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Satellite Receive Signal Strength during clouds & rain

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macsociety
Advanced Tutor

Satellite Receive Signal Strength during clouds & rain

Just curious as this is my first rain storm with Gen 5 (had years of it with Gen 4 and older systems) but wondered, as I normally am in the mid to upper 90s during clear weather for signal receive strength, what is the norm I should see during your basic every-day (not downpour) rain?  80s?  70s?  

 

Which leads me to... at what strength # does it spell "doom" (hehehe) for bad or no internet.  Or what strength will I see service still but poor because of clouds or rain.

 

Right now it is just cloudy out and I went from around 99 to 89.  Drizzle outside.  So far speeds seem OK but made me wonder.  Expecting rain to get heavier later tonight... around the same time my beam 55 speed may have issues anyway so will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

 

Regards

TJ

9 REPLIES 9
BirdDog
Assistant Professor

Depending on your location within the beam footprint a signal of 90 could be fine. An 80 seems a bit low but may also be normal for extreme northern locations.

 

Wouldn't worry too much unless you lose service very easily during light rain or snow. Main thing is the service working. Can always check the connectivity and packet loss here: http://192.168.0.1/#!/home/connectivity

 

Also hourly diagnostics here:  http://192.168.0.1/limited.html#!/diagnostics/hourly-history

 

Perhaps a mod will weigh in next week with what is normal for your location. Beam 55 is having speed issues from what I know.

macsociety
Advanced Tutor

Signal Strength on a dank dreary day here, misty, some rain, has been as low as 81 and steady in mid to upper 80s at times.  Just ran a speedtest at 3PM PST and did OK for speeds.  Yes much slower than the fast speeds we can see but OK in my book.  16Mbps down and 1.4Mbps up.  

 

So looks good to me.  😉

 

TJ

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@macsociety

 

Normally, a drop in signal won't slow the speed of the service down.  It's usually running at its highest possible speed, at the time, until the signal gets so low that you might start to have some packet loss, and then a total loss of service, and the range where that packet loss can start and where it drops out totally is actually pretty small.  Usually it just works until the signal strength gets so low that it doesn't, kind of like flipping a switch.  And, when I say highest possible speed I mean whatever that speed would be at that time even if the sky were clear at both the customer location and the gateway location.  And, of course, that's normally with all of that, but not necessarily always.  I'm sure there are instances where it doesn't follow that "normal" rule.  In addition, this is just from my experience and what I've learned in here, and I'm sure if I'm incorrect in this assumption the more knowledgeable folks will correct my mistake(s), which I welcome.    

 

With Gen4 my service would work fully until the signal strength got down to about 37, then would drop out completely.  With my Gen5 it's somewhere in between 45 and 55.  I haven't quite narrowed it down yet, but I know that it's somewhere in there.  And, or course, different beams, and even different areas within a single beam footprint, can have different thresholds.  My location in the ES19 beam is a bit different than it was in the ES17 beam, though a good indicator of when I'll lose the signal is when my DirecTV loses its signal.  They usually go hand in hand, though the DirecTV about thirty seconds before the HughesNet.   

Good to know @GabeU.

I guess a tad like my air-waves I am getting on my TV from antenna since it is now digital versus analog.  Back in analog you could get some sketchy reception and kinda make stuff out for a bit.  With digital it is normally all or nothing.  Well on mine I am on the fringe so can get some big blocks of pixalation and video in and out.  That is what I get for being in the mountains in a small valley about 65 to 70 miles away from the towers in Sacramento CA.  😉

TJ

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@macsociety

 

Analog TV may have had its drawbacks in comparison to digital, but there were many times where you'd watch something even if it had a little bit of snow.  I know I did.  Can't say the same for digital when the signal isn't strong as it just cuts in and out and in and out.  In many cases I'd rather have that snow.  😛  

@GabeU, yeah I am living that life now.  We killed off Dish a couple years ago and I had a new better antenna put on the roof, but dealing with how far my tower is and the magic of airwaves, I can be watching a great show and right when the climax is about to happen... gone... black... and the wife and I are yelling at the TV.  LOL.  I guess that is what we deserve for cutting the cables.  LOL.

 

Funny thing is the same antenna, when I lose connection to a station in Sac, 65 miles away, will then get great reception of stations in San Francisco, 125 miles away.  Go figure!

 

Happens on weekends quite a bit.  Almost like SF stations jack up their signal on weekends so I can see it.  hehe

 

Considered adding a motor to the antenna to adjust it here and there but at this point, tired of throwing money at it.

 

TJ

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@macsociety

 

It actually might be possible that they do just that (jack up the signal on the weekends), though I don't know for sure that TV stations are allowed to do that.  We have a couple of radio stations in this area that, after a certain time in the evening, jack up their signal and also allow it to a wider area due to the competing signals going off at that time in the other cities.  One of them becomes so powerful, or at least used to, that a good deal of the northeast could get the signal instead of the normal 50 or 60 mile range.  This, again, is with FM radio, but it's possible some TV stations could do the same thing, and do it on the weekend.  

 

And, yeah, that's really annoying when you're watching something and just at the climax, or at another good part, it blips out.  

 

Bring back the analog and the snow!!!!  J/K.  😛  

BirdDog
Assistant Professor

@GabeU @macsociety, this antenna looks like a toy but it sure works in my mountainous wooded location. Aimed right through a dense stand of trees. Very small footprint. I do have an amplifier at the antenna also. Get 26 channels, all major broadcast plus all the old time show ones like MeTV, COMET, etc. Broadcast towers are about 85 miles away and my elevation in the moutains may be helping.

 

https://www.antennasdirect.com/store/ClearStream-4MAX-Outdoor-TV-Antenna.html

@BirdDog, I have a nice Winegard HD7697P with Winegard LNA200 Amp... so it is plenty powerful, but I sense the long cable run from antenna to TV is part of my issue.  I even have some separate device that you can tweak with the gain but find I need to have it set to max.  I would guesstimate the cable from from top of antenna to where I connect at the main TV is 100 feet.  Maybe even a tad longer.  If I have less of a cable run I may get less issues but not worth it for me to investigate that.  My guess at some point we will get dish again or maybe one day soon Hughes will be so media rich we can stream anything we want 24/7 with no overages and we will all live happily every after.  hehe

TJ