I wouldn't worry about the wind so much, but snow is definately an issue. That's one of the few advantages of offset dishes over prime focus, ie offset dishes are almost vertical, and don't collect snow, but a prime focus dish will collect a LOT of snow. I used to park my dish to the west, when a snowstorm was expected, hoping that it would keep the snow off, and that does help, but now my motor is getting so old that I have trouble getting it back from the west in the winter (which is unfortunate because the winter is the only time I can get reception of the western sats due to leaves).
Anyway, every snowstorm, I have to go out with a broom on an extension tube, and brush the snow off. For a light fluffy snow, all I have to do is bang the dish, and the snow slides off, but heavy wet snows are hard to get off, which is why my dish is all dented, since I generally have to bang on the mesh from underneath to loosen it, and I now have softball sized dents in the dish. Hopefully the snow won't stick to a solid dish as much as it does to my mesh dish.
Besides the extra load on the motor, you'll probably find that the weight of the snow pulls the dish out of alignment. Ie I used to think that the snow was absorbing the signal, but actually it was pulling it off aim.
? What part of NW Pa?


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