Heavy Rain lose signal « My Humax Forum

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Heavy Rain lose signal

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goathead

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Hello all,
recently joined this forum so my first post and a quick hello to you all

I have had a search for my issue but I can't seem to find any answer, apologies if it has been answered before and my search wasn't thorough enough......

My parents recently switched over from Sky HD to a Humax HR1100s box and after playing around with theirs I decided to cancel my Sky HD subscription and get one. Currently we are very impressed with it, apart for one niggle over the loss of signal that we both seem to get.

We live a couple of streets apart and on a few occasions over the last few weeks we’ve had heavy rain, this has caused both myself and parents to lose the signal from the box and thus no TV.

This never happened with the Sky box during rain, the only time we lost signal with Sky is when there was a big wedge of snow sat on the dish.

My parents are using the same dish they had for their Sky system (zone 1 dish) and I installed a brand new dish (zone 2 dish) and LNB whilst I was still using Sky and neither of us had a signal loss through rain????
I’ve attached a photo of my signal strength on a non rainy day, my parents have the exact same signal strength also on a non rainy day (I don’t have any photo of signal strength on a rainy day..sorry)

Can anyone shed some light onto what’s wrong?

Thanks
Sean
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| Fri 2 Sep 2016 17:59:12 #1 |
REPASSAC

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Normal, Rain will block signals on Sky and freesat in exactly the same way. Only the EPG is Sky or freesat the channels are independent and no different if Sky or freesat.

A larger or more correctly aligned disk does give more resistance against rain.

If the rain is normal I would suspect an alignment problem, if rain is torrential then it is normal.

| Fri 2 Sep 2016 18:59:59 #2 |
goathead

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Joined: Sep '16
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Hi Repassac,
Thanks for the reply, it was torrential rain when we lost signal but I never remember the Sky box dropping signal during heavy rain? I will monitor it and if it fails again through a light rain I will check the alignment. It was checked by a friend who installs them for a living and it was lined up correctly but could have been knocked...
Thanks
Sean

| Fri 2 Sep 2016 19:14:48 #3 |
grahamlthompson

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I would be surprised if the Humax box was more prone to rain fade than a Sky box especially with a Zone 2 dish (if it was in a zone 1 area).

However the local rain might not be a indicator, remember the signals are coming through the atmosphere from above the equator at an oblique angle and could be affected by exceptional rainfall a very long way from your location as it passes through the atmosphere on it's way to you.

At a guess your close neighbours with Sky boxes and Sky receivers had the same problems.

Out of interest were you both happen to watching a ITV or related STV/UHD channel at the time ?.

If so that is the explanation.

ITV have changed the error correction settings to allow more channels in the same bandwidth at the expense of reducing the robustness of the signal, so much so that some Panasonic and Sony kit can no longer receive a stable signal.

What channel were you both watching at the time and did you try a a BBC channel or others to see if you could still view the content.

I have had a Freesat box since 2008, also a zone 2 dish (in the Midlands) , like you only lost the signal with snow on the dish face.

| Fri 2 Sep 2016 20:20:30 #4 |
Faust

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goathead - 2 hours ago »
Hi Repassac,
Thanks for the reply, it was torrential rain when we lost signal but I never remember the Sky box dropping signal during heavy rain? I will monitor it and if it fails again through a light rain I will check the alignment. It was checked by a friend who installs them for a living and it was lined up correctly but could have been knocked...
Thanks
Sean

I would add our experience. We used to have Sky and use our original Sky dish for our HDR 1000s Freesat box. We have the opposite experience to yourselves. In our case losing signal with the 1000s is a rare event indeed due to bad weather. Whereas heavy rain, sleet and snow would regularly knock out the Sky signal.

| Fri 2 Sep 2016 22:10:36 #5 |
goathead

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grahamlthompson - 1 day ago »
I would be surprised if the Humax box was more prone to rain fade than a Sky box especially with a Zone 2 dish (if it was in a zone 1 area).
However the local rain might not be a indicator, remember the signals are coming through the atmosphere from above the equator at an oblique angle and could be affected by exceptional rainfall a very long way from your location as it passes through the atmosphere on it's way to you.
At a guess your close neighbours with Sky boxes and Sky receivers had the same problems.
Out of interest were you both happen to watching a ITV or related STV/UHD channel at the time ?.
If so that is the explanation.
ITV have changed the error correction settings to allow more channels in the same bandwidth at the expense of reducing the robustness of the signal, so much so that some Panasonic and Sony kit can no longer receive a stable signal.
What channel were you both watching at the time and did you try a a BBC channel or others to see if you could still view the content.
I have had a Freesat box since 2008, also a zone 2 dish (in the Midlands) , like you only lost the signal with snow on the dish face.

Thanks for the replies all,
I live in the Peak District and prior to installing the zone 2 dish, the Sky installer fixed a zone 1 dish many years ago so thought I would get the larger dish for replacement to allow for a better and stronger signal reception.
Graham - I don't actually remember which channel it was on when we lost signal as I wasn't watching it, the misses was watching it so at a guess during the time it went off she was on ITV watching Emmerdale or Corrie, I don't know which channel my parents were on......
Sky might have dropped out when there was heavy rain but I never noticed it, but could have not been in watching TV when it happended??
Thanks
Sean

| Sun 4 Sep 2016 8:57:47 #6 |