I wonder if satellite rain fade propensity depends on your geographic location. I've never experienced it, having run various services for some 5 years or so, each time with multiple dishes installed.

In fact the only outage I've experienced was at my parent's when a little bit too much snow accumulated on the dish. It was solved in a couple of minutes by knocking it loose. But in my homes I've never even had that happen regardless of how bad the storms have been.

I'm obviously busier than ever with the new daughter, but apart from the crazy storm today bringing this into my mind, we've also been getting calls for the past two weeks from the cable company. Likely trying to upsell me some service, though I'm not sure because I've never been around to answer.

I planned on switching over my TV to a combination of satellite and ATSC. Originally planning on two sat receivers and dual ATSC tuners. Now I'm thinking I might be able to get away with only a single sat tuner, which will easily save me at least $500 (extra receiver and extra Hauppauge HD capture device).