Satellite Rain Fade?

one of the funniest things i’ve seen is that cable tv ad where the dude is on his roof trying to install some kind of umbrella thing over his satellite dish to prevent rain fade…

it’s nonsense for two reasons - first the sheer silliness of trying to do such a thing, but second, rain fade is not a result of the dish getting wet and it’s a shame that tv ad people propigate such a fallacy…

rain fade is cause by UPPER ATMOSPHERE moisture, not water on the dish. it’s the same principle involved when a tree poses no problem in the winter but causes problems in the summer - leaves on a tree interfere with a traditional dish signal - the water in the leaves messes up the signal. your dish doesn’t do anything other than try to centrally redirect as much of a signal as possible so that the feedhorn (that thing on a stick in the middle of the dish) can tune a real signal. water in the dish will not usually hamper this process. however, water in the atmosphere WILL - it mucks up the signal before your dish ever captures it. consequently, it is possible to experience rain fade when it’s not actually raining on your dish. go figger!

TS 2 Satellite Internet - Teleport Earth Station in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Two-way broadband Internet access for private use, for companies, and institutions for the whole Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia

two-way satellite internet

see that sad face? that’s me when the weather ain’t perfect… in my endeavor to get the best internet bandwidth available to ppl who live in BFE, i jumped off and tried satellite internet.

first of all, if ALL YOU DO IS DOWNLOAD (and you only use it when there’s not a cloud in the sky), it’s amazing, once you’re “assimilated” into the network operations center. it will probably take you two or three weeks to finally get everything running as smoothly as possible, providing you have no bad weather and you have at least semi-intelligent installers. i have downloaded 5mb MP3s in as little as 15 seconds before.

CAVEAT - however, if you, like me, have to ever UPLOAD anything, two-way digital satellite internet service is a bad joke. NOWHERE in their online info, sales pitch or even after i repeatedly asked the rep i was talking to, did they ever say what i’m about to quote to you now from a tech support email… “uploads will be as limited as a land-based phone modem.” now THAT is a major omission as far as i’m concerned - because remember, they do offer a ONE-WAY system that requires all your uploading to be done through a land-based phone modem, so one would assume that since the two-way system itself costs more, the service costs more, and it’s supposed to be “better,” that it might actually BE better - it’s not. every time i asked about bandwidth and why a person might choose 2-way satellite internet service, the answer i got was “we can’t quote exact figures {yes i know that, i’ve worked with online systems since they existsed so i understand that part} but you can expect speeds from 30 to 300 percent faster than with a modem.”

the TRUTH is that only applies to downloads. the best upload speed i have ever seen with my system (after spending $100 to have the dish re-aimed because the first installer was apparently inept), is 4K per second. yes, you read that correctly 4 K, as in 4000 bytes a second. my 24kbps boondocks telephone connection to an ISP 30 miles away uploads faster than that. and that’s a PEAK - most of the time i get about 1.9K per sec. it takes me so long, in fact, to upload that i often get disconencted from a server for time out errors. as a professional web developer who deals with uploading databases, that’s a real groaner.

the other downside is that rain fade with a satellite internet system is (insert imaginary figure here) times worse than with satellite tv… don’t ask me why. i’m just glad we didn’t replace our tv dish with the new oblong internet “duo” dish… our internet connection disappears with the presence of cloud cover - it doesn’t even have to rain. it’s quite annoying. we rarely lose our tv signal - the weather has to be REALLY bad - with the internet connection sometimes it seems like WIND causes a signal loss.

so unless you live in an area that has absolutely no phone service whatsoever, or ALL you will EVER do is download, skip satellite… it’s more trouble (and expense) than it’s worth, for the time being. i’ll have an article on my complete experience soon, as it’s rather eye-opening i think…

Satellite Internet from HughesNet is available nationwide for people stuck with dial-up.

adding local service to satellite service

the angry face is directed to Direct TV - sure, i love my digital satellite TV but they PROMISED me 2 years ago that my area would be getting local network television availability in “june.” that was in 2000. it’s now SEPTEMBER 2002 and the story is, well, we just can’t provide local network service to all 1600 major broadcast areas.

hmm… anyway, all the complaining aside, if you have a satellite tv system and you live, like me, in an area that’s not covered for local network programming, DO NOT ADD A CLIP-ON ANTENNA WITHOUT A LOT OF INVESTIGATION!

there’s a company that makes a clip-on antenna that’s supposed to allow you to tune local network channels over the same cable as your satellite signal - you just turn off the satellite receiver and put your tv on the channel you want and presto… only it’s not always presto.

there are two main things to watch out for.

first is the fact that these clip-on antennas come in different models designed for different areas. you should read all the small print on the box and ask the salesman you get it from if the model you have in your hand is the correct model for your area. it might not be, and chances are the salesman doesn’t even know there are different models to be had.

the second thing to think over is the position of your local broadcasting stations in relation to where your satellite dish is. here’s the problem - say you live on the south side of the city whose broadcast you want to get. that would mean that the signal from the tv tower comes from the north. but since you live in north america, your satellite dish is pointed SOUTH and is probably on the south side of your house - signals from the north are likely to be obstructed by your own house! also, your satellite dish is pointed UP - the farther south in north america you are, the more “up” your dish is aimed, so it’s possible for someone in, oh, how about texas, to have their satellite dish four feet off the ground on a landscape timber and get perfect satellite reception - but your tv reception won’t happen because you can’t usually get a decent tv signal when your antenna is only four feet off the ground.

i’m assuming that if you’re north of the place you want the tv signal from and your dish is high enough up on your house and you don’t live in the middle of the big thicket, these antenna must work… but in my case, it must be the trees - we’re on the correct side of the house, about 20 feet off the ground but the picture (on the ONE channel out of five that we were able to tune at all) really stunk. it’s pretty sad when a $20 set of rabbit-ears from wal mart gets a better picture than a $50 outdoor AMPLIFIED antenna…