Does Ubc/true Visions Work When It Rains?

[vegas]

I am a first time user of UBC/True Visions (1 month) and this morning during a downpour, I completely lost the signal for about 30 minutes. I live in Bangkapi so I don't know if this makes a difference??

Does this mean that during the rainy season I will have to pull out my pack of cards or read a book every time it rains?

[Florin]

Pretty much...their cable system is better, but if you're using satellite, tough luck...I've heard about some aftermarket mods for their dishes, but by default they seem to be quite crap.

[lopburi3]

I guess you are talking about the DTH downlink to your home being out? There is much talk about losing signal from rain so, other that pointing antenna better, there is probably nothing you can do but read; unless you have coax or fiber cable option, or use the very limited phone line/adsl system.

[Crossy]

Ku Band (11GHz) reception is suseptible to rain or even thick cloud, the older C Band (with the big mesh dishes) is much more reliable, but UBC isn't on those birds

A bigger dish would help, but to gain enough signal to offset the effects it would need to be a LOT bigger, live with it

BTW you can't use a C Band dish for UBC even if you replace the LNB with a Ku Band one, the waves literally fall through the holes in the mesh.

[lazeeboy]

its not only the rain ,trees can affect the signal if your signal is up and down could be a tree blowing in the wind .

[vegas]

There are no trees near the house and the dish is on the 2nd floor, so there is nothing but cloud blocking it. There is no cable in the Bangkapi area. Perhaps I can deduct the 30 minutes when I had no signal from the bill.

[CosmicSurfer]

Perhaps I can deduct the 30 minutes when I had no signal from the bill.

Yah... Sure... Best of Luck on That.

I'll be in line right after you.

CS

[Crossy]

As a new subscriber the OP has not experienced the exact opposite yet, the Sun Outage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_outage

So it doesn't work in the rain and it doesn't work in the sun either, actually if you consider the (non) quality of the programming it just doesn't work

Edited January 30, 2008 by Crossy

[cali]

Wait till the rainy season when outages happen every single day. Despite my apartment building being large and somewhat high end, the signal konks out every time so I doubt there is a way around it. In fact, my building owners decided to now offer a different type of satellite TV with less selection and lots of Chinese stations, but it works just fine during rain and it is free to the tenants.

[vegas]

I am beginning to suspect that True Visions is not a professional company.

[MaxLee]

So,... just to clarify things.... Does it mean, when rainy season comes the whole Internet bandwidth is affected by permanent disconnections?

I mean before I bought my new modem last year at around October, I had a lot of period of permanent disconnections several times a day, especially when it rained. Then one day, when my modem was really out of order for over a week, we called a technician, he checked our old modem and he said the security guarantee of the modem has expired over 6 months already,... that seemed true. So what he offered us to do was terminate our old contract and apply new, so we could get a modem for free.

Well since then and maybe with the weather being dry,... not such problems with disconnections,... not much problems with my current modem like last year....

... What do you think would I face the same disconnection dilemna like last year once the rainy season starts???? Does the rain really affect the stability of the already limited bandwidth Interne??????

[Dissolution]

I had UBC, just cancelled it last month.

It's pathetic; I can tell when it's about to rain/raining outside by just switching on the TV. There is basically no connection when it rains.

[Florin]

So,... just to clarify things.... Does it mean, when rainy season comes the whole Internet bandwidth is affected by permanent disconnections?

I mean before I bought my new modem last year at around October, I had a lot of period of permanent disconnections several times a day, especially when it rained. Then one day, when my modem was really out of order for over a week, we called a technician, he checked our old modem and he said the security guarantee of the modem has expired over 6 months already,... that seemed true. So what he offered us to do was terminate our old contract and apply new, so we could get a modem for free.

Well since then and maybe with the weather being dry,... not such problems with disconnections,... not much problems with my current modem like last year....

... What do you think would I face the same disconnection dilemna like last year once the rainy season starts???? Does the rain really affect the stability of the already limited bandwidth Interne??????

This is a thread about satellite TV, which is not related to (phone-line) DSL Internet aside from being offered by the same retarded company...so your net should not go out because of the rain.

[croftrobin]

Ku Band (11GHz) reception is suseptible to rain or even thick cloud, the older C Band (with the big mesh dishes) is much more reliable, but UBC isn't on those birds

A bigger dish would help, but to gain enough signal to offset the effects it would need to be a LOT bigger, live with it

BTW you can't use a C Band dish for UBC even if you replace the LNB with a Ku Band one, the waves literally fall through the holes in the mesh.

Not correct.

Big mesh dishes are used here to pick up KU transmissions from Malaysia & the Phillipines as well as UBC, when used with a mesh dish and a Prime Focus LNB.

Many users in Thailand will vouch for this, eg they watch Astro or Dream.

A bigger dish is required as we are often out of footprint of the beam of the sats.

[sbk]

Its not limited to True. Anyone using the small dishes have this problem. My parents lost signal when there was a blizzard at their house in the US. Also had to go knock snow off the dish or they lost signal as well.

[JetsetBkk]

I am a first time user of UBC/True Visions (1 month) and this morning during a downpour, I completely lost the signal for about 30 minutes. I live in Bangkapi so I don't know if this makes a difference??

Does this mean that during the rainy season I will have to pull out my pack of cards or read a book every time it rains?

You could try re-aligning the dish. If you look at the signal value (menu/setup/receiver info/signal value), it'll probably say "255" - the maximum - for a whole range of directions, so it's not easy to use that. I've thought about hanging a damp cloth over the receiver in the dish to reduce the signal strength - just like a cloud will do - and then re-align the dish to get it spot on.

Or you could try aligning it using a proper signal meter

Or you could persuade UBC/True to come out and re-adjust it (tell them there was a strong wind that blew your dish off-line )

[Crossy]

Ku Band (11GHz) reception is suseptible to rain or even thick cloud, the older C Band (with the big mesh dishes) is much more reliable, but UBC isn't on those birds

A bigger dish would help, but to gain enough signal to offset the effects it would need to be a LOT bigger, live with it

BTW you can't use a C Band dish for UBC even if you replace the LNB with a Ku Band one, the waves literally fall through the holes in the mesh.

Not correct.

Big mesh dishes are used here to pick up KU transmissions from Malaysia & the Phillipines as well as UBC, when used with a mesh dish and a Prime Focus LNB.

Many users in Thailand will vouch for this, eg they watch Astro or Dream.

A bigger dish is required as we are often out of footprint of the beam of the sats.

Robin. I did not say you can't use a big mesh dish for Ku band (which of course you can), I said you can't use a dish designed for C Band to get Ku, the holes are just too big. It's easy enough to tell, if the holes are bigger than 1/4 wave at 18GHz (top of Ku) then it won't work. 1/4 wave at 18GHz is about 4mm. A pure C band dish will have holes 10-15mm across, obviously you can use a dish with a small mesh for C band reception

Jetset, I like the idea of using a damp cloth as an attenuator to get the signal strength off the peg when aligning the dish

Edited February 1, 2008 by Crossy

[vegas]

Ha ha. UBC went off this morning and never came back on.