Dish in the attic

itisix

Hi,

I have a house with a big attic and it's not beeing used. I was wondering if it would be possible to place a 1.2m dish inside it. the roof is mildly inclined facing almost perfecly 30ºW.
the height of the attic is 1.5m.
I'd like to capture 13ºE, 19.2E and 28E in portugal with the same dish and 3 LNB's (no motor).
28ºE requires quite some sized dish (at the very least 85cm according to reports; a guy I know has one on the roof and get reasonable quality, but I'm going 1.2m) in Portugal because of low signal.
There are no windows in the attic but I would (off course) place one or more onto the roof and replace the glass with acrylic or other material.
Would this be at all possible or am I just daydreaming?

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Jayne: Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with till you understand who's in rutting command here.

Analoguesat

If the roof is sloping facing 30W you are going to have problems getting the easterly satellites!

However. As long as the material you use is microwave transparent then yes it will work to some degree. You will have some signal loss due to absorption and probably due to refection off the surface of the new window. You may well find one polarity more affected than the other.. You will also find more signal degradation in wet weather if rain sticks to the acrylic outer surface...



To be honest its all guess work, but try it and see!

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whatsthis

and if it does work itisix please come back here and report your progress - this is agreat idea !

spiney

Yes! (provisionally).

It's certainly possible to use a sat dish - of any size - through most standard window glass (ie, that made by the Pilkington float process, so it's flat, that is, the scenery outside doesn't seem to "ripple" as you move!).

However, some types of glass can selectively attenuate parts of the Ku band, especially high band - depending on chemical composition - so the only sure test is to try it!

I have no problems at all getting Astra1/Astra2/Hotbird, through my double glazed kitchen window, on a Sky Minidish (Hotbird is partial, but that's the small dish size, not the glass!).

itisix

I'm from portugal and it's rather delicate to get astra 2 here because of low signal. astra 1 and hotbird are really hot around here, but astra2 requires (at the very least) a 1m dish so I'm shooting for bigger. the problem as I see it is the slop of the roof as it is almost 90º to the antena. I'd really like to put it up there. It would last longer (no corrosion from the neraby sea at less than 1km), no rain to short the LNB, no birds messing with the "arm", easy access (and always dry )
the problem is that to make it effective, the window must be big. at least as big as the dish (or bigger because of the roof slope) to have signal reaching all the surface of the dish. I don't know. maybe won't even try. on the other hand, all the wiring will go in the attic.

__________________
Jayne: Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with till you understand who's in rutting command here.