What dish ?

Satelliter

Hi, seeing as this is my first post i'd like to say what a nice bunch you seem to be on here and i'm glad to be among you.

What it is, is that i got rid of my sky subscription a long while ago as i found them to be getting a bit cheeky and ever since i've been making do with the free stations on the box but i fancied having a go at picking up some new stations.

Now please bear with me as i'm completely new to all this. I have read stuff on here and other places but i'm still getting my head around it all yet.

I've always been into radio, scanning, CB and what not so i have a basic understanding of certain concepts of behind this, but i didn't realise how much there was to satellite gear until i decided to look.

Anyway i was looking at a Technomate 1500 and a 3300 and after reading on here the 1500 seems to be strongly favoured by people so i was thinking of getting one of those. Anyway as a radio enthusiast i can appreciate how important antennas are and where i live has always crippled the potential of my receivers and it will be the same with this i'm afraid. With my radio equipment i've always made do with indoor antennas and stuff (apart from when i once had a CB dipole on my back wall, and i was lucky to have that).

Now here comes my question. I've read a few threads and bits and pieces about indoor antennas and i can appreciate it's almost impossible to tell how a dish will perform at someone elses location, but what i would like to know is firstly: If anyone can recommend a dish for indoor use through the window ?
And Secondly: If anyone living in the North East Wales area knows what sort of chance i stand of recieving anything and if so what sats i may be able to pick up ?

My window is roughly East facing, the same direction as the sky dish if that helps ?, and i'm afraid i do have double glazing.

Again i'm pleased to be among you and sorry for babbling on so long. I hope i've posted in the right section. I had so much choice. lol.

Cheers in advance.

Topper

Welcome to the forum Satelliter

As you quite rightly mention one cannot say, the big variable is the glass and even that has quite a few permutations. For example you say you have double glazing and it depends how long you have had it for. The reason is that in recent years there has been a BS standard adopted for double glazing and this is to reflect the heat back into the house, I believe this is done using a very thin coating and these coatings (as there are two pieces of glass) and the glass reduce the amount and quality of signal received. So really it is a case of suck it and see. Also it is possible that the unit may have been installed back to front and this may give a different result. The permutations are endless but there are a number of threads concerning indoor reception
I suggest you use the search function above and type the word indoors or click here, lots of interesting reports for you to digest

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Robbo71

Where is your Sky dish located? Is it inside or outside?

Do you have your own dish or is it communial?

If you have your own Sky dish, it can be motorized, but it would be better and easier to replace it.

As far as I know, no dishes work better inside than others of similar spec.

The TM1500 receiver has been supeceded by the TM5400CI, so it would be better to get that instead as it has double the channel storage(10,000) and a USB connection on the front.

Robbo

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Satelliter

The sky dish is located outside but it is communial. Would a regular sky dish be able to pick up many satellites ?

Appreciate your replies.

Robbo71

I used to have a motorised zone 1 minidish and I could pick up about 4 or 5 (maybe more) satellites with it. A zone 2 would pick up more.

I think your neighbours would get a bit pee'ed off if you started moving the communial dish around though.

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Satelliter

I can just see em settling down to emmerdale and and me swinging from the dish like a maniac outside their window. lol

By the way which satellites am i most likely to pick up ?

Cheers mate

Robbo71

What? with a Sky dish? I vaguely remember getting 13E,19E,23.5E,28E and 42E ( I could only 'see' east), there may have been a few bits of a couple of others.
From a larger dish, say 1m, it is posible to get a whole lot more, something like:- 30W,22W,15W,12.5W,8W,7W,5W,1W,5E,10E,13E,16E,19E,2 3.5E,26E,28E,33E,39E,42E.
This is my limit because of obstructions and I may have missed a few out

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Satelliter

Didn't realise how much difference it made to be honest until you just said, so i'll have to have a think about which dish to get. Bearing in mind i'll probably be having it indoors a 1m dish may not be practical, unless i put it away between use and i don't think that'll be much fun. I was looking at a zone 2 but i haven't decided on anything as yet.
I was wondering though if i could mount a fixed stand or something by the window so i could put the dish away when i'm finished and be able to put it back in the same position afterwards, if that were the case i could get a bigger one. Sounds a bit like hard work though, but i'll have to make do somehow.
I appreciate your help and advice Robbo. Thanks again.

Robbo71

You can get tripods, I think they are mainly for camping use. You can also get transparent dishes up to 85cm I think.

Heres a piccie of one:-

Attached Images

transparent80cmdishonmoteckdiseqcmotorandtkmountingbrackets.jpg (59.2 KB, 8 views)

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Satelliter

Cheers again mate, that's something else for me to look into now.