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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 4880919" data-attributes="member: 59506">True, the cable receiver station is probably going to have a more sensitive receiver than your personal satelite system (and probably a much bigger dish), but drop-outs will still happen (just not as often as with a personal dish, but still enough to be noticeable - I'll edit my previous post to be more accurate<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" />).  But, no matter how sensitive a receiver is, if the rain and clouds are thick enough, it will disrupt reception (transmission power could have a difference also, but I honestly don't know if the satellite feed that cable companies receive is transmitted with a higher wattage than DirectTV/Dish Network signals or not). Perfect example: I currently have Comcast.  Whenever we have significant weather (which, during a Florida summer, happens at least once a week - not counting the almost daily afternoon thunderstorms) my cable will become intermittent and pixelated (a sign of disruption at the reciever, not the cable - water in the cable will simply cause fuzz or loss of signal - unless it's an HD channel where the result is either a perfect picture or nothing).  In the six years I had satellite TV while living in Georgia, I can count the times it dropped out due to weather on both hands (less than 10) - and two of those were tropical storms.  The other times it was simply raining so hard I couldn't see the neighbors house on the other side of the street. As far as using different satelites, it really doesn't matter.  All that matters is whether the receiver has uninterupted line-of-sight to the satellite.  If the sky is blocked by heavy weather, it doesn't much matter where the satelite is (unless it's just barely above the horizon, allowing the signal to come in under the weather, but typically the satellites are going to be at a relatively high angle of incidence to the ground station, not just off the horizon, unless you're in northern Canada and trying to pick up a DirectTV signal).  Radio waves do bounce around, and higher frequency signals are much more able to "penetrate" than low frequency signals, but heavy weather can still interupt them.  (Low frequency signals actually bounce around more than high frequency signals - this is why HF can bounce off the ionosphere and reach areas outside of line-of-sight, unlike VHF and UHF signals, and definitely unlike satelite signals which are basically up in the microwave range.)  Of course, it's not just about how thick the weather is.  Significant lightning will cause ionizing interference if it's between the satellite and the receiver. More than likely, if you had cable while your friends lost there satellite signal, then the cable receiver that sends out your cable signal was probably at a geographic location outside of the weather that was disrupting your friends signal.  Or, the weather just wasn't bad enough to disrupt the cable stations signal, but just bad enough to disrupt your friends satellite reception.  The threshold for disruption of the cable stations satellite reception is probably higher than the personal satellite receiver, but it does occasionaly get exceeded. So, every time a cable company claims that satelite TV drops out during bad weather, but cable doesn't, they are flat out lying.  It may not happen as often, but it does happen.  And satelite TV drop-outs aren't nearly as common as cable companies would have you believe.  Of course, mileage will vary depending on your geographic area.  As I said earlier, my cable here in Florida drops out more than my satelite ever did in Georgia.  It may be the other way around where you live. But, you said that you don't know whether this phenomenon is common enough to really make a difference.  I don't think it makes a difference at all, but cable companies are sure going to tell you it does.  As long as people believe it's true, the cable companies can keep perpetuating this myth, and winning customers over because of it. The only real considerations are price, and which one has the programming and features you want.</blockquote>

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