Rain Fade a Downer for Satellite TV?

[Gregg Lengling]

Weather-related reception problems were ranked as the top reason satellite TV users would consider switching from the dish to cable in a new survey from Lyra Research's DTV View group.

How big is the rain fade issue? Said Steve Hoffenberg, principal analyst for the Lyra DTV View report, "Our survey respondents told us that foremost, they just wanted to be able to watch TV, rain or shine. During stormy weather is precisely when viewers are most likely to want to stay indoors and watch TV."

Despite rain fade issues, Hoffenberg said the majority of survey respondents said they were not likely to switch from satellite TV to cable in the next 12 months. "While the satellite industry has not adequately addressed the rain-fade problem, cable providers' ads mentioning the issue haven't convinced satellite users to convert en masse," he said.

The Lyra research drew a response from the industry.

The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association said in a statement, "Hundreds of industries, including cable, rely on satellite delivered technology to serve the needs of their consumers. Although there is some potential for rain delay, these problems typically come from a bad installation rather than satellite technology itself. DBS dishes properly installed by a NSTP certified technician should have very few problems."

SBCA also said it's working with DirecTV, EchoStar and VOOM to mandate training and materials which would alleviate a majority of problems.

In a separate statement, EchoStar pointed out that DISH Network continues to outrank - by a wide margin - all cable companies in overall customer satisfaction, as evidenced by the 2004 J.D. Power and Associates study. And the company pointed to Keith Fernandez, a DISH Network customer in Titusville, Fla., who endured more than 50 hours of hurricane storms and never lost DISH Network coverage. "Yet, many cable customers are still without service in hurricane ravaged areas," EchoStar said.

"This survey, with its leading question, downplays the basic attraction of satellite over cable - an attraction that has prompted millions of cable customers to make satellite TV one of the fastest growing services in America in recent years," EchoStar said. "Asking satellite customers why they might switch to cable is like asking Americans why they might move to Siberia. The elicitation of an answer doesn't make the answer a meaningful one."

For DirecTV, signal reliability since inception of its service in 1994 exceeds 99 percent, and rain fade is not an issue for the overwhelming majority of DirecTV's more than 13 million customers.

[bklass]

Rain fade is a problem for me.  It doesn't even have to be raining at my location to loose the signal.  It only needs to be rainig south of me!

[mhz40]

The dish elevations in Fla are much steeper than northern latitudes.  IMO, we aim across thunderstorms locally to see the satellites in geosynchronous orbit., while in southern climates, they shoot through them vertically.  Thus, one could incur more fade here than in Fla given the same rain rates.

[borghe]

I've made this statement numerous times on numerous boards..

rain fade, when it come down to it, is strictly a matter of installation. If you are getting noticeable rain fade, your dish was installed poorly.

What is noticeable? Well, my signal is down for like an hour tops per year.. and that is TOPS. This year I probably haven;t even been down for 45 minutes total so far (and I always fair better in the winter than the spring).

It is good to see DirecTV and Dish working with installers to try and train them better..

I think one common misconception is that a lower signal strength just means you have a lower signal. In fact, a lower signal strength usually means you are literally getting LESS signal and as such are even MORE susceptible to rain fade than someone with a higher signal. To put that into perspective, say a storm rolls through and causes someone with a 93 signal stregnth to lose 15 points down to 78. That same storm could cause someone with an 81 signal strength to drop all the way down to the 50's. This is most noticeable on multi-satellite DirecTV setups where one or more satellites come in at weaker signals then the other satellites. You will see a bigger drop usually on the wekaer sats than the stronger sats.

Anyway, if you are getting DirecTV, don't let your installer leave with anything less than 90's on ALL satellites. And if they tell you you can't get 90's, call DirecTV and tell them you have a bad install and want a new one. If you TRULY can't beat obstructions of some kind, then be prepared to possibly deal with a greater degree of rain fade than others might have to deal with...

[jkane]

Who put your dish up?  I lose the signal maybe twice a year for a few minutes.  I think your dish may be poorly aimed.

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by bklass
Rain fade is a problem for me.  It doesn't even have to be raining at my location to loose the signal.  It only needs to be rainig south of me!

Same here.  Every time we had those summer storms during the summer (Olympics time) I lost my signal.  I lost my signal probably for a total of 1 hour of recorded material during the summer.

Recently it has been rock solid, but of couse we have had no storms.

All in all though, it is not enough to make me want to go to cable - not unless cable goes all digital (channels 2-99 suck picture wise).

Kerry

[borghe]

Originally posted by jkane
Who put your dish up?  I lose the signal maybe twice a year for a few minutes.  I think your dish may be poorly aimed.

if you are referring to me, yeah, my dish is aimed for crap.. Whoever the contractor is for DirecTV put up my current dish about 2.5 years ago. I knew it was bad when, with a clear sky above him, he could only get Sat C at 85%. Sat A and B are 93%+. I knew I would have problems on Sat C and lo and behold, a moderate rain comes in and I will lose whichever HD channels DirecTV happens to have on the sat on that day.

But, it isn't enough of a bother for me to try and fix it.

Previously I had done all of mine own installations. But this time I took advantage of the mover's plus program and got a free oval dish and Sat C LNB (before they were handing them out like candy at halloween). I was just tired of installing dishes.. Plus I wasn't looking forward to working on top of a 2.5 story steeple roof (I am acrophobic).

[uplinkguy]

The best option for sat 'c' would be parking an old 18 inch round dish next to the other and aiming it at sat c.  The unfortunate thing about the oval dish is that the total surface area is shared looking at 18 degrees of the satellite arc.  A round dish is dedicated to one satellite and the whole surface is focused on it.


Three round dishes would be better, but it would look kind of ugly on the roof.

Andy

[gparris]

Originally posted by uplinkguy
The best option for sat 'c' would be parking an old 18 inch round dish next to the other and aiming it at sat c.  The unfortunate thing about the oval dish is that the total surface area is shared looking at 18 degrees of the satellite arc.  A round dish is dedicated to one satellite and the whole surface is focused on it
Three round dishes would be better, but it would look kind of ugly on the roof.
Andy

Quote from borghe:
"The real additions won't happen until after Q1 2005 when both spaceway sats are launched and directv has enough capcity to carry every national hd feed available.

Of course we will require new dishes to get those.

So it could only get worse...or better if everyone gets a newly mounted dish and borghe doesn't have to climb onto the roof.
But the aiming with what, 5 LNBs (?) could get worse...but you could do 2-5 separate dishes on your roof, too.

[foxeng]

Originally posted by gparris
Of course we will require new dishes to get those.

That is not what D* has stated. They have said that the HD brids would be parked at the 101 degree slot, the same place the main birds are now and where all the single LNB dishes are pointed now. They have stated that anyone with a single LNB dish will have access as long as you have the HD receiver for it.

[borghe]

sorry.. I jumped the gun with the new dishes, although I don't believe both spaceway sats will go at 101.

At minimum though we will need new Ka band LNBs or true dual lnbs capable of getting both Ku and Ka band signals.