Dish vandalism. Anyone been a victim?

Tony1A

Tony1A

Never going back to Sky TV. Ever!
My Satellite Setup
Humax HDR1100S Freesat Recorder. Octagon UHD satellite box with Gibertini 1m motorised dish. Triax TD78 for Freesat. Triax TD64 for Freesat to 3 rooms. 2 Panasonic Freeview+ HD recorders.
My Location
North-East England, UK
I can't remember if there is a thread about this matter. Here goes with my story. In 1998 when I lived half a mile further down the road than I do now, I had a 1m solid concentric dish aimed at 13e for Hotbird. My Sky dish was up at a height on the side of the building, but this one was pole mounted in the back garden. One (dark) morning I switched my satellite on to be greeted by a message of no signal. Hmm...strange. So I decided to have some breakfast and investigate later on when it got light.

When I stepped out the back door....oh what a sight. The fence had been kicked in and three panels were on the ground and to cap it all my dish had it's LNB arm broke off completely. Luckily I had tightened the nuts so much they could not get the dish off the pole. Boy, was I angry! So I called the police who were quite swift to turn up. It seems that local "yobs" had been taking wood from fences to put on a bonfire, but on seeing my dish they though they would try and get that too. They failed....whoops. I told the cop what I thought of these people in no uncertain terms and he agreed! I got my fence repaired and as luck would have it, I kept my old concentric 1m dish I used at my folks so I made one good dish out of both.
Going back to the early 90's, I know of one old guy who had his 60cm Sky dish nicked when they were asleep.

It really is sickening when things like this happen and I could use choice names what I think of such odious folk on here but I would be banned! Thank goodness nothing like that has happened here :)
 
Unfortunately that goes to prove the old recommendation that in urban areas dishes should only be installed "two drunks" high or more unless you have a Rotweiler.
 
Sometimes it's not possible though.
 
I think vandalism against SAT antenna is ugly behavior. But I am not sure what is worse SAT-dish-vandalism or stealing of favorite android phone (experienced that yesterday and still recovering from great loss :cool: ) .
It happened downtown Brussels, when me and my father-in-law just walking down the shopping street and some Arabic-looking guy asked for directions to Central Metro station and then started to pretend he is playing football little bit tripped towards me. Yes, I had Google account and erased all phone data when I got home, hope Google managed to do that. Of course, I have contact back-up, and already changed all related passwords.
So, on topic: If somebody, who is interested about vandalism over my sat-stuff, I would better offer him/her dish or couple of LNBs as a present for not touching anything more.
 
Pleased I don't have one of these fancy phones! Mine is basic with no smart features.
 
Not had it happen to me, dishes too high, but have been called out to fix several vandalise dishes.

One in particular was well above the two drunks height zone, but wasn't below the one drunk hanging from balcony zone, as he'd managed to fold the dish in two by dangling and stamping with his feet. Had to move it across by a metre or so to avoid a repeat performance.
 
My Finnish dishes are 80m high (and closed off behind panes of glass when I'm away) so good luck in trying to get hold of those. :ph34r:

I must admit though that after installing a 1.2m Channel Master in the back garden in the UK I did for the first time hope no one would try to steal it. never really crossed my mind before. Luckily it's not really visible from the road.

Only thing I've had vandalised in the past was some outdoor Christmas lights from my student days. They left us with 1 bulb and took the other 79 with them. Was tempted to rewire the one remaining bulb and leave it on. :D
 
i had a TD110 hit with a pellit from an air rifle and i know a guy who had a 1.2cm damaged with one which he repaired with fibreglass without effecting signal. both were the usual 16/17 year old scrotes afaik
 
Over the years Ive seen various Sky UK dishes round here with the lnbs snapped off.
 
Total and mindless vandalism. I don't see what these morons get out of damaging someones dish.
 
I had my ground mounted Gibertini 1m dish messed with a while ago and I'm just getting stuck into re-aligning it.

Basically, whilst I was away for the weekend, some teenage scrotes that must have been out getting wasted came wandering up my street and one of them (wearing a fancy dress sailor's hat!!) spotted the dish and thought it'd be hilarious to walk over, crouch down, grab the bottom edge of the dish and wrench it up and around.

I came back home and thought it looked odd, so I checked my CCTV recordings and found what I describe above.

Anyway, it's on a polar mount and after some investigation, the elevation setting of the actual dish hasn't slipped, just the polar mount's pole clamp and elevation settings have slipped.

So, my question is this: My receiver/positioner is still set to the satellite it was set to before the drunken sailor arrived (Hotbird 13°E), so could I just loosen the polar mount's clamps and get it peaked up on 13°E and everything else will fall into place, or must I start from scratch?
 
Try aligning on 13E as you've nothing to lose by so doing.

If it tracks OK, great.

If not ........ Start again from scratch.
 
It worked! I have all the stronger birds anyway. I want to be able to see the Atlantic satellites but my holly tree has grown like crazy and is blocking the line of sight from about 8w to 30w. Time to get the shears and the step ladder out! :-)
 
That didn't take long: Great result :)
 
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