How Rain can Cut off Satellite TV Signal
Rain, snow, or other storms can sometimes impact your TV signals. When these satellite signals are interrupted by bad weather, it can cause a break in your viewing. Why does this happen and what can you do to fix it?
Rain Fade
Rain fade is a term meaning a break or interruption in a satellite service because of rough weather. While the term rain fade refers to rain, anything from snowstorms to hurricanes can cause rain fade to take place.
The effect occurs when storms cause a sort of “wall” in front of your home’s satellite dish, keeping signals from transferring to your TV.
How do you know if it’s an issue?
Usually, a lag in your TV signal during a storm is a sign of rain fade. However, there is more to consider in a rain fade situation.
Most satellite dish companies like DISH or DIRECTV work to ensure that 99% of the time, their customers won’t experience any type of rain fade for more than a couple minutes.
Similar companies provide similar services, so if you’re experiencing consistent issues (particularly if the weather isn’t that bad), there may be a bigger problem at hand than simple rain fade.
Some other things you may want to check for include:
- Cable Corrosion: Sometimes, the cables or cable ends may be slightly corroded. Exposure to the weather can cause problems, but when a cable is already corroded, further exposure can make things worse. The satellite dish captures a clear signal but it then gets distorted as it travels down the cable.
- Cabe Installation: Cables that have been incorrectly installed may decrease the quality of your satellite TV dish’s performance.
- Obstruction: Anything from animals, to trees, to other debris could be keeping signals from transferring.
- Dish Alignment: A strong wind can move the satellite dish. A poorly installed dish or a dish that has been dislodged from its original location may cause a poor satellite TV signal.
Check for each of these possible issues if you have continuous problems with your signal, whether you’re experiencing bad weather or not.
How to Stop Your Satellite from Going out in the Rain
With a good satellite service provider, rain fade should only decrease your TV quality for a short period of time. So, the best thing you can do is wait out the weather. As soon as the storm is gone, the rain fade will be gone too.
However, there are still a few methods of decreasing the chances of rain fade from taking place:
- Get an Antenna: Rain fade can be lessened (or even eliminated) by the addition of an antenna.
- Get Better Aim: Simply spending a little time adjusting your dish in a way that is less obstructed and more in line with a signal is the best way to get better quality signals.
- Use a Heater: If you’re in a snowy environment, using some kind of heater can help melt the snow on the mechanism and help get rid of snowy or icy obstructions.
Aiming your Satellite Dish
The direction of your dish is probably one of the most effective ways to get a top-notch signal from your service’s satellite (assuming nothing else is wrong with the dish or cables). Even if your dish is only off by a fraction of an inch, there can be a huge difference in signal.
For example, 1/30 of an inch difference regarding the direction of your dish means your signal is pointing towards an entirely different patch of the sky by as much as 30 feet away from where it should be. When you consider that the actual satellite orbiting the earth is over 20,000 miles above sea level, it seems almost impossible that your home is getting any signal at all.
Due to this vast distance, you should try and adjust your satellite dish in tiny movements to get the best experience out of your satellite TV provider.
Often, professionals with use dithering in order to find the perfect center that your beam should be pointing. While this perfect center can be forced out of place by natural causes, professionals will ensure it’s initially set up correctly. How do they do it?
- Decide on a direction. When installing a satellite TV dish, professionals will consider compass heading, dish elevation, dish tilt, and more to determine the perfect alignment.
- Adjust the screws. There are small screws on the mechanism to help move it into the correct position. By turning these screws a little bit in each direction, the strongest signal position can be pinpointed.
- Dither the dish in all directions. Satellites move and so does your dish. The dish now needs to “lock onto” a satellite, meaning those installing the mechanism will need to ensure this is the case.
- Keep it in place. The final step of this process is to tighten all the bolts and screws so a strong wind is less likely to move the satellite dish out of place.