T All Distance plan this would cost me $65/month (without my DSL charge) but this combination is around $30/month plus the $35 i pay for DSL service)


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## blooker68 (May 11, 2008)

We average 40+ inches of rain per year and rain fade was a problem, sometimes lasting over 10 minutes, especially on 129. Of course, rain fade always happens in the middle of some important show. One day, after getting remnant rain from a hurricane and losing Oprah or something, my wife commanded this be fixed. (throw me in the brair patch, ma'am). I bought three, 30 inch antennas, aiming one at 61.5, and not a seconds rain fade since despite some real downpours.


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## bartendress (Oct 8, 2007)

blooker68 said:


> We average 40+ inches of rain per year and rain fade was a problem, sometimes lasting over 10 minutes, especially on 129. Of course, rain fade always happens in the middle of some important show. One day, after getting remnant rain from a hurricane and losing Oprah or something, my wife commanded this be fixed. (throw me in the brair patch, ma'am). I bought three, 30 inch antennas, aiming one at 61.5, and not a seconds rain fade since despite some real downpours.


When I was dealing with Time Horror, a 10-minute outage would have been a blessing.

This thread is starting to rename itself as, "Stupid, spoiled, Americans."
(Booo, hooo, hooo, hooo... I was oh-so-slightly inconvenienced.)


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## ClaudeR (Dec 7, 2003)

Up in Buffalo, we get 40.5 inches, but our azmith is much lower. The HD channels are quite unreliable here, probably the 61.5 sat. The 129 is pretty solid so I hope they move more HD there. As it is, my 722 is only used for SD recordings.


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## david_jr (Dec 10, 2006)

ClaudeR said:


> Up in Buffalo, we get 40.5 inches, but our azmith is much lower. The HD channels are quite unreliable here, probably the 61.5 sat. The 129 is pretty solid so I hope they move more HD there. As it is, my 722 is only used for SD recordings.


How many degrees off the horizon are you for 61.5? I recently had a 61.5 D500 installed to get HD and have continuous dropouts during snow. We are looking up at 40 degrees I believe. SD on 110 & 119 remains rock solid however. I was under the impression that 61.5 would be less susceptible to snow fade because of the higher look angle.


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## ClaudeR (Dec 7, 2003)

david_jr said:


> How many degrees off the horizon are you for 61.5? I recently had a 61.5 D500 installed to get HD and have continuous dropouts during snow. We are looking up at 40 degrees I believe. SD on 110 & 119 remains rock solid however. I was under the impression that 61.5 would be less susceptible to snow fade because of the higher look angle.


Not sure, but we are both in the same boat, over 42 degrees North Latitude. 61.5 has been a problem for many years, before HD, I had two locals at 61.5, also unreliable.


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

One of the most common objections I get when selling dish is RAIN FADE.

What do you tell a cable customer that has NEVER had their service interrupted by weather? You can not use the argument that- when cable goes out it could be out for hours or even days, because that person has never had their cable service out.

I had cable for nearly 20 years before I got into the dish business and I can say that I NEVER can remember cable going out one time. 

How do you convince someone to change to a product that WILL go out in a down pour?


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## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

For one thing i'd point out all the ways that weather is more of a threat to cable than satellite. Think about it there's miles and miles of cable strung up on telephone poles out there, a little wind those cables come down and your tv service is out until someone can come and fix it, which depending on how bad the storm was could be hours, days, in the case of hurricanes and tornadoes maybe weeks. Satellite on the other hand rarely loses signal due to whether more than a few minutes maybe during the very worst downpours. Plus I find this "bulletproof cable" you're talking about hard to believe in the first place. I've lived in several different cities in couple different states in my life and have never heard of cable that never goes out. In my experience cable can be more or less dependable depending on where you live, but never anything close to 100% dependable. If that's truly the case where you live than I say give up on selling satellite and work for the cable company! :lol:


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## mikep554 (Feb 14, 2007)

Satellite TV is not a perfect product, just as cable has its downsides. If the person feels that a weather interruption, no matter how rare or how brief, is not acceptable, then there isn't really an argument to make. The first time a heavy storm causes him/her reception problems, he/she will be cursing your name. So I would tell them them that it doesn't sound like my product is a good fit for them right now, but to feel free to give me a call if their cable service ever does go out.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

twcbrandon said:


> I had cable for nearly 20 years before I got into the dish business and I can say that I NEVER can remember cable going out one time.


:uglyhamme:!rolling!rolling!rolling:uglyhamme

You owe me half a glass of Mississppi Mud, you made me laugh so hard with that statement.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

How many times are you going to start similar threads? This is AT LEAST the third time you have started the same (or very similar) topic. Your credibility is lacking.


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## twcbrandon (Dec 21, 2008)

I use to work for the cable company here and yes some areas of town would have more trouble than others, but that being said some areas of town had no noticeable trouble. Maybe, when I had cable it could of went out at night when I was sleeping or during the day when I was working or something, who knows, but the fact is I have clear vivid memories of dish going out in the rain. In the past I worked for a retailer that was totally in love with dish, but when it rained really hard it made him shiver, because he would get phone calls from customers complaining.

Why do people keep trying to argue the fact that where I live satellite isn't as reliable as cable?

I am not trying to sell you cable so why would you want to discredit my report????


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Threads merged --- Brandon, there is no need to start a new thread to discuss a subject you raised less than two weeks ago. Especially one ignoring all the responses countering your claim that cable never fails.

The record is clear. Cable isn't perfect.

BTW: If you are attempting to sell DISH perhaps a more positive attitude about your product would help? And if DISH is really as bad as you claim and cable is so perfect perhaps you should seek a new career?


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## AED55 (Oct 2, 2008)

twcbrandon said:


> I use to work for the cable company here and yes some areas of town would have more trouble than others, but that being said some areas of town had no noticeable trouble. Maybe, when I had cable it could of went out at night when I was sleeping or during the day when I was working or something, who knows, but the fact is I have clear vivid memories of dish going out in the rain. In the past I worked for a retailer that was totally in love with dish, but when it rained really hard it made him shiver, because he would get phone calls from customers complaining.
> 
> Why do people keep trying to argue the fact that where I live satellite isn't as reliable as cable?
> 
> I am not trying to sell you cable so why would you want to discredit my report????


I had cable for 20 years and had very few problems. My issue was how they responded when I did have a problem. They never gave a straight answer as to when problem would be resolved. I have no problem with the response "We are working on the issue, but cannot give you an exact time when it will be fixed" . I do have a problem with the response " We are working on your outage right now and it will be resolved in 15 minutes" They know full well this is not true, but it gets you off the line so they can lie to the next customer.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

I also had cable for 20+ years (not at present residence) and I remember not just outages that lasted too long, but also problems with amplifiers.

Low VHF channels were always getting fuzzy. I probably had to complain bi-monthly about low VHF.

One time we had a car take out a pole that supported cable for the whole neighborhood - we were down for days.

I always maintained a 35ft mast on the roof with a big all channel antenna with rotor so we could have TV while cable was down.

Now that we have satellite, yes it is irritating for a satellite to be blocked by a heavy thunderstorm, but it never lasts more that 30 minutes, rarely more that 10 or 15 minutes.

Neither cable nor satellite (not even FIOS) is the perfect medium of transmitting TV to households, but IMHO satellite is the least vulnerable to long time outages.

The solution for individuals who want satellite reception to be more reliable is to install larger dishes.

It is neither a DishNetwork nor a DirectTV problem, it is a problem at the receiver end - use a 30" or 1 M dish where an 18" is prescribed.


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## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

twcbrandon said:


> I use to work for the cable company here and yes some areas of town would have more trouble than others, but that being said some areas of town had no noticeable trouble. Maybe, when I had cable it could of went out at night when I was sleeping or during the day when I was working or something, who knows, but the fact is I have clear vivid memories of dish going out in the rain. In the past I worked for a retailer that was totally in love with dish, but when it rained really hard it made him shiver, because he would get phone calls from customers complaining.
> 
> Why do people keep trying to argue the fact that where I live satellite isn't as reliable as cable?
> 
> I am not trying to sell you cable so why would you want to discredit my report????


I also guess another thing i'm having a problem with here is that my experience is so different from yours. I sold Dish for years and rain fade was such a non-issue it's hard to imagine you having such a problem with it. And on the few occasions it did come up I guess for me it was just really easy to cite my personal experiences with Dish and be able to look someone in the eye and say truthfully that I had very rarely lost my signal due to rain and on the handful of times it had happened it was for just a few minutes. Then of course i'd bring up some of cable's shortcomings and usually people could relate. But i'd point out again that if you're so sure that Dish loses its picture every time it rains and cable is so perfect that maybe you've got the wrong job.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

twcbrandon said:


> How do you convince someone to change to a product that WILL go out in a down pour?


Wow, you must not be much of a salesman :eek2: if you let your customers stump you with this one. How about better HD picture quality, more HD channels, better DVR, lower monthly fees, 1080p movies, 7 HD HBO channels (maybe your local cable has that), record 3 HD channels at once, unlimited movie storage capacity... do I need to go on? Just read the Dish website for more ideas!


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## cs80918 (Feb 16, 2012)

The OP is right, I run a large door to door Dish Network and Directv sales force. I have done this since 1997 and the number one objection that my sales people get is rain fade. Sure I know plenty of rebuttals to overcome this objection, but it doesn't make the hurdle go away. When we work States/towns/cities that receive less than 12 inches of rainfall, the whole rain fade objection almost totally disappears.

When we work area that get major down pours, up to half of the people's first reponse is rain fade. Dish Network isn't a new product so many people have experienced that rain fade in the past and left dish or directv. Trying to sell to them is a waste of time, because if any little rain fade happens you are taking a big chance signing those picky people up for satellite tv, charge back here you come. 

I've learned to just give a quick rebuttal or two and if that overcome their objection good, if not I'm on to the next door.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Jim5506 said:


> The solution for individuals who want satellite reception to be more reliable is to install larger dishes.
> 
> It is neither a DishNetwork nor a DirectTV problem, it is a problem at the receiver end - use a 30" or 1 M dish where an 18" is prescribed.


Not a solution. I have a 1M dish, and still get rain fade, although not as long as I used to with the slimline dish. Rain fade is a serious concern for many people.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Thread necromancy!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I never have rain fade... but I have cloud fade. Steady downpours don't really cause me any problems... just the thick black clouds overhead... but usually those are temporary situations that don't last more than a few minutes.


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## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I never have rain fade... but I have cloud fade. Steady downpours don't really cause me any problems... just the thick black clouds overhead... but usually those are temporary situations that don't last more than a few minutes.


Same here. But not overhead so much as when the clouds are to the south.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

bnborg said:


> Same here. But not overhead so much as when the clouds are to the south.


Yeah... there have been times when it was clear (relatively) and no rain but I would have a signal outage... I would go outside and look towards the south and see some dark clouds miles away over someone else, but still in the line-of-sight causing me issues.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

The root problem here is that water vapor, especially water droplets in the atmosphere absorb the radiation frequences that satellite uses for transmission.

If a lower frequency were used the problem would be less, but I have even seen cable companies lose signal due to heavy rainfall.

The answer is that these interruptions are and will happen and unless you have a direct pipeline to God you can not prevent it. You have to realise that the outages will be short, almost always less than 30 minutes, and NOTHING on TV is worth popping a blood vessel over just because ou miss it.

Get on with your life, watch TV when the clouds clear up.

NOT NOBODY NOT NOHOW can prevent rainfade.

It is a fact of physics, it happens to dbs subscribers, it even happens to cable companies - GET OVER IT!!


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## renegade (Jul 28, 2011)

Originally Posted by twcbrandon View Post

_I had cable for nearly 20 years before I got into the dish business and I can say that I NEVER can remember cable going out one time. 
_
Really ? *Really ???* I got into satellite TV *because* of the cable outages. They seemed to occur daily in my area right around 4 PM and last for over an hour. I can deal with short-term rain outages. I've had fewer outages since switching over to Eastern Arc last fall.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

True... I never had "rain fade" with cable... but man, there were almost daily outages and problems for many years in my area... and while that eventually improved, there still are lots of problems.

Also, Time Warner has been implementing "switched" technology that ends up being kind of like time-sharing... and you could be in a scenario where you try to tune to a channel and get a popup saying that the channel isn't available right now because too many people are watching it! Seriously...


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

Stewart Vernon said:


> True... I never had "rain fade" with cable... but man, there were almost daily outages and problems for many years in my area... and while that eventually improved, there still are lots of problems.
> 
> Also, Time Warner has been implementing "switched" technology that ends up being kind of like time-sharing... and you could be in a scenario where you try to tune to a channel and get a popup saying that the channel isn't available right now because too many people are watching it! Seriously...


I ran into that problem quite a bit when I had Time Warner. Had Tivo, a cable card, and a tuning adapter, and frequently I'd go to watch a recording and it didn't record because the channel wasn't available. Of course, TW's solution was to use THEIR HD DVR (Like THAT would fix the problem lol). One of the reasons I went back to Directv.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

twcbrandon said:


> Call all the people that have canceled Dish and ask them why they canceled their service if they are in an area of the country that has similiar thunderstorm weather like Houston has, the majority will say they canceled because it went out in the rain.
> 
> Call all the people in a city like Los Vegas that canceled and I'm sure you'll get a different answer.
> 
> ...


Yes there is.First realign your dish twice(or have it realigned) just to make sure it's peaked correctly.

Then if you live in a high rain fade area the rule of thumb with satellite has always been the larger the reflector(dish) size the less the rain fade,because with a larger dish the signal is stronger,so I would recommend to install the largest dish(or dishes) a person can afford to minimize rain fade, if rain fade really bothers you and you can afford it.Good Luck!.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Having been a 10 years + Dish subscriber - NOTHING IS ABSOLUTELY RAINFADE PROOF. Even OTA can have issues (at least for me - living in a forest) - leaves get wet and wind blowing - creates multipath - OTA goes out. It's worse with ATSC, but I'm sure it happened with NTSC/analog as well.

There have even been threads here where a NATIONWIDE outage happened - because the uplink center was having some extreme rain that their big transmitting dishes couldn't burn through.

The bottomline - when you get rainfade - take a chill pill, read a book or watch some recorded shows. About the only time rainfade would really be disruptive is on a Live event (sports, etc.) that won't be re-shown. And even then - it's just TV....


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