Rain fade mitigation

In most cases the snow/rain on the dish isnt the problem, it’s the snow/rain between the dish and satellite.

We sometimes get the wet snow / ice mix and have had more then 1" on cruchy stuff adhere to the dish with only minor signal degradation. Rarey the wind does cause the moisture to attach to the plastic shield of the lnbf, this does affect the performance, but usually only for a couple of hours.

I have seen a SNR change of up to 4 dB due to snow accumulation on my dish, however, it does not stay long and still provides sufficient signal with no losses.

So I was digging through my tool box and came across a roll of aluminium foil duct tape; the stuff you use on actual ductwork to seal up the holes and seams. I also have a stash of 18oz plastic cups left over from BBQ season. I cut the bottom off of a cup and wrapped it in the foil tape and shoved it onto the end of my LNB. Wayhay!! An instant improvement!!

I want from ~13db to ~9db and from 80% valid packets to 100% valid packets. Happy dance!!!

2 Likes

Some other ideas we have all implemented - - Ken (I especially like the Pringles can because you can eat chips while you site your antenna :rofl:)

I tried the pringles can. Didn’t work for me.

4dB improvement for 5-cents and 3 minutes? That’s going to be hard to beat. I was looking at options for a custom-designed extension made of stamped steel, but that’s not going to produce results all that much better than this.