Motorized System with transparent Dish?

[unkletom]

Folks,

just moved into a new housing estate in north west manchester and left my old 80cm dish + twin lnb (astra/hotbird) behind. i am playing with the idea of buying a clear/transparent dish, having it hooked up to a motor and using it with my humax 5400.
has anyone had any experience with transparent dishes? (is the signal gain more or less the same than conventional dishes?). also, the biggest transparent dish i've come across so far is 85cm...just wondering if that's big enough to receive decent signals from other satellites other than astra (freeview sky) and astra+hotbird.

many thanks....tom

P.S what's the largest size of a dish you can (officially) have before requiring planning permission?

 

[Channel Hopper]

Under 90cm is the rule in most places, (all dimensions of the dish)

Some are stricter than others, if its a housing estate, or high rise set of apartments, there may be additional restrictions - check with the tenancy rules, or the site management - at worst there may be a total ban if one of the cable companies has some agreement with the council