Advice Needed Bad weather signal drop

[Robert Mallett]

Some advice.

I'm in Southern France 15kms from the Med nr St.Tropez and I'm trying to establish what size dish to recommend to expats in this area so they can restore their Freesat TV. It's clear that 80cm dishes are now too small for Freesat channels but I have a 90cm dish with an MTI LNB, good alignment and all channels are OK in good weather - some pixilation on ch.5 last night but I lost most when it was cloudy and raining which is was until yesterday. Many opinions can be found but the general feeling is that a 1.2M dish will be best for all weather performance.
It's an important question because anything over 90cm mounted on a roof in this area where the mistral can knock you over is not going to be possible.
Where I'm not clear is the drop in signal in bad weather. Is the signal drop the same on the UK spot beam as it was for say channels previously on 1N? It seems to me that there is a sharper drop as I have had reports from people with 1.2m dishes who had lost BBC channels when it was raining on Monday. Bad weather is when you most want to watch some TV and it seems to me that whilst 90cm or 1M is OK in clear conditions 1.2 may not be enough when it rains.
Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[satelliteman]

Might be worth taking a look at this map;
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?m...l=54.876607,-4.064941&spn=10.228184,19.753418

 

[Robert Mallett]

Might be worth taking a look at this map;
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?m...l=54.876607,-4.064941&spn=10.228184,19.753418

Thanks but it doesn't really help much. There are only 2 in the immediate area, one was my 110cm dish report at the weekend and the other is a transparent dish which I'm not sure has been checked for alignment. It doesn't give me any idea if the signal drop off is more acute with UK spotbeam channels on 2E/F than the Astra 1N signals.

 

[satelliteman]

Probably at little too early to determine dish size required. No one will be able to give any definite answers at this stage. Keep an eye on the map results ;)

 

[Robert Mallett]

Thanks. That was my conclusion was but understandably people are anxious (perhaps over-anxious might be a better description) to get their TV back. I've my 90cm dish, a 110cm nearby and a 120cm and a 130cm that I know of and have checked are well aligned. All working OK in clear conditions with the exception of the 90cm which is not happy with Ch.5 5* etc in the evening. It's forecast to be a bit overcast and raining on Saturday so I will revisit them all if possible during poorer conditions and report back.

In the meantime if anybody has any information on whether the bad weather drop is more acute with the spot beam, please let me know.