Weather and its affect on wireless broadband

jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1131

Couldn't figure a place for this so I stuck in on Maps.

How about starting a thread for studies of the affect of weather on wireless broad band?

There are three Sprint speed test servers. That would seem to be a logical weather test, how does weather at the sprint server locations affect our reception and speeds.

And the weather at the other speed test sites?

And the weather at our unique location.

We would be interested in sufficient sunny clear days to establish a norm. Then how do thunderstorms affect the speeds.

Weather is a factor no one has mentioned, at least to my viewing habits, and one that is extremely important, just remember the affect of lightning on non-cable tv reception.

I'm full of suggestions if anyone has time and energy to burn.

norbinc · Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: reception

I've noticed on hot sunny days my signal goes up, but at night it comes down .I also watched it during thunder storms haven't seen a real adverse affect.I think I saw something about it at DSLreports. talked
about the effects of the sun and electromagnetics on UHF frequencies.I think I'll start keeping alog of signals and what the weather
was on each day.

offgridmontana · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:45 am Post subject:

The weather in Helena, MT is overcast (no sun in site) and snowing and I get great speeds even in the rural forest service areas, as long as my location is not surrounded by high mountains. I 4X4 to the top of a hill at MacDonald Pass (HIGHWAY 12) and the reception was 4 bars!

onedavester · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:49 am Post subject:

Signal goes up, latency goes down, and speed increases the more cloudy it becomes for me.

Winter_Harbor_Oyster · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:52 pm Post subject:

I see absolutley no difference be it a 100 degree August day or a 20 degree January day.

wvbills · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:19 pm Post subject:

I connect to a tower about 5 miles away, non-line of sight with a parabolic grid antenna, no amp.

Over the past year I haven't seen any degrading from fog, heavy fog, mist, rain, heavy rain, sleet, snow or heat. I've been amazed.
_________________
WVBill

ubikk · EVDO User Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 32

I would think that most of the effect of weather would be be the result of how the weather affects your nearest tower. Most atmospheric conditions won't interact with the frequencies that we're using.

However a tower that has ice on it or is very wet or is being subjected to voltage fluctuations could perform differently than one that is dry and unaffected. A hot tower might perform differently than a cold tower, as well.

doomass · EVDO User Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 42

The shittier the weather the better speed and signal I get.

Jack_In_VA · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 29 May 2008 Posts: 21

I've never had weather have any influence on my wireless broadband. Rain, snow, hail, wind, fog, heat or cold does not effect it.

Lightning has little effect on non-cable tv since the changeover to digital. In fact I have an outside UHF antenna just for those occasions when heavy rain knocks out my Directv.

widgetman101 · EVDO Junkie Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 223

The colder weather seems to have an impact on my speeds. My setup includes a 800Mhz Parabolic Grid and I'm 7 miles from the tower I connect to. In the warmer summer months I typically get around 800-900Kbps sustained. I just ran a speed test for the first of December and the results are much higher sustained. You could argue that the foilage has an impact but I always see faster speeds in the colder weather. Back in September it got down in the 30's with all the foliage still on the trees and the results are similar. I rarely see results like this in the summer months. Upload results don't seem to be affected by the temp though.

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 1261 Kbps about 1.3 Mbps (tested with 1544 kB)
Download Speed is:: 154 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2009/12/01 - 10:09pm
Bottom Line:: 22X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 6.65 sec
Tested from a 1544 kB file and took 10.032 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 52.66 % faster than the average for host (myvzw.com)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-DLQXRON0T
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009073022 Firefox/3.0.13 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!]

:::.. Upload Stats ..:::
Upload Connection is:: 606 Kbps about 0.6 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 74 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2009/12/01 - 10:13pm
Bottom Line:: 11X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 13.84 sec
Tested from a 1013 kB file and took 13.693 seconds to complete
Upload Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 63.34 % faster than the average for host (myvzw.com)
U-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-JSICAR8H6
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009073022 Firefox/3.0.13 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!]

ChoP · EVDO User Joined: 13 Jul 2008 Posts: 54 Location: Alabama

The only affects I have seen is when it's lighting and strong winds, this may have more to do with the tower, rain seems to have little to no affect. My strongest signals seem to be when it's overcast. Like some here have indicated weather has little affect. Living down South we have lots of lighting and strong winds off the Gulf and it's obvious the signal gets degraded some when strong thunderstorms move through.

AZDude · Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:25 pm Post subject:

I've noticed that when there is a heavy storm, my data speeds slow to a crawl, sometimes disconnecting. This only happens when I'm in my appartment. On the road (streaming internet radio at bitrates below 32k) it doesn't seem to do any affect. I've streamed while mobile in light to heavy rain and in a slight dust storm with no buffering or disconnects.