WHAT IS THE RAIN EFFECT ON SATELLITE TV SYSTEM?
The raindrops absorb some of the signals when the number of drops goes beyond 100 mm per hour, a process known as Rain Fade. This kind of heavy rain effects both up link and down link communication of the satellite. Engineer at HEI consulting, Canada has done a test to figure out the signal attenuation loss due to the rain. They measured the rainfall as depth per hour The approximate rainfall attenuation at 12.5 GHz, assuming that one mile or 1.6 Km of the path from satellite to receiver passes through different rainfall density, is given in their web site. It is shown that, 2.3 dB downstream signal attenuation experienced when the rainfall reaches 25.4 mm/hour. In the case of 250 mm/hour rainfall the signal attenuation goes up to 43 dB, which is enough to disturb the proper video transmission.[6]. As far as yearly rainfall records, Washington DC metropolitan are has not been experiencing long lasting heavy rains so far. Therefore rain fade is not going to be considered as a big obstac
