Desperate for extra channels

willstone24 · 29-05-2007

Hi All,

New guy on the block here ! I have a sky dish pointing in the usual place, and really want to get hotbird and Astra 19E to get some additional channels, problem is I cannot put a bigger dish up due to it being on the front of my house (current mini dish) and I dont fancy putting an 80CM up in place of it as it would cause naighbour issues and my wife said I am not allowed ! So can I put a dish in my loft facing in the right direction ? Will it work through the tiles or will the Fe(iron) in the tiles prevent the signal from making it through ? If this works it will be a god send as I can view all the channels and no-one will know I have an additional dish ?
any help greatly appreciated, only other option is ground mount in the back garden but then I think my houe would be in the way as the front of the house is South facing, so putting it in the back garden would mean I would need to mount it fairly high on a pole I would have thought ? As I said I am new to all this but deserate for some guidance before I blow lotsof money on something that wil not work !!

Cheers chaps
Will

**Analoguesat** · 29-05-2007

You cannot put a dish in the roof space unless you have a window pointing in the right direction.

willstone24 · 29-05-2007

OK thanks for the info ! time for a roof window then !

**Analoguesat** · 29-05-2007

Low or ground mounted dishes are quite satisfactory as long as there is a clear view out to the south east. Heres my setup in the garden

Left to right:

1m Orbital on 16E with offset lnb for 23E
second hand tyre mounted 80cm for 19E
second hand 80cm for 13E
second hand 80cm for 5E / 7E / 9E or whetever is interesting round there

**Robbo** · 29-05-2007

You may be able to pick up Astra1 and Hotbird with a minidish. I can down in Kent.

My motorised zone1 minidish.

willstone24 · 30-05-2007

Thanks chaps for all the help, much appreciated, when you say a clear view how clear ! as if I stand in the corner of my back garden and face south east I can see the back of my house and my neighbours, I take it thats not clear !

willstone24 · 30-05-2007

Robb071 that looks like my ideal solution to be honest as my dish is on a small pole on the roof apex currently so if I motorised it I should be able to get 360degrees ! what about the LNB angle though (offset) is it the same for the other satellites ? I could always change my mini dish for a larger one dont they do a 60CM mini dish for use in far out areas ?

Regards
Will

**rolfw** · 30-05-2007

The elevation of the satellite is around 1 in 2, so if your house is 8 metres tall and the bottom of your garden is more than 16 metres away, you will be able to see the satellite. It could also possibly go on the back wall of the house, above the gutter line.

**Robbo** · 30-05-2007

Originally Posted by willstone24

I should be able to get 360degrees ! what about the LNB angle though (offset) is it the same for the other satellites ? I could always change my mini dish for a larger one dont they do a 60CM mini dish for use in far out areas ?

Regards
Will

LOL!
Not much point in going 360 degrees, as there aren't any TV sats up at the north pole. I believe the available arc is something like +/- 75 degrees either side of due south (someone else may have a more accurate figure for this)

The skew of the lnb does not require adjusting with a motorised setup once setup. This is because as the dish changes its azimuth position, the whole dish also rotates slightly in the x-y plane- the dish is mounted on a the motor stub which is not vertical. LNB skew may need adjusting initially though as skew would have been adjusted for the dish that is level in the x-y plane.

Yes Sky Zone 2 dishes are slightly bigger, they are intended for those oop north, as the signal levels are lower the further north you are (UK).

By the way, my minidish is a Raven, you may have to do a bit of mechanical fiddling to get other minidish makes to fit on a motor.

willstone24 · 30-05-2007

I am so impressed with the level of help you chaps have provided ! I cant wait to get going ! Just need to persuade my neighbour to lend me his ladder now !
What I might do then to start off with as it will be cheaper this way is get a Raven mini dish off Ebay

for £20 62CM stick that up there where my current sky dish is but motorise it, thats a point what motor should I get ? My receiver is going to be a Technomate TM 8000 I think and I will use the DiseQ, so Robbo71 which motor did you find fitted the Raven dish ?
Once thats done I can LNB loop through my Technomate and out in to my SKY so the Mrs. can still use Sky when I am at work, that should be OK shouldnt it ??

If not I can stick a pole mount up on the back of the house then, I am guessing it doesnt need to be up to the height of the coping tiles from my gutter line probably 2-3 feet up on a pole ?

Thanks guys,
Regards
Will

**Analoguesat** · 30-05-2007

See if the missus will compromise with leaving the current sky minidish up for Sky - theres going to be conflicts if she wants to watch a soppy Saturday film on Skyand you want to watch strange Bulgarian channels !

willstone24 · 30-05-2007

Thats the problem isnt it ! I used to live in Germany hence I want the german channels etc.. she cant sepak a word of it and will want to watch columbo or something ! The compromise is Columbo in Spanish with subtitles ! lol !

**Robbo** · 30-05-2007

Originally Posted by willstone24

What I might do then to start off with as it will be cheaper this way is get a Raven mini dish off Ebay for £20 62CM stick that up there where my current sky dish is but motorise it, thats a point what motor should I get ? My receiver is going to be a Technomate TM 8000 I think and I will use the DiseQ, so Robbo71 which motor did you find fitted the Raven dish ?
Once thats done I can LNB loop through my Technomate and out in to my SKY so the Mrs. can still use Sky when I am at work, that should be OK shouldnt it ??

If not I can stick a pole mount up on the back of the house then, I am guessing it doesnt need to be up to the height of the coping tiles from my gutter line probably 2-3 feet up on a pole ?

Thanks guys,
Regards
Will

Out of choice I would not go and buy a minidish, I'm sure others on here could recommend a better 60cm dish than that. For a start, a standard pole mount dish would be more likely to fit straight onto a standard HH motor, alsoI'm not sure that the SKY LNBs have a very good noise figure compared to what you can get with standard 40mm neck ones. But then again, they're probably the cheapest to get hold of, especially on Ebay

.

You could have a look at dishes etc on some of the traders advertised on this site also worth looking on satcure or satellitesuperstore .

Nope, you could not loop the SAT loop out of your receiver to another satellite receiver, it wouldnt work properly. You would only be able to receive channels on the 2nd receiver that have the same polarity and are on the same band as the channel that is set on the first receiver.

I bought my motor from Maplin for £49.99- Fortec star branded STAB HH-90 suitable for dishes up to 90cm. I really don't know if this is a good motor or not.
It seems to work no problems though, and was pretty easy to set up.

***JTA*** · 30-05-2007

a word of advice - setting up a motorized system is NOT something I would recommend for a novice user. Your pole needs to be exactly vertical in all directions, and the dish and motor need to be aligned correctly, probably using the Sirius satellite as your 0 point on the satellite arc. if not you'll be getting a nasty surprise (no channels !) and it may take days or even weeks of fiddling to get it 'somewhat' right !

willstone24 · 30-05-2007

Originally Posted by JTA

a word of advice - setting up a motorized system is NOT something I would recommend for a novice user. Your pole needs to be exactly vertical in all directions, and the dish and motor need to be aligned correctly, probably using the Sirius satellite as your 0 point on the satellite arc. if not you'll be getting a nasty surprise (no channels !) and it may take days or even weeks of fiddling to get it 'somewhat' right !

Thanks for the info, dont worry I am from an engineering background and am quite used to plumbing apparatus to an accurate level, I can imagine the problems that could be ahead should the installations be done in a poor fashion ! ! I will get a little help from some of my colleagues

**Sharkadder** · 31-05-2007

i simular have problem with mine, i have got a motorised system which needs to be set up, (1.2 motor and 80cm dish), my next door neighours house is the front house in the semi detached that faces south. The side of there wall faces south, if i put the dish onto the wall facing the east direction of south i can only pick up the eastern satellites because the neighbours roof blocks the western ones. If i put it on the floor round the back theres no enough space to get all the satellites. If i put it round the back on the guttering i can get the western ones but not eastern ones because of the roof in the way.

So what i have to do is probably attach it high up on the wall facing south (at the highest point on the roof), now ill probably need a long pole to clamp down to make sure nothing blows over in the wind but thats the only way i can get hold of all satellites without putting the dish onto the chimney which i dont want to do because thats even more dangerous.

I could use 2 dish's but that means that i have to have 2 motors and more cabling and i want to avoid that.

Where i live its not that bad for wind and plus summer coming up but if i put the wall mount high on the wall and had the dish poking over the roof will it be ok if the wall mount is tightly screwed onto the wall? im going to ring a guy to come round and sort it and he knows alot but im just wondering if its going to be safe.

willstone24 · 31-05-2007

Hi Sharkadder, why is there never a simple solution wouldnt it be nice if we could get all of the channels from all of the satellties through a broadband connection. How easy would that be, I think there should be huge dishes erected in fields to provide the feeds, which are then sent down the Broadband to distribution points.

**Analoguesat** · 31-05-2007

Originally Posted by willstone24

Hi Sharkadder, why is there never a simple solution wouldnt it be nice if we could get all of the channels from all of the satellties through a broadband connection. How easy would that be, I think there should be huge dishes erected in fields to provide the feeds, which are then sent down the Broadband to distribution points.

The current uk broadband infrastructure doesnt have anywhere near the capacity for such a scheme

willstone24 · 31-05-2007

UK is just pants really fro most technological things !

**Sharkadder** · 31-05-2007

i have a solution, live in a glass house with non reflective windows, that way you'd never have the problem about going through walls lol.

Looks like im gonna be getting this installer on the roof when he comes round to sort mine out mind you......ohh boy he'll just love that wont he lol

p.s while were on subject about insatalling yeah ive realised the only LNB i have is the 1 that came with my porty system. now this lnb is probably not all that good but is the any lnbs youd recommend me getting, like cheapish universal ones which will do the job to picking up most satellites with an 80cm dish? any decent makes or out?

**Robbo** · 31-05-2007

Originally Posted by willstone24

Hi Sharkadder, why is there never a simple solution wouldnt it be nice if we could get all of the channels from all of the satellties through a broadband connection. How easy would that be, I think there should be huge dishes erected in fields to provide the feeds, which are then sent down the Broadband to distribution points.

Naaah, its much more fun mucking about with dishes. I have cable TV to watch, but that's too easy.

thedavid · 04-06-2007

Originally Posted by willstone24

Hi All,

New guy on the block here ! I have a sky dish pointing in the usual place, and really want to get hotbird and Astra 19E to get some additional channels, problem is I cannot put a bigger dish up due to it being on the front of my house (current mini dish) and I dont fancy putting an 80CM up in place of it as it would cause naighbour issues and my wife said I am not allowed ! So can I put a dish in my loft facing in the right direction ? Will it work through the tiles or will the Fe(iron) in the tiles prevent the signal from making it through ? If this works it will be a god send as I can view all the channels and no-one will know I have an additional dish ?
any help greatly appreciated, only other option is ground mount in the back garden but then I think my houe would be in the way as the front of the house is South facing, so putting it in the back garden would mean I would need to mount it fairly high on a pole I would have thought ? As I said I am new to all this but deserate for some guidance before I blow lotsof money on something that wil not work !!

Cheers chaps
Will

What's it got to do with your neighbours if you put a satellite dish in your garden? If you use gorbtrack, you can check where in your garden you could place a dish and at what height.

**blueboyrio** · 04-06-2007

Hi, I got my dish from a council estate! They were about to be demolished and I saw more the 5 dishes in on side, differents sizes and LNB. So I went there and asked the builders to remove one dish. There were already few dishes on the skip destroyed. Very sad.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)