Accessing dish on solar panel roof

H

Helvetica

Member
My Satellite Setup
1.2m motorised H-H dish with Disecq (yuk); VU+ Duo. Most viewed sats are 28.2E, 19 E, 5 East and 1 West. HiSpeed glass fibre internet connection; PC: Windows 10 (3 HDs) + 4-Disk NAS + 1 ext. USB HD. (paranoic about losing my website's data so it's saved three times a day to various HDs).
My Location
NW Switzerland
Dear all, our motorized dish drooped a bit during the last rain storm and we lost our signals (we also have IPTV so are not without TV channels), so it needs a very small correction to the angle of elevation. The problem is, it is now surrounded by solar panels (see photo). As you can see there are a couple of feet free to the left and right and beneath the mast, but it's getting to those free areas without damaging the panels (by standing on them) which is the problem. Each panel is 1.78 m long, 1.1 m wide and 30 mm high.
Does anyone else have experience with accessing a dish on a roof with solar panels ?
 

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Helvetica said:
Dear all, our motorized dish drooped a bit during the last rain storm and we lost our signals (we also have IPTV so are not without TV channels), so it needs a very small correction to the angle of elevation. The problem is, it is now surrounded by solar panels (see photo). As you can see there are a couple of feet free to the left and right and beneath the mast, but it's getting to those free areas without damaging the panels (by standing on them) which is the problem. Each panel is 1.78 m long, 1.1 m wide and 30 mm high.
Does anyone else have experience with accessing a dish on a roof with solar panels ?
Click to expand...
Can’t you access the dish by going up the other side of the roof and climbing down to it?
 
smithysmudge said:
Can’t you access the dish by going up the other side of the roof and climbing down to it?
Click to expand...
The other side of the roof may not be owned by the o/p.


I have worked on dishes in similar locations by removing a few tiles just below fom the loft space (often three floors or more in this area), but the membrane under them needs replacing after work is complete.

Some clients have upgraded to a Velux style window under the pole to offset future servicing costs.
 
Thanks for your suggestions.
The lowest edge of the far side of the roof is over 15m high, so it'd need something like a large cherry picker to get up there.
Removing tiles from the empty spaces to make an access flap would be very problematic. It is a "double roof", so from the top inwards: tiles, wood panels, special weather foil, beams, wood panels. The beams are quite close together so it would mean cutting chunks out of at least two of the beams, which would not be very good for the support.
 
Hi all, my "sat man" was here last week and accessed the dish by going up the 1 ft wide free edge. He tested the dish signal with some kind of mini receiver and said the signal was perfect. Back in the living room, he unscrewed the coax cable and saw that the end (where the pin is) was rusty. He cut the end off and water dripped out. (The coax cable has been in place for about 30 years. A couple of years ago we had a huge storm which bent, twisted and dented our last 1.5 m dish and 3.5v motor and it is possible that water got into the cable then.)
Anyway, he took the VU+ with him to check whether its coax connection has been damaged by water and will install a new cable fed through under the solar panels then across and down the outer wall (protected from rain)... So with luck I should have my dish working again by the end of July...
 
Lucky you have IPTV!
 
Yes, but some channels are not in our iptv provider's list, some tend to go into a loop and BBC 1 is extremely jittery. Can't complain about the iptv provider though, good price, and they usually respond quickly to requests or problems. Been with them for 5 years and just renewed our subs.
 
Yippee, dish working again thanks to the new cable. I'm so happy that I have all the Free to View channels back which our IPTV does not have.
 
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